The Prohibition of Working on Shabbat

1. THe NATURE OF THE prohibition

 

Departing from our usual manner of presentation, we shall begin with a brief discussion centering on the scriptural verses dealing with Shabbat. The children of Israel encounter Shabbat for the first time in connection with the manna that fell for them from heaven:

 

And it came to pass that on the sixth day they gathered a double provision, two omer for one man: and all the rulers of the congregation came and told Moshe. And he said to them, This is that which the Lord has said, Tomorrow is the rest of the holy Sabbath to the Lord … Eat that today; for today is a Sabbath to the Lord; today you shall not find it in the field. Six days you shall gather it; but on the seventh day, which is the Sabbath, on it there shall be none. (Shemot 16:22-26)

 

Shabbat is characterized here by a cessation of all human activity aimed at acquiring a livelihood (an idea that is also emphasized in the words of the prophets).[1] As may have been expected, the children of Israel fail to keep the commandment, and go out to gather manna even on Shabbat. God rebukes them, and then reformulates His decree in more general terms:

 

Let no man go out of his place on the seventh day. (Shemot 16:29)

 

As is well known, the Torah specifies only two of the thirty-nine types of work that are forbidden on Shabbat. Here the children of Israel are enjoined not to carry from a private to a public domain, and later they are commanded not to light a fire (Shemot 35:3). These two types of work symbolize creative human activity in all its varied forms. Carrying symbolizes expansion and conquest, and lighting a fire symbolizes technological development. The prohibition of these two types of work expresses in a more general and comprehensive way the message that we already heard in the story of the manna – Shabbat demands of man to desist from all his creative endeavors.

 

With this in mind, we can understand why regarding Shabbat there is a special law of "purposeful work" [melekhet machshevet], according to which a person is only liable for Shabbat desecration if he performs the forbidden labor with full intent and awareness. Work that is performed on Shabbat in a manner that is not entirely deliberate is not forbidden, or at the very least, does not carry liability. Several types of exemption fall into this category – e.g., unintentional work [eino mitkaven], work performed for something other than the prohibited purpose [melakha she'eina tzerikha legufa], work performed unawares [mit'asek] – some of which are unique to the prohibition of working on Shabbat. The Shabbat prohibition only applies to work that gives expression to man's creative powers. The Torah does not forbid plowing or reaping in and of themselves, but only as creative work. Work performed by chance and without intention does not fall into this category.

 

Is the Torah hinting here that it looks with disfavor upon human endeavor and accomplishment? It would appear not, for we find a midrash in Avot de-Rabbi Natan, which teaches the very opposite:

 

Work is great, for just as Israel was commanded about Shabbat, so were they commanded about work, as the verse states: "Six days shall you labor, and do all your work [but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God]." (Avot de-Rabbi Natan, ed. Schechter, version b, chapter 21)

 

The midrash derives the obligation to engage in productive labor from the very same verse that prohibits working on Shabbat. God is certainly not sending us two contradictory messages in the very same verse – both the obligation to engage in labor as a divine imperative imposed upon man, as well as the rejection of human labor as expressed in the Shabbat prohibition. The Torah's message is that human creativity is positive, but it has its limits. There is special value and importance to man's ability to dissociate and separate himself in a limited way from the natural world. The ability to sacrifice part of our natural selves to God sanctifies our entire natural existence.

 

In order to clarify the Torah's attitude toward human activity in this world, let us examine a famous midrash:

 

The wicked Turnusrufus [once] asked Rabbi Akiva: "Whose deeds are more seemly – those of the Holy One, blessed be He, or those of man?" He said to him: "Those of man are more seemly." The wicked Turnusrufus said to him: "Surely the heavens and the earth – can you do what they do?" Rabbi Akiva said to him: "Don't answer me with something that is above people, over which they have no control, but rather with something that is found among men." He said to him: "Why do you circumcise yourselves?" He said to them: "I knew that eventually you would ask me this, and so I went first and said to you: The deeds of man are more seemly than those of the Holy One, blessed be He. Bring me sheaves and baked goods." He said to him: "These are the handiwork of the Holy One, blessed be He, and these are the handiwork of man. Are these not seemly?" (Midrash Tanhuma, ed. Buber, Tazri'a 7)

 

What is Rabbi Akiva's response to Turnusrufus's defiant argument? The provocative heathen claims that the natural world, the handiwork of God, is complete and perfect, and needs no emendation or improvement. With his sharp intuition, Turnusrufus understands the special meaning of circumcision in this context: circumcision symbolizes nature's imperfection and the need to refine and improve it. In the ancient world, circumcision was indeed regarded as a mutilation of man, as an offense committed against his innate natural perfection. It was for this reason that circumcision so disgusted the civilized members of the Hellenistic world.

 

Rabbi Akiva, however, answers without hesitation: Man's handiwork is more seemly! Just as a loaf of bread, the handiwork of man, is more becoming than the grain growing in the field, so too circumcised man is more becoming than one who is uncircumcised. God created nature with imperfections, and it falls upon man to improve and develop it. We must emphasize: not to fight against nature, but to improve it. The difference between these two ideas is the difference between human sacrifice, despised by God and an abomination in His eyes, and circumcision. The removal of the foreskin emancipates man from his subjugation to the indifferent natural world around him; his body is no longer chained to the mold cast for him by nature. He gives up a small part of his body for the sake of God, thus refashioning his body and demonstrating that he is not subject to nature, but to his Creator. The difference between one who is circumcised and one who is not is found not in the foreskin that has been removed, but in the body that remains. Following circumcision, the body is no longer a mere lump of clay; it is now the body of a servant of God, which has been given a new form, and is no longer bound by the form in which it came into the world.

 

Shabbat is the circumcision of time. The message embedded in circumcision is also the message of Shabbat, as it is expressed in the clearest manner in the midrash in Avot de-Rabbi Natan. We honor Shabbat by refraining from engaging in our natural activities as creators and conquerors: "And you shall honor it, not doing your own ways" (Yeshaya 58:13). And just as God confirms the existence of the human body, but demands that a small part of it be waived and returned to Him by way of circumcision, so too He confirms creative human activity, and merely demands conceding a small part of it – activity performed on Shabbat – as a recognition of His sovereignty. Therefore, "just as Israel was commanded about Shabbat, so were they commanded about work": desisting from work on Shabbat sanctifies human activity during the rest of the week and proves that it too is performed for the sake of Heaven. One who rests from work on Shabbat, waiving his creative endeavors for the sake of God, demonstrates that he does not view his activities during the six days of the week as an end in itself. He shows that those activities – together with other aspects of his personality – are subject to man's supreme obligation to the Creator.

 

Shabbat has a moral and educational message, which touches upon the deepest aspects of our lives. We learn from the model we have constructed that God wants us to live natural lives and to develop our natural personalities, attributes and impulses. But God also wants us to correct and sanctify our natural inclinations by sacrificing part of them to Him. Our capacity to conquer our natural inclinations and activate control and restraint sanctifies our natural personalities and demonstrates that we are not living for the sake of life, but for the sake of God. Shabbat's role in this context is to restrain and sanctify our drive to create, to conquer, and to advance.

 

In light of this understanding, our resting on Shabbat can be explained not merely as an imitation of God's resting on the seventh day of Creation, but as its completion. When God rested from all His work, He brought Creation to an end and inaugurated nature. That first Shabbat was the first day that the laws of nature were in operation, the first day that the world functioned as an autonomous entity, as it were. God's resting inaugurated nature; when we rest we give up on part of nature, and thus we actualize our ability to elevate ourselves above nature and improve upon it. When we rest from work on Shabbat, we show God that we have not become enslaved to our inner natures and that we recognize the Divine command's supremacy over it. This two-fold resting – that of God and that of man – suits the model of circumcision: nature is desirable, but only on condition that we waive part of it, filling it thereby with a purpose and goal.

 

This rising above nature finds expression in the very timing of Shabbat. The seven-day cycle is altogether cut off from any connection to the natural measures of time – the solar and lunar cycles. Even modern scholarship, which has tried to find a connection between Israel's Sabbath and the Assyrian sapattu, has been unable to ignore the fact that "the most striking Israelite innovation is the severing of the Sabbath from the lunar cycle, a most surprising change in light of the central role enjoyed by the moon in the Israelite calendar." It suggests an explanation similar to the one we are proposing here: "Perhaps the Sabbath was severed from the lunar cycle because it was felt that it befits a supernatural God that His holy day not be connected to nature."[2]

 

2.SHabbat and the mishkan

 

In parashat Vayakhel we find an interesting juxtaposition between the commandment regarding Shabbat and that relating to the construction of the Mishkan. Chazal and the Rishonim learn two things from this juxtaposition:

1) The Gemara in tractate Shabbat asserts that the types of work prohibited on Shabbat are those types of work that were necessary for the construction of the Mishkan:

 

One is only liable for work the likes of which were performed in the Mishkan: they sowed, so you shall not sow; they reaped, so you shall not reap, they lifted the beams from the ground to the wagon, so you shall not carry from a private to a public domain. (Shabbat 49b)

 

Rashi explains the rationale of this law:

 

All types of work forbidden on Shabbat are learned from the Mishkan, as is stated below, from the fact that the Torah section relating to Shabbat is juxtaposed [to the section relating] to the construction of the Mishkan. (Rashi, Shabbat 5a)

 

That is to say, Rashi explains that because of its juxtaposition to the Mishkan, the nebulous commandment not to work on Shabbat is explained as applying to the types of work that were required for the construction of the Mishkan.

 

2) Following Chazal, Ramban explains that the juxtaposition between the Mishkan and Shabbat teaches us that even the construction of the Mishkan does not supercede Shabbat:

 

The words, "These are the things which the Lord has commanded that you should do them," refers to the construction of the Mishkan and all its utensils and its entire service. And Shabbat is mentioned first to say that six days you shall do these things, but not on the seventh day which is holy to God. From here we learn that the construction of the Mishkan does not supercede Shabbat. (Ramban, commentary to Shemot 35:2)

 

That is to say, not only are the types of work required for the construction of the Mishkan forbidden on Shabbat when they are directed at mundane purposes, but also the construction of the Mishkan itself is forbidden on Shabbat.

 

What is the meaning of this connection between Shabbat and the Mishkan? Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch explains the deeper significance of this juxtaposition:

 

The building of the Mishkan, if not from the point of view of art, still surely from the point of view of the idea and the purpose to be realized by the idea, "And they shall make for me a sanctuary, and I shall dwell among them," is the very highest conceivable plan for human artistic activity. The mastery of man over matter, in getting, producing, changing, manufacturing the raw materials of the world, attained its highest meaning in the Temple. The world submits to man, for him to submit himself and his world to God, and for him to change this earthly world into a home for the Kingdom of God, to a Temple in which the Glory of God tarries on earth. The building of the Temple is a sanctification of human labor, and in the context here, it is represented as being a combination of all those creative activities of Man, by the cessation of which – by resting from work – Shabbat is made into an acknowledgment of man's allegiance to God. (Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, commentary to Shemot 35:2)

 

The building of the Mishkan is the pinnacle of man's technological and artistic productivity. The Torah describes in minute detail each and every beam and utensil found in the Mishkan; each are fashioned and produced with extreme love and care, in the best way humanly possible. Here we see the absolute confirmation of human creativity, the product of which God chose for the adornment of His Mishkan. It is precisely for this reason that the labors required for the construction of the Mishkan were prohibited on Shabbat. The labors that constitute human productivity at its best are the very same labors that we are asked to waive on Shabbat, accepting upon ourselves, thereby, the yoke of Heaven's kingdom. Here stand side by side the two complementary avenues of worshipping God: sanctifying human activity for the sake of God, and desisting from human activity for His sake.

 

The juxtaposition of Shabbat to the building of the Mishkan also teaches us that constructing the Mishkan on Shabbat is forbidden. We may learn from here a fundamental principle regarding our spiritual world: God demands of us withdrawal and restraint not only in the realm of the mundane, but also in the realm of the holy. Even the building of the Mishkan itself, which harnesses human creativity to the service of God, is forbidden on Shabbat. This is the message which the sons of Aharon failed to internalize, so that "when they came near before the Lord, they died" (Vayikra 16:1).

 

Even when we come near to God, even in our spiritual ambitions, we must recognize the boundaries and limitations that were imposed by God. If a person prays at an undesignated hour because he feels "more spiritual" at that time, he should carefully examine whether he is serving God or himself, whether his internal ardor is a flame of God or a strange fire. This too is part of the sacrifice that we must offer before Him at all times – the sacrifice of restraint and withdrawal that God demands of us: the sacrifice of circumcision, the sacrifice of Shabbat.

 

3. SHabbat and tefillin

 

According to Rabbi Akiva, whose opinion has been accepted as normative law, we do not put on tefillin on Shabbat:

 

Rabbi Akiva says: You might say that a person dons tefillin on Shabbat and the Festivals. Therefore, the verse states: "And it shall be for a sign to you upon your hand" (Shemot 13:9) – those that require a sign; to the exclusion of those which are a sign themselves. (Eruvin 96a)

 

What does this mean that we put on tefillin only on those days that require a "sign," and that Shabbat and the Festivals are a "sign" themselves? We may be able to connect this to the ideas we have been discussing. But first we must delve a bit into the laws pertaining to tefillin.

 

The Gemara in tractate Berakhot discusses why, after relieving himself, a person should wipe himself not with his right hand, but with his left. One of the reasons cited there is relevant to our discussion:

 

Why do we not wipe with the right hand, but rather with the left? … Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish said: Because one uses it to bind his tefillin. (Berakhot 62a)

 

Resh Lakish's explanation is difficult to understand. Indeed, a person binds his tefillin with his right hand; but it should certainly be preferable for him to use that hand for lowly purposes than to use his left hand upon which he dons his tefillin! In order to understand what Resh Lakish is saying regarding the hand used for wiping, we must first explain that the focus of the mitzva of tefillin of the arm lies not in their being on one's arm, but in the very act of binding. The most significant element in the donning of tefillin of the arm is not the result, but the act of binding itself. The primary significance of tefillin of the arm lies not in the fact that it is placed on the left arm ("opposite the heart," as is commonly explained), but rather that it is bound with the right hand. In this way, we can understand why in fact the tefillin of the arm is placed on the left arm, and not on the right, as might have been expected:

 

Rabbi Natan says: "And you shall bind … and you shall write" – just as writing is done with the right hand, so binding is done with the right hand; and since binding is with the right hand, placement is upon the left arm. (Menachot 37a)

 

The primary law, then, is that of "binding with the right hand," as is indeed implied by the plain sense of the verse: "And you shall bind them for a sign upon your arm" (Devarim 6:8). The fact that the tefillin lies on the left arm is only a necessary consequence of the binding which is done with the right hand. The conceptual significance of tefillin of the arm may be understand in light of what has been said above: Tefillin of the arm represent the sanctity of action. Man sanctifies his actions – symbolized by the binding of his tefillin – to God.[3] Thus, we can also understand the position of Rabbi Shimshon of Sens (Menachot 35b, Tosafot, s.v., mishe'at), who rules that regarding tefillin of the arm, one must untie the knot and then tie it anew every day, whereas regarding tefillin of the head, there is no such obligation. Rabbi Shimshon explains that with respect to tefillin of the arm, the verse says, "And you shall bind," giving special emphasis to the act of binding. He understands that this refers not to the binding of the tefillin to the arm, but to the construction of the knot itself.

 

Let us now return to our matter. What is the significance of the exclusion of wearing tefillin on Shabbat? Rabbenu Asher ben Yechiel (Rosh) explains the "sign" of Shabbat and tefillin:

 

The Festivals are similar to Shabbat, the sign of which is refraining from doing work. (Rosh, Hilkhot Tefillin, no. 16)[4]

 

Rosh proposes that the "sign" consists of the prohibition to do work on Shabbat and the Festivals. According to this suggestion, the various laws fall into perfect place. The message of the tefillin of the arm is the sanctification of human action to God. From this perspective, the message latent in the tefillin of the arm is similar to the message we found in the construction of the Mishkan. Shabbat, on the other hand, embodies the other side of the message, that which completes the first: man's readiness to give up part of his productive powers for the sake of God and His commandments. Therefore, the "sign" of tefillin is superfluous on a day that is already marked by the "sign" of Shabbat. Both "signs" relate to human endeavor, and each of them emphasizes a different side of our relationship to the human drives of action and conquest. Thus, we understand why tefillin are not worn on Shabbat.

 

 

FOOTNOTES

 

[1] See Nechemya 13:15-22; Yirmiya 17:21-26.

 

[2] Encyclopedia Mikra'it, VII, "Shabbat," p. 513. This point was brought to my attention by Itamar Eldar.

 

[3] This approach is developed in Yonatan Grossman's excellent article, "Simeni Ke-chotam al Libekha, Ke-chotam al Zeroekha," Daf Kesher 410, http://www.vbm-torah.org/dk/1to899/410daf.htm.

 

[4] See also Tosafot, Eruvin 96a s.v. Yamim.

 

(Translated by Rav David Strauss)