This weeks Torah portion is packed with so much information, drama and intrigue that reading many of the commentaries makes for a feast of insight and speculation. This week International Artist Phillip Ratner chose to focus on Moses (Moshe) receiving the Ten words (commandments). And so this part of the portion will be emphasized. However, reading Nehama Leibowitz’s commentary on this weeks Torah portion she quotes from Rabbi Kook’s introduction to his guide to Sabbatical laws entitled: Shabbat Ha-aretz ( The Sabbath of the Land) It touched me deeply and so I am putting his insights up along with the Torah portion referring to Moshe and the Tablets. Enjoy.
” The weekday existence does not allow the national genius and the Divine goodness residing within it, with all its spiritual aspirations to justice and righteousness, tranquility and peace, to be fully realised. The bustle and confusion of everyday affairs stifles the spiritual majesty of the Divine soul (residing in the nation) whose lustre is prevented from illuminating the predominant material reality. The quality of life can only be improved by affording a breathing space from the bustle of everyday affairs. In this way the individual recovers from the influence of the mundane at frequent intervals, every sabbath day. “Comes the Sabbath, comes rest”. The soul is liberated from its chains ” on the day the Lord gives you relief from your pain and fears and the gruelling labour imposed on you” (after Is. 14, 3), and seeks pathways to the upper spheres to satisfy its natural spiritual longings and needs. “It is good to give thanks to the Lord and sing to Thy name on high to relate of Thy grace in the morning and Thy faith at night…” ( the Sabbath Psalm-90). “Between Me and the children of Israel it is an everlasting sign…”.
A holy day providing the opportunity for the nation to give expression to its true self, to its natural spiritual aspirations; to enjoy the nearness of the Divine which enters into the “extra”-soul that resides in every one of its sons (and daughters). ”
Now YHWH said to Moshe
And you, speak to the Children of Israel, saying:
However: my Sabbaths you are to keep!
For it is a sign
between me and you, throughout your generations,
to know that I, YHWH, hallow you.
You are to keep the Sabbath,
for it is holiness for you,
whoever profanes it is to be put-to-death, yes death!
For whoever makes work on it-
that person is to be cut off from among his kinspeople.
For six days is work to be made,
but on the seventh day
(is) Sabbath, Sabbath-Ceasing, holiness for YHWH,
whoever makes work on the Sabbath day is to be put-to-death,
yes, death!
The Children of israel are to keep the Sabbath,
to make the Sabbath-observance throughout their generations
as a covenant for the ages;
between me and the Children of Israel
a sign it is, for the ages,
for in six days
YHWH made the heavens and the earth,
but on the seventh day
he ceased and paused-for-breath.
Now he gave to Moshe
when he had finished speaking with him on Mount Sinai
the two tablets of Testimony,
tablets of stone,
written by the finger of God.
(Exodus 31:12-18) (Translation from The Five Books of Moses, by Everett Fox, Schocken Bible: Volume 1)
Ki Tisa Ratner Illustration
