The Torah in many places commands rest on the Sabbath day and that all manner of work shall not be done. But exactly what is considered work is almost never spelled out.  One of the only examples given (others being collecting wood and travelling) occurs in Exodus 35:3 where burning a fire is prohibited.  The classic commentator Rashi asks why is this work activity specifically mentioned whereas almost all the other forms of work which are also prohibited are never delineated in the Torah?  Rashi quotes the Babylonian Talmud (Sanhedrin 35b) for two explanations.  The first is that burning a fire on the Sabbath is punished to a lesser degree than other types of work. The second reason is to teach that each type of work (אב מלאכה) gets punished individually so that a person may be considered to have committed many sins if he does many types of work on the Sabbath. Burning a fire is just an example to teach that each type of work is considered its own sin.

But according the first explanation, we need to ask why would burning a fire be punished to a lesser degree than other types of work? And according to the second explanation, why specifically was fire used as an example of a type of work? There are two classical answers. The Ramban explains that we might have thought fire would be permitted on Shabbat as it is on holidays (Yom Tov).  The Sforno explains that only creative work is prohibited. But, for example, moving a couch around the living room may be tiring but it is not considered work, whereas removing a single thread from one’s suit is prohibited.  Only creative work is prohibited. Destructive acts are not prohibited by Torah law (the Rabbis did however forbid that too). Lighting a fire is a paradigmatic example of destructive work. Since a fire destroys you might think it is allowed to light one, so the Torah needs to come to give an explicit prohibition. The Torah says since making a fire in certain circumstances may be for a constructive purpose it needs to be forbidden always, albeit to a lesser degree.

Rabbi Jonathan Eybeschutz  (1690-1764) gives a novel and insightful explanation for why burning a fire is isolated here for special mention. We keep the Shabbat to emulate God who rested on the seventh day of creation.  The Talmud ( Pesachim 54 ) describes the law for making havadala to announce the end of the Shabbat.  The ceremony includes wine, fragrances and fire.  Fragrance is used to console us on the loss of the extra neshama that we receive on the Shabbat but which is now leaving since Shabbat has ended.  Why do we light a fire? The first Shabbat that the first man, Adam had was entirely light. He didn’t need any artificial light. We recall that the first Shabbat of Adam was after he repented for his sins. Mizmor shir le yom hashabbat (Psalms 92) is based on Adam’s original prayers. The Medrash explains that Cain comes over to Adam. Adam asks him how were you saved even though you sinned? He answers, I repented.  Adam says, I too will repent. Then he wrote this mizmor.  Shabbat means return and repentance.  So the first Shabbat was a day of tshuva, return.  The light represents clarity that is the source of all teshuva. But when the Shabbat ended, darkness came.  It is then that the first fire was created, lit by Adam that night.  Up until this point man had received all he needed directly from nature without working. But fire is man making an intervention in nature. The fire Adam makes represents this first intervention.  So in remembrance of  Adam, the whole Shabbat we do not light, but like Adam, when Shabbat ends we do light a fire.  So it would seem the reason we don’t light a fire on Shabbat is because Adam didn’t light one on that first Shabbat.  But says Rabbi Eybeschutz, we really should be allowed to light a fire on Shabbat. Our Sabbath rest is an imitation of God’s rest, but fire is a uniquely human activity.  God did not rest from making fire because God never made fire in the first place. So we should be allowed to make a fire, it being a human work, not a Divine work.  We should only be prohibited from doing Divine work on Shabbat.

If the only reason for Shabbat would have been to commemorate God’s creating the world , fire would have been permitted because fire represents man’s input into the world.  In the first version of the Ten Commandments given in the book of Exodus the reason given for Shabbat is to remember that God created the world in six days. But there is a second aspect to Shabbat. In the Ten Commandments in Deuteronomy 5:12 the reason for Shabbat is given as to remember the Exodus from Egypt. So we see Shabbat has a deep connection to the Exodus from Egypt.  But how can this be? The exodus happened after Shabbat had already been established and kept by Adam. The reason for something needs to be prior to that something. The memory of leaving Egypt is only a secondary aspect of Shabbat.

Adam was commanded to be fruitful and multiply and fill the world and to master it. This means man has the obligation, the right and the privilege to use all the forces of nature for his benefit because he is the master of the world. Man is there to serve God and nature is there to serve man.  So by using nature for ourselves, we are making it do its purpose, and ultimately joining it into the service of God.  That is our job, to master the world and use the world to our advantage.   The more you use the world the better.

But the danger is that you plow the field and plant it and work it and you come to depend on your work; you cannot stop.  You become a slave to the work. Shabbat comes to tell you to take control of your life. You don’t really need nature. On the Shabbat you view your work as already completed. Shabbat is your declaration of independence from nature. You have your own internal creation within you and that is allowed. For example, marital relations are permitted.  Lighting a fire shows our domination over nature, so we need to stop, just to show our independence from nature. This second aspect of Shabbat is represented by the Exodus from the slavery in Egypt.  Shabbat represents freedom, whether it be from physical bondage at the hand of the Egyptians or from a self imposed bondage in which we make ourselves slaves to our need to control and work nature. It is this second aspect which generates the prohibition of burning a fire since fire is the archetype of man controlling nature. And since this aspect is a secondary aspect, the punishment for not fulfilling it is lesser. All the other malachot (types of work) relate to first reason given for Shabbat, namely, the Creation.

This explains another difference in wording.  In Parshat KiTisa (Exodus 31:13 ) it says Shabbat is a sign that God created world. In our parsha it does not mention that Shabbat is a sign. In fact there is no mention that Shabbat relates to the creation of world at all.  When the Torah speaks of Shabbat as a sign it means that Shabbat is a commemoration of God’s creation of the world. But in Parshat VaYakhel (Exodus 35:1-3) Shabbat is strictly a representation of our freedom and  independence (as represented by the prohibition of using fire). It is a push back from the possible trap which comes from being masters over nature,  viz. becoming enslaved by nature.

And why does the Torah add this aspect to Shabbat?  What happened in the intervening chapters?  Between the Shabbat mentioned in Ki Tisa and the Shabbat of Vayakhel we read about the sin of the golden calf.  That is slavery, man becoming dependent on  something other than God.  So now it becomes necessary to mention man’s need to declare his independence from nature, so we mention this freedom aspect of Shabbat by discussing the prohibition of burning a fire. Shabbat is thus an aspiration upward toward God the Creator and also a separation from the slavery that Earthly work may trap us in.

Rabbi Nachum Danzig

February 24, 2019

Parsha 22