Parshat Vayakhel: An Ecological Message in Shabbat

Apr 21

Original author - Rabbi Yonatan Neril[1], edited by the GrowTorah Summer Inchworms 2021

This week’s parsha opens as B’nei Yisrael near the completion of the Mishkan. Moshe assembles the nation in its entirety and instructs: “These are the things that the Lord commanded to make. Six days work may be done, but on the seventh day you shall have sanctity, a day of complete rest to the Lord…”[2] Why does the construction of the Mishkan prompt Moshe to instruct us regarding Shabbat?

Many answers are offered to this widely posed question, ranging from halachic to philosophic. However, what might enhance our understanding of the relationship between these two pillars of our Judaic practice is a reminder of the very nature of Shabbat.

Shabbat is often regarded as the cornerstone of Judaism, and of our relationship with our environment. Rabbi Dr. Norman Lamm, zecher tzadik livracha, former chancellor of Yeshiva University, writes:

Perhaps the most powerful expression of the Bible’s concern for man’s respect for the integrity of nature as the possession of its Creator, rather than his own preserve, is the Sabbath…The six workdays were given to man in which to carry out the commission to “subdue” the world, to impose on nature his creative talents. But the seventh day is a Sabbath; man must cease his creative interference in the natural order (the halakha’s definition of melakha or work), and by this act of renunciation demonstrate his awareness that the earth is the Lord’s and that man therefore bears a moral responsibility to give an accounting to its Owner for how he has disposed of it during the days he “subdued” it. [3]

According to Jewish tradition, the very essence of our relationship with the world is embodied by how we act on Shabbat. The ways in which we act and do not define how we understand our place in the world vis-a-vis our Creator.

This is first demonstrated through our relationship with the earth’s creatures. The Torah teaches that the mitzvah of Shabbat includes an instruction to allow our animals to experience rest and contentment on the seventh day: “Six days shall you do your tasks, and on the seventh day you shall cease, so that your ox and your donkey may be content.”[4] Rav Shimshon Raphael Hirsch, a noted 19th-century sage and Torah commentator, comments on this verse: “The Sabbath is a school for teaching the recognition of every other creature, beside oneself, as being equally a child and object of the same Creator; and this freeing of all creatures from the mastery of the human being is one of the objectives of the Sabbath.”[5]

But not only living creatures are freed from human control on Shabbat—the whole world is. On Shabbat we stop working, stop traveling, stop creating. We are forbidden from performing “any kind of melacha.”[6] Although we might think that work refers to exertion, Rav Hirsch explains that physical exertion is not one of the basic criteria of melacha. For instance, lifting heavy furniture on Shabbat, though not necessarily in the spirit of Shabbat, is not a forbidden melacha. But plucking a leaf off a tree or planting a seed in the earth is. The definition of work on Shabbat is an activity that transforms the environment for use, such as for food, clothing, or shelter.[7] Shabbat—a day without transforming nature at all—forces us to reframe our sense of creative and technological control over nature.

Rav Hirsch explains that Shabbat was given to the Jewish people “in order that [they] should not grow overweening in [their] dominion” over Hashem’s creation… Jews “should refrain on this day from exercising [their] human sway over the things of [the] earth, should not place his hand upon any object for the purpose of human dominion, that is, to employ it for any human end; he must, as it were, return the borrowed world to its Divine Owner in order to realize that it is but lent to him.”[8] In this vein, he understands the day as a panacea for the world’s problems.

Rabbi Shaya Karlinsky, Dean of Jerusalem’s Yeshivat Darche Noam, adds to this, commenting:

During the six days of the week, Hashem’s presence takes on the dimension of ‘tzimtzum,’ a limited manifestation of power, as He allows, and even encourages man to exert human control over the world. This creative domination of the natural world, in all its dimensions, creates barriers between man and Hashem. But every week, the Jewish people ‘let go,’ replicating Hashem’s ‘tzimtzum’ by relinquishing their human control over the world…. Shabbat is the time man is challenged to cease the activities that represent his control of the world, activities which can lead man to forget the world has a Creator and a purpose…[9]

Our society’s relentless transformation of the natural world is taking an environmental toll on the planet – we need not look further than the rates and effects of fossil fuel mining and use.[10] Mastery of the earth, without sufficient contemplation of its consequences, has resulted in ecological destruction on a local, regional, and global scale.

Air pollution, climate change, and the continual degradation of our environment are all the result of a society bent on doing and producing without the pause that Shabbat brings. On Shabbat, we are to walk on the earth without asserting our mastery over it in order to acknowledge the sovereignty of the Creator. In this way, we will remember that we are only the custodians of the earth, with the responsibility “to work it and to guard it.”[11]

Perhaps no one can articulate the power and potential that Shabbat has for us better than Rav Hirsch. “Sabbath in our time!” he exclaims, “To cease for a whole day from all business, from all work, in the frenzied hurry-scurry of our time! To close the exchanges, the workshops, and factories, to stop all railway services—great heavens! How would it be possible? The pulse of life would stop beating and the world perish! The world perish? On the contrary, it would be saved.”[12]

Suggested Action Items:

Many electronics use energy when plugged in, even when turned off. On Friday, before Shabbat, you can unplug electric appliances that will not be used on Shabbat: wireless routers, microwaves, stereos, etc. Even during the week, you can get in the habit of only plugging in electrical appliances when you are using them, and unplugging them when you stop using them.
Celebrate Shabbat with clothes made of more environmentally friendly materials, like organic cotton or wool, hemp, or recycled polyester. This can help remind you of a balanced relationship with the natural world on Shabbat.
On Shabbat, think about how you live in the natural world—as a master and consumer, steward and guardian. What do you like about your relationship to the natural world?

Original Canfei Nesharim Sponsorships:

The Parsha of Vayakhel is dedicated by Bob and Barbara Nieder in memory of Dr. Samuel Nieder, may his memory be a blessing,.

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Notes:

[1] Some of the text and ideas in this essay were taken with permission from an article by Yosef Ben Shlomo Hakohen, the Jerusalem-based director of the e-mail Torah study program, “Hazon – Our Universal Vision.”

[2] Shemot 35:1-3 (all translations by Judaica Press.)

[3] “Ecology in Jewish Law and Theology” in Faith and Doubt: Studies in Traditional Jewish Thought, third augmented edn., Ktav Publishing House: Jersey City, New Jersey, 2006, p.163-4.

[4] Shemot 23:12

[5] Commentary to Shemot 32:12 in The Pentateuch, Translated and Explained by Samson Raphael Hirsch, vol. 2, rendered into English by Isaac Levy, Judaica Press: Gateshead, England, 1982.

[6] Shemot 20:10

[7] There are 39 categories of creative work forbidden on Shabbat. Some examples are cooking and other constructive uses of fire, sewing, and building.

[8] Ben Uziel 30

[9] “Stop and Grow,” Darche Noam Newsletter, Spring 5765

[10] See Our World in Data on Fossil Fuels.

[11] Bereisheit 2:15

[12]“The Jewish Sabbath,” in Judaism Eternal 30