Included in the many laws contained in this week’s Parsha, is the law of Shemitta – the Sabbatical year. All agricultural productive involvement in the land is prohibited throughout the seventh year in the land of Israel.
Immediately following this law in the Torah, is the law regarding our responsibility to cease from creative activities on the weekly Shabbos.
Rashi quoting the Medrash explains that G-d specifically placed the law of the weekly Shabbos following the law of the year of Shemitta observance to stress that even though the entire seventh year is called a Shabbos for the land, that does not preclude us from observing the weekly Shabbos. Our weekly Shabbos observance is always in place.
In this Shabbos instruction, the Torah specifies that we are to rest on Shabbos in order that our animals, slaves and residents of the Land of Israel who do not serve idols should rest.
Seforno explains that the Torah gave us this law concerning slaves and non-Jews dwelling in the Land of Israel to train ourselves to reflect, that although when we were foreigners in Egypt they worked us to the bone and at times stripped us of the opportunity to rest on the seventh day of the week, the Torah demands from us a higher calling – we are to treat our slaves and non-Jewish residents with respect and give them the opportunity to refresh themselves on our Shabbos.
This exercise affords us to reflect upon our servitude in Egypt which the Torah associates with the holy day of Shabbos.
I came across a beautiful thought presented by Rabbi Avigdor Milller o.b.m. He explains that specifically a Jew is obligated to observe the entirety of the Mitzvos and prohibitions of Shabbos; in fact, non-Jews are forbidden to keep the Shabbos.
Keeping the Shabbos is a great privilege. Although non-Jews are expected to know that G-d created the world from nothingness, celebrating Shabbos is like entering into a holy sanctuary where only the designated priests are allowed to perform the service.
The Torah forbade the construction of the Tabernacle on the Shabbos. There were thirty-nine forms of creative work that were performed in the construction of the Temple; thus the weekly Shabbos has thirty-nine forms of forbidden work activities which parallel the thirty-nine forms of work that were performed to construct the Tabernacle.
What is the connection between the building of the Sanctuary and the weekly Shabbos? It is to teach us that the Shabbos is also a sanctuary. Just as in the Sanctuary only the Kohanim – priests – are privileged to enter and to perform the duties, so too, the Shabbos is a sanctuary that only those who are privileged are permitted to enter.
When we as a nation accepted the Torah at Mount Sinai, G-d called us a royal, priestly and holy nation, and this priestly designation affords us the distinct honor and privilege to enter the holy environment of Shabbos. Shabbos is G-d’s Personal gift to us, and we are the only ones who have the opportunity to observe all its sanctified laws and bask and relish in its holiness and tranquility!
