{"id":43232,"date":"2018-11-03T23:46:46","date_gmt":"2018-11-03T21:46:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=43232"},"modified":"2022-05-29T12:33:41","modified_gmt":"2022-05-29T09:33:41","slug":"nevertheless","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/nevertheless\/","title":{"rendered":"Nevertheless!"},"content":{"rendered":"
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When I teach about Shabbat I often begin by asking participants for some general associations they have with the day itself. The initial responses are invariably positive: candles, <\/span>challah<\/span><\/i>, family, rest, walks in the park. But sooner or later, other feelings crop up: rules, restrictions, obligations, \u201cthou shalt not\u2019s.\u201d There is another side to the day that arouses indignation and resentment. Why should a day so filled with light, rest and rejuvenation have such restrictions? \u00a0Where do they come from?<\/span><\/p>\n

We are commanded to \u201crest\u201d (or cease from labor), yet nowhere in the written Torah is the meaning of this spelled out. In defining the nature of forbidden work, the rabbis provide us with more details than we might care for. So where do they – do we – get all those laws?<\/span><\/p>\n

The traditional explanation is that the forbidden labors are midrashically derived from the building of the <\/span>mishkan<\/span><\/i>, the Tabernacle (Talmud, Shabbat 49b). This important legal idea stems from a single word in our chapter. Directly following the rules and regulations for the construction of the tabernacle is the injunction: \u201cNevertheless, you must keep My Sabbaths\u2026\u201d (31:13). That \u201cnevertheless\u201d (in Hebrew, simply <\/span>ach<\/span><\/em>, a curt two-letter conjunction) means that the important mission of constructing the <\/span>mishkan<\/span><\/em> does not override the Shabbat and its demands. Thus it was concluded that the specific categories of labor that should be prohibited on the Shabbat are exactly those things necessary for constructing the <\/span>mishkan<\/span><\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n

This legalistic exposition was turned into poetic theology by Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, who wrote eloquently of the centrality of time and its sanctification in Judaism. Those things which are required in order to construct sacred space (the <\/span>mishkan<\/span><\/em>) are precisely those which are forbidden to create Shabbat, sacred time. Sacred time becomes here a photographic negative of sacred space, and the Shabbat \u201ca cathedral in time,\u201d to use his evocative phrase:<\/span><\/p>\n

Judaism teaches us to be attached to holiness in time, to be attached to sacred events, to learn how to consecrate sanctuaries that emerge from the magnificent stream of a year. The Sabbaths are our great cathedrals; and our Holy of Holies is a shrine that neither the Romans nor the Germans were able to burn\u2026 (Heschel, The Sabbath<\/em>).<\/span><\/p>\n

Shabbat, then, is to time what a nature preserve is to space. Both are “places” marked with distinct boundaries. In both, the soul of the human “visitor” is refreshed, while the natural order is preserved in its unviolated form. Outside the boundaries, we do not seek to negate civilization, the realm of human action, and make the whole world a preserve. But ideally the values experienced inside the “fence” will influence how we view the world beyond, and our role in it.<\/span><\/p>\n

image: “The Erection of the Tabernacle and the Sacred Vessels (left plate),” illustrators of the 1728\u00a0Figures de la Bible<\/i>, Gerard Hoet (1648\u20131733) and others, published by P. de Hondt in The Hague in 1728 \/ wikimedia<\/p>\n","image":{"ID":43233,"id":43233,"title":"Ex31-The_Erection_of_the_Tabernacle_and_the_Sacred_Vessels","filename":"Ex31-The_Erection_of_the_Tabernacle_and_the_Sacred_Vessels.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/Ex31-The_Erection_of_the_Tabernacle_and_the_Sacred_Vessels.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/nevertheless\/ex31-the_erection_of_the_tabernacle_and_the_sacred_vessels\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"ex31-the_erection_of_the_tabernacle_and_the_sacred_vessels","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":43232,"date":"2018-11-03 21:44:06","modified":"2022-06-07 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