Vayakhel 5785: Shabbat: A Communal Responsibility
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Vayakhel (Exodus 35:1-38:20 )
GOOD MORNING! With the holiday of Purim (and its concomitant frivolities) in our rearview mirror, perhaps it is time to both consider and internalize the overarching message of the holiday. At its very core Purim is a celebration of the survival of the Jewish people from an existential threat of annihilation. This great escape was engineered by Queen Esther who united the Jewish nation and sparked a recommitment to true Torah values and to the Jewish community.
This message is particularly relevant today with the seemingly endless and continual threat of “wiping Israel off the map” – both before and after the October 7th attacks – and previously latent antisemitism now bubbling up on college campuses and around the world.
Mark Twain, in his famous essay written for Harpers Magazine in 1899, asked, “All things are mortal but the Jew; all forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret to his immortality?” It’s noteworthy that his essay just goes on to expand on his question by comparing the Jewish longevity to all the great empires and civilizations that have come and gone. While he also lists some of the Jewish people’s remarkable contributions to mankind, he never really answers his original question.
I believe we can answer Mark Twain’s question as to the secret to the survival of the Jewish people by examining what makes diamonds so unique.
Let us contrast two naturally occurring crystals that are made out of one the most common elements in the universe – carbon. Carbon has rightfully been referred to as “the building block of life” because carbon atoms form the basis of most molecules that make up living things. In fact, a well-known sequence called the “carbon cycle” demonstrates the key role that carbon plays in our lives.
Plants “consume” carbon dioxide and convert it through photosynthesis into carbohydrates. The plants are then consumed by animals and through metabolism they produce carbon dioxide (and other products), which return the carbon dioxide to the atmosphere where it can once again be consumed by plants.
Two crystals are made out of pure carbon: 1) diamonds and 2) graphite. Even though they are formed from the exact same element, they couldn’t be more different. Diamonds have a hardness rating of 10 – one of the hardest substances in the universe. By contrast, graphite is one of the softest – it has a hardness rating between 1-2. What causes this remarkable disparity?
Everything in life is about structure. From the physical world, to the business world, to the world of concepts, to the mystical world – everything requires a structure to maintain form integrity. Structure is known as a coherent form – otherwise referred to as organization. Coherence is defined as when parts of the same mass are held firmly together.
When structure is disrupted chaos reigns, and the result is often very painful. Think what happens when you stub your toe – when the incredibly complex structure that makes up your toe is properly in place everything operates smoothly. When that sense of order gets disrupted, it results in extraordinary pain.
Simply put, structure is necessary for every element of your life – whether it’s your daily schedule, what you eat, what you or your children accomplish, or your financial goals – the more structured your life is, the more successful and productive it will be. In addition, when the structure is properly in place it creates a sense of stability and balance.
What’s the difference between a diamond and graphite? The secret lies in their molecular structure – a diamond has a giant covalent lattice, and each carbon atom is bonded to four other carbon atoms. By contrast, graphite is formed in layers and each carbon is bonded to three other carbon atoms. As a result, there is an extra non-bonded electron; thereby forming a sea of delocalized electrons. Graphite is soft because it has weak inter-molecular forces between its layers.
Diamonds are hard due to their giant covalent lattice patterns and the resulting strong covalent bonds. By contrast, the weak bonds between the multiple sheets of carbon atoms make the graphite used in pencils flake off on paper, allowing you to write. In addition to being soft and slippery, graphite also has a much lower density than diamond.
I believe this is the very same secret to the survival of the Jewish people. The Torah, which the Almighty offered the Jewish nation, is the ultimate superstructure. Almost every element of our lives is carefully structured; from our daily prayers to what we eat to key elements of our marriages.
Of course, every person forms the cells of the body known as the Jewish people. We are bonded together by our Torah – and our Jewish observances – the very structure of our existence. No other nation or people has ever had such a strong personal or communal structure and certainly not both. This concept is highly relevant to this week’s Torah portion.
This week’s Torah reading begins: “Moses assembled the entire community and said to them, ‘This is what God has commanded you to do. You may work during the six weekdays, but Shabbat shall be kept holy: a Shabbat to the Almighty […] Do not ignite any fire on Shabbat in any of your communities.’”
While there is much to unpack in these verses, let us consider two very unique aspects of this passage. Firstly, this is one of the only places that Moses gathered the entirety of the Jewish nation to teach them a specific law and secondly, the main observance of Shabbat is to keep it holy and protect it from desecration, e.g. igniting a fire.
Why does Moses make Shabbat a community responsibility? On a very simple level this can be understood to mean that a true Shabbat environment only takes place when everyone takes responsibility to maintain it. Many years ago, I had to spend a Shabbat in Las Vegas. Even though I scrupulously observed the laws of Shabbat, it didn’t feel like Shabbat. There is a special aura of peace and serenity to a Shabbat day spent in a Shabbat observant community.
But there is a much deeper lesson here as well. As we have discussed, everything in life requires a definitive structure to be an enduring entity. As you may know, the sages instituted that we pray three times a day, preferably in a communal setting of ten men (aka a minyan). Of course, observing Shabbat means we are prohibited from traveling on it. This means that Jews have to live in close proximity to one another and this naturally builds community – forming a covalent bond within the cells that form the corpus of the Jewish nation. Plainly put, Shabbat fosters Jewish community.
Even the structure of Jewish community is carefully designed – providing for the needy, organizing schooling, burial societies, and various other communal needs are examples of this. Thus, even as Jews were attacked and persecuted and were running for their lives for the last two millennia, the fortunate ones who escaped were easily able to reconnect with existing communities in new and strange lands. Within a generation or two they were bonded to their new community in marriage, business, and shared Torah ideals.
Small wonder then that when this critical structural element of the Jewish people (i.e. Shabbat observance) is discarded or even slightly altered – it leads to assimilation, disconnection, and eventual disappearance. It doesn’t take many threads to be pulled from a beautiful tapestry for it to become totally unraveled, resulting in a heap of disparate threads that will soon be discarded.
Thus, observing Shabbat is the secret to the formation of that covalent bond – that of community building. The other by-product of doing whatever we can to maintain a Shabbat environment is the commitment we have made as a community to one another. It is this sacred duty that is both the lasting lesson of Purim and also the answer to Mark Twain’s question. We have become fused in an unbreakable coherence as a community and as a nation.
In closing I want to mention that there is another startling similarity between a diamond and the Jewish people. Ordinary carbon turns into a diamond only when great pressure and high heat is applied to it. Likewise, the Jewish nation, perhaps like no other people, has had to endure tremendous pressure and intense heat from the rest of mankind. In addition, a diamond must be cut and polished to truly sparkle and reveal all its potential and inner beauty.
So too every “ordinary” Jew has the potential to sparkle and be greatly valued – but he must develop himself, strip away the outer shell of self-absorption, and cut out the empty pursuits of the physical world. Only in this way can a Jew fully develop to be a credit to his lineage and another jewel in the crown of the Almighty.
Vayakhel, Exodus 35:1 – 38:20
Moses relays the Almighty’s commands to refrain from building the Mishkan (the Tabernacle) on Shabbat, to contribute items needed to build the Mishkan, to construct the components of the Mishkan, and the appurtenances of the Cohanim. The craftsmen are selected and the work begins. The craftsmen report that there are too many donations and, for the first and probably the only time in fundraising history, the Jewish people are told to refrain from bringing additional contributions!
aish.com/shabbat-candlelighting-times/
More than the Jewish people have kept the Sabbath, the Sabbath has kept the Jewish people.
- Asher Ginsberg aka Echad Ha’am
Dedicated to my father,
Dr. Melvyn Greenstein,
in honor of his 89th birthday!
From Dr. Bruce Greenstein
FEATURED AT AISH.COM
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