Parashat Vayakhel: On Shabbat, Fire, and Blessings that We Don't Earn

The parsha starts with Shabbat, and there is one example of the type of work one may not do on Shabbat: Do not kindle fire.

Now this prohibition was the source of a famous disagreement between the Karaites (who did not accept the Oral Law) and the rabbis. The Karaites claimed that, because of this prohibition against fire on Shabbat, Jews were required to sit in the dark on Friday night, without the benefit of light or fire. The rabbis, on the other hand, instituted the lighting of candles before Shabbat precisely for this reason – since it is not the enjoyment of fire but its creation that is prohibited according to them, light should be kindled prior to Shabbat so that one may have its benefit on that night.

There is something very significant about this distinction between the lighting of fire and its enjoyment. The parallel case is the manna. Manna did not fall on Shabbat, but on Friday the Israelites would gather twice as much manna, and unlike other days, it would not decay over night but be available for consumption on Shabbat. What is prohibited on Shabbat is thus not the enjoyment of labor, but its active doing.

Separating the labor involved in producing a benefit and the benefit itself is part of the message of Shabbat. We make the mistake of thinking that we only receive what we deserve, that there is some quid pro quo in life – we work and therefore we eat. We gather wood and light it and therefore have fire. If we did not work and did not light the wood, there would be no food and no fire.

This is true to some extent, and that is why we have the 6 work days. But to some extent it is also not true and this is the message of Shabbat: Not everything we receive comes to us because we deserve it. Some of it is simply a gift, a blessing from above, which we did absolutely nothing to earn.

This message leads to two conclusions. The first is gratitude. We didn’t earn our food or our light or our children or our many blessings; we acknowledge that they are gifts and feel an overflow of gratitude toward God. Second, there is some relief here; the pressure to actually deserve our gifts, to earn them, is intense and gnawing. Once we acknowledge that free gifts are the very nature of creation and the universe, we can relax into them, accept them as an overflow of love from above, and give out to those around us a similar unearned overflow. As God has blessed us for no reason, so we bless others for no reason.

This Shabbat, feel the power of eating without working, the notion of not needing to deserve what we are given.