After two weeks with not much action, there's a lot of story this time. Moses receives the last of the commandments on Sinai, then proceeds down the mountain, where he meets up Joshua, who thinks there's fighting in the camp. It turns out the people are worshipping a golden calf. Both Moses and God get upset, then Moses tries to save the people by telling God he'd look pretty bad in the eye of the Egyptians if he kills everyone. The people repent, Moses goes back up to get another set of ten tablets, after breaking the first set. Moses asks to sees God's face, but only gets to see his back, sort of. God inscribes another set of tablets, and reiterates several commandments. After this second time, Moses keeps his face covered, unless he was in the Mishkan.
Our portion mentions one commandment not just once, but twice, at the very end of the first ascent on Sinai, we read
31:12. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 13. Speak you also to the people of Israel, saying, Truly my sabbaths you shall keep; for it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations; that you may know that I am the Lord that does sanctify you. 14. You shall keep the Sabbath therefore; for it is holy to you; every one who defiles it shall surely be put to death; for whoever does any work in it, that soul shall be cut off from among his people. 15. Six days may work be done; but in the seventh is the Sabbath of rest, holy to the Lord; whoever does any work in the Sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death. 16. Therefore the people of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, to observe the Sabbath throughout their generations, for an everlasting covenant. 17. It is a sign between me and the people of Israel forever; for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed.
After the golden calf, Moses ascends Sinai once again, and we read:
34:21. Six days you shall work, but on the seventh day you shall rest; in plowing and in harvest you shall rest.
And once again I struggle with Shabbat. Twice in the chapter 31 passage, including the verses including the piece of Liturgy we call v’shamru (31:16-17) we hear a definite death penalty (31:14, 15), and once the implicit death penalty of cut off from among the people(31:14) Twice we hear that Shabbat is a sign between God and the people Israel. Twice we hear that it is to be throughout the generations. This passage allows us to see the power of one of the Hermeneutic principles of the rabbis. Rabbinic logic, unlike Aristotelian logic allows for analogy by word phrases. Therefore if we have two places which have the phrase Six days you shall work, but on the seventh day you shall rest, (31:15, 34:21) then the rest of the phrases are connected. Therefore one can conclude if someone is found plowing or harvesting on the Sabbath, they are to be put to death. Similarly the Phrase Cut off from his people would therefore signify a death penalty. (31:15, 16).
But the rabbis, who were really squeamish about the death penalty given the numbers of people executed by the Romans, tried to avoid invoking the death penalty. And so, they came up with a rather interesting solution. While Cutting off did apply to the death penalty, they decided this was a death penalty that was executed not by humans but by God, referred to as Cutting or karet in Hebrew. The rabbis were able to use the logic above to come to a point where desecration of Shabbat could be a place where God will get you in the end. Granted, given the story in Numbers of the Stick Gatherer, there was a precedent for actually killing someone for doing things on the Sabbath. Yet in the end, the desecration of the Sabbath became one of the punishments which were executed by God, not man.
And in many ways I’ve always though about stress in exactly that way. With the amount of stress we put on our bodies by working seven days a week, we end up shortening our lives. It was Philo of Alexandria, who was trying to explain this rather odd practice of regularly taking a day off for Roman critics who really put this explanation into words for the first time. Others have taken other ways of looking at the Sabbath. One is the well known view of Resh Lakish, who uses our passage as a proof text:
For Resh Lakish said: Man is given an additional soul on Friday, but at the termination of the Sabbath it is taken away from him, as it is said, He ceased from work and rested [shabat wa-yinafash] that is to say, once the rest had ceased [shabat], woe! that soul is gone [wai nafash]. (Taanit 27b)
Resh Lakish in a word play, believes God grants us an extra nefesh, soul, at the beginning of Shabbat, one we lament at its end. Another rabbi, again using our text, describes Shabbat as a precious gift
Raba b. Mehasia also said in the name of R. Hama b. Goria in Rab's name: If one makes a gift to his neighbour, he must inform him [beforehand], as it is written, that ye may know that I the Lord sanctify you: It was taught likewise: That ye may know that I the Lord sanctify you: The Holy One, blessed be He, said to Moses, I have a precious gift in My treasure house, called the Sabbath, and desire to give it to Israel; go and inform them (Shabbat 10b)
Shabbat is a special time for those who observe it. It may feel like the Erev Shabbat Call of R. Jannai, immortalized in the liturgy as the last line of L’cha Dodi. : “boee kalah boee kalah, Come oh Bride come Oh bride.” For me that bride does come in the back of the synagogue every Friday evening and she is the most beautiful woman I have ever met. She is my bride and I am her groom standing at the Huppa. She is everyone’s mate one a week to those who are observing Shabbat. She is also tropical island resort in time, a place to kick back and take off the last day of the week, not just alone but with everyone we have a relationship with. A Presbyterian friend on mine commented about my busy schedule recently during a conversation about dating. She didn’t see where I could find time to actually date or spend time in a relationship. Then she answered her own question - I had the seventh day when there was nothing to do but relate; the Shabbath Bride is the room in my life for my own bride, who will be the only one more beautiful than the Sabbath bride. (May we meet soon!)
Yet for many that spiritual moment in L’cha Dodi and the sacred time for relationship with loved ones doesn’t happen. The National Jewish Population Survey of 2001 shows that a minority of Jews take Shabbat seriously. Across all denominations, only 27% of Jews attend services monthly or more and 28% light Shabbat candles. How many light them with their loved ones is not really known.
In light of this I find it ironic the counterpoint to this holy moment at Sinai. While Moses was receiving the eternal covenant of Shabbat on the top of the mountain, the people were building and worshipping the golden calf at the bottom of the mountain. Debauchery feasting and idolatry of a gold object replaced holiness. The golden calf incident did end in death, both with the Levites slaying 3000 men, and God invoking a plague (32:28, 35). Both human and karat death penalties were the punishment for the calf. Yet where is the punishment for the current generation? It may be, without transmitting the joy and holiness of the Seventh Day, of not transmitting the sign between God and the people of Israel, that the people of Israel, at least here in America, will cease to exist, to be assimilated into mainstream culture without any identity of their own. Shabbat has kept the Jews proportionally to Jews keeping and remembering the Sabbath. If some parents and teachers continue to set bad examples for their children, another generation is lost, ones who might look to Christianity or Buddhism for the identity that they could have found in the deeply sacred and spiritual beliefs of their ancestors. The same man who wrote of Shabbat as an island in time, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heshel also lamented that while the Nazis killed our bodies, America kills our souls. And sadly it is seen most of all in Shabbat.
In a remark which may be either sarcasm or a hopeful goal for the future, the Talmudic rabbis noted that if all Jews celebrated two consecutive Shabbats, the Messiah would come. Obviously not every Jew, in whatever way they observe Shabbat, did then or does now But if more of us did, and found the Island in time, then we could have just one thing that connects us as a people. We may not agree on whether iPods or cars are usable on Shabbat, but if we believe that there is something sacred about stopping our work for one day and bother to look around us and talk to one anther for one day how sweet would our world be - how much would it be like messianic times!
Shabbat Shalom
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