ב"ה
Vayak'hel-Pekudei 5764 - March 19, 2004
The 40th Labor
What is “work”? If life is synonymous with creativity, is Shabbat a time outside life? What is the deeper significance of the curious Talmudic phrase, “forty labors minus one”?
What is “work”? If life is synonymous with creativity, is Shabbat a time outside life? What is the deeper significance of the curious Talmudic phrase, “forty labors minus one”?
Parshah
Vayakhel-Pekudei in a Nutshell
The Israelites donate abundant materials for the construction of the Tabernacle. The holy vessels, tapestries and walls are completed and the priestly clothes are sewn. Moses initiates Aron's family into the priesthood, errects the Tabernacle and the Divine Presence rests upon it.
The Israelites donate abundant materials for the construction of the Tabernacle. The holy vessels, tapestries and walls are completed and the priestly clothes are sewn. Moses initiates Aron's family into the priesthood, errects the Tabernacle and the Divine Presence rests upon it.
Living
Doing Things Differently
Chairs so casually strewn across the floor became critical allies, their seemingly random positions (as well as those of the couch and bookcases) suddenly of looming importance
Chairs so casually strewn across the floor became critical allies, their seemingly random positions (as well as those of the couch and bookcases) suddenly of looming importance
How Did the Torah Exist Before it Happened?
How could Jacob have studied the Torah, if it was given to Moses centuries later? Did he learn, in advance, how Laban would trick him on his wedding night or how Joseph would thrown in a pit and sold as a slave by his brothers?
How could Jacob have studied the Torah, if it was given to Moses centuries later? Did he learn, in advance, how Laban would trick him on his wedding night or how Joseph would thrown in a pit and sold as a slave by his brothers?
Story
Make Believe
“He has such a high opinion of himself,” the rebbe was told, “and has assumed all sorts of pious customs and practices. But it’s all superficial: on the inside, his character is as coarse and unrefined as ever.”
“He has such a high opinion of himself,” the rebbe was told, “and has assumed all sorts of pious customs and practices. But it’s all superficial: on the inside, his character is as coarse and unrefined as ever.”
The categories of work [forbidden on Shabbat] are forty less one: sowing, plowing, reaping, making sheaves, threshing, winnowing, picking the chaff from the grain, milling, sifting, kneading, baking, shearing, bleaching, hackling, dyeing, spinning, stretching the threads on the loom, making meshes, weaving, dividing, knotting, untying, sewing, tearing, trapping, slaughtering, skinning, salting hides, curing, scraping, cutting, writing, erasing, building, dismantling, extinguishing, kindling, finishing, and carrying out from one domain to another.
— Talmud, Shabbat 73a
Print Magazine
The world is a place of constant change and unrest.
Each point in time is distinct from the point before and the point after.
Each point in space is its own world, with its own conditions and state of being.
It is a world of fragments, a perpetual rush of traffic and noise.
Look at your own life: You do so ...
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