Parashat Vayakel 5776, 2016:

The Transformative Nature of Shabbat

Our parasha begins with the construction of the Mishkan (the portable Desert Sanctuary):
Moses called the whole community of the children of Israel to assemble, and he said to
them: These are the things that the L-rd commanded to make. (This, and all Bible and
Rashi translations, The Judaica Press Complete Tanach) Following this verse, one would
expect the Torah to list the details inherent in the construction of the Mishkan. This is the
case, for example, in the beginning of Parashat Terumah:
The L-rd spoke to Moses saying: Speak to the children of Israel, and have them take for
Me an offering; from every person whose heart inspires him to generosity, you shall take
My offering. And this is the offering that you shall take from them: gold, silver, and
copper; blue, purple, and crimson wool; linen and goat hair; ram skins dyed red, tachash
skins, and acacia wood; oil for lighting, spices for the anointing oil and for the incense;
shoham stones and filling stones for the ephod and for the choshen. And they shall make
Me a sanctuary and I will dwell in their midst according to all that I show you, the pattern
of the Mishkan and the pattern of all its vessels; and so shall you do. (Sefer Shemot 25:19)

Our parasha, however, deviates from the above approach. Instead of presenting the
constitutive elements of the Mishkan and how it is to be designed and assembled, the
Torah discusses the sanctity of Shabbat and the specific proscription of igniting a fire on
this most holy of all days:
Six days work may be done, but on the seventh day you shall have sanctity, a day of
complete rest to the L-rd; whoever performs work thereon [on this day] shall be put to

death. You shall not kindle fire in any of your dwelling places on the Sabbath day. (Sefer
Shemot 35:2-3)

Rashi (1040-1105), basing himself upon the Mechilta, the halachic Midrash to Sefer
Shemot, explains why these seemingly incongruous pasukim (verses) were included at
this juncture: Six days: He [Moses] prefaced [the discussion of the details of] the work
of the Mishkan with the warning to keep the Sabbath, denoting that it [i.e., the work of
the Mishkan] does not supersede the Sabbath. The Torah, therefore, is teachinng us the
ultimate holiness of Shabbat. Even the construction of Hashems dwelling place on earth
must cease at the onset of this most consecrated day.

Everyone encounters Shabbat and its kedushah (holiness) in a different way. Each of us
has a favorite time. For some, it is the Friday evening meal that is preceded by Lecha
Dodi in Shul, and ushered in with the singing of Shalom Aleichem and Aishet Chail. For
others, it is the morning Tefilah (Prayer) service in the synagogue, replete with the Torah
reading and followed by the second meal. Personally, I am most profoundly affected by
the final meal of the day, Seudah Shlishit. Many of our Sages have noted that this is the
last bastion of kedushah that separates us from our weekday activities and their
uncertainties. Speaking very personally, it is the time when I most strongly feel the
neshamah yitarah (the extra soul) that the holiness of Shabbat bestows upon each of us.
As such, the singing of Mizmor lDovid (A Song of David) and Yedid Nefesh (Beloved of
My Soul), in conjunction with divrei Torah (words of Torah), often transports me to the
highest heights that I am able to achieve during my subjective Shabbat experience. In
some very powerful ways, these are transformative and majestic moments that help me
reconnect to Hakadosh Baruch Hu.

Many have suggested that the singing of Mizmor lDovid during Seudah Shlishit captures
the essence of the ideal Jewish religious experience. The psalm speaks of peace, serenity,
and inner calm:
A song of David. The L-rd is my shepherd; I shall not want. He causes me to lie down in
green pastures; He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul; He leads me in paths
of righteousness for His name's sake. Even when I walk in the valley of darkness, I will
fear no evil for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff-they comfort me. You set a
table before me in the presence of my adversaries; You anointed my head with oil; my
cup overflows. May only goodness and kindness pursue me all the days of my life, and I
will dwell in the house of the L-rd for length of days. (Sefer Tehillim 23)

My rebbi and mentor, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik zatzal (1903-1993), known as the
Rav by his students and followers, in his seminal essay entitled Ish HaHalacha
(Halakhic Man, 1944), depicted the following relationship that obtains between Seudah
Shlishit and Psalm 23:
it is true that during the third Sabbath meal at dusk, as the day of rest declines and
mans soul yearns for its Creator and is afraid to depart from the realm of holiness whose
name is Sabbath, into the dark and frightening, secular workaday week, we sing the
psalm The L-rd is my shepherd; I shall not want, He maketh me to lie down in green
pastures; He leadeth me beside the still waters (Ps. 23), etc. etc., and we believe with our
entire hearts in the word of the psalmist. (Halakhic Man, translation, Lawrence Kaplan,
footnote 4, page 142)

In the Ravs analysis, however, this psalm only describes the ultimate destination of
homo religiosus (religious man), not the path leading to that destination. For Rabbi
Soloveitchik, Judaism is not, at the outset, a refuge of grace and mercy for the
despondent and desperate, an enchanted stream for crushed spirits, but a raging,
clamorous torrent of mans consciousness with all its crises, pangs and torments. He
explicitly urges us to understand that the path leading to peace and serenity is not the
royal road, but a narrow, twisting footway that threads its course along the steep
mountain slope, as the terrible abyss yawns at the travelers feet. Judaism, when

approached with spiritual and intellectual honesty, helps one navigate: the straits of
inner oppositions, and incongruities, spiritual doubts and uncertainties of life. The
individual: cries out of the depths of a psyche rent with antinomies and
contradictions, out of the bottomless pit of a soul that struggles with its own torments
Life, for the thinking religious Jew, is, therefore a trial-filled journey replete with the
innumerable challenges of a searching soul. Little wonder then, that we long for the inner
peace portrayed by the psalmist, a peace that is most closely approximated on the holy
Shabbat, when we are free to focus upon our spiritual growth and yearning for closeness
to Hashem.

May we be zocheh (merit) to experience the holiness and life-transforming potential of

Shabbat Shalom
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