A situation arises. We think of the problem and ask a question. We ask the question in hopes that it will help us find the answer to the problem at hand. However, very often in life the key is not asking a question, but knowing what question to ask. Shabbat is such a time.
Often the conventional understanding of Shabbat is that we are to cease from work on the Sabbath. However, for the Rabbis of the Mishnah and the Talmud this was not exactly the case. The Rabbis did not put a prohibition against work per se, they put a prohibition against a certain type of work they called Melachot.
The Melachot were 39 specific tasks that were used in the construction of the tabernacle from which the ancient rabbis told us we must refrain. These 39 Melachot were:
Shabbat 73a: 1) Planting seeds; 2) ploughing; 3) harvesting; 4) making sheaves; 5) threshing; 6) winnowing; 7) separating; 8) grinding; 9) sifting; 10) kneading; 11) baking; 12) sheering wool; 13) whitening it ; 14) combing it; 15) dying it; 16) spinning it; 17-20) weaving operations; 21) tying a knot; 22) untying a knot; 23) sewing two stitches; 24) tearing in order to sew two stitches; 25) trapping a deer; 26) slaughtering it; 27) skinning it; 28) salting the skin; 29) tanning it; 30) scraping it; 31) cutting it; 32) writing two letters; 33) erasing in order to write two letters; 34) constructing; 35) deconstructing; 36) extinguishing a fire; 37) igniting it; 38) striking the final hammer blow; 39) carrying from one domain to another.
So, what does this list teach us today? And what does it have to do with knowing the right question to ask?
It is easy to look at this list and ask the question, “so what do I need to do to observe the Sabbath properly?” and to answer, “I need to refrain from these 39 activities”. However, I think that asking what needs to be done to observe Shabbat is the wrong question to ask. The question I think that needs to be asked is, “what is this list trying to teach us?”
One thing I think this list of Sabbath “prohibited” activities is trying to show us is that for six days we ask and answer the question “what do I need to do today?” While on Shabbat we are told to ask a different question. That question is “How do I live today? How do I approach this day differently from the other six?”
If for six days we live in a world of survival and tasks, for one day we force ourselves not to survive, but to thrive. To ask a different question of ourselves. Not what am I doing to make my life whole, but rather, how am I going to approach life and this day to give it meaning?
Shabbat Shalom!
