At the end of last week’s parsha, we are given the commandment to keep and protect the Shabbat. In the 2nd pasuk of this week’s parsha, again the Torah commands us to do our work between Sunday and Friday, but to refrain from מלאכה, loosely translated as work, on Shabbat. As an aside, the Torah relays to us the severe punishment for one who blatantly violates Shabbat. This is of course after the Torah already commands us in Parshat Yitro as part of the 10 commandments, to keep the Shabbat and לא תעשה כל מלאכה. In multiple places in the Torah, the discussion surrounding Shabbat is to refrain from מלאכה, which we almost too quickly refer to as work. The trouble is, the Torah commands us in multiple places not to do מלאכה on Shabbat, if you do it you can be punished with death or כרת, and yet the Torah doesn’t define what מלאכה actually is. How could that be? As a loving G-d, I don’t think the message is that Hashem is out to get us. How could he treat us so unfairly?
The answer is that the Rabbis in the Medrash and the Talmud explain to us that the מלאכה referred to here is the 39 categories of work utilized in the building of the Mishkan. In other words, if you want to know what מלאכה on Shabbat is, use the מלאכה of the Mishkan as your defining guide.
If the מלאכה is explained to us by the Talmud, then how is there a death penalty attached? How come we always thought these prohibitions are of a biblical nature? The answer can be understood with a mashal. My children, nieces and nephews know me as the master of the game hide and seek. Although everyone knows the rules to hide and seek, I happen to have some extra rules we follow, and part of those rules are extra ways to be knocked out of the game. Imagine you came over to my house and we decide to play hide and seek. I tell you, let’s play, and make sure you don’t “do any work” or more likely, “make sure to follow the house rules.” Now you have no clue what that means, so you proceed to ask one of my children what I meant by that, and they explain the added rules and ways to be knocked out of the game, or “the work.” Let me ask you, if you continue and play the game and violate one of my rules and henceforth get knocked out of the game, are you knocked out because you violated my children’s words, or are you knocked for violating my words? The truth is that you heard words from them, but they were simply explaining my law. Similarly, one of the main functions of the Talmud is to explain the Chumash; it is there to translate and tell us what Hashem had in mind. So in actuality, the Torah or Hashem tells us not to do מלאכה on Shabbat, and the Rabbis are simply helping us understand what Hashem meant. The Rabbis are like my children in the Mashal, not creating their own edicts, but explain the edicts of the master.
The message here is crucial. One of the main tenants of Torah Judaism, or Orthodoxy, is the belief that Torah Shebeal Peh, the Oral Torah, was given to the Jews by Hashem at Har Sinai. The only difference is that the Chumash was written down and the rest was meant to be passed on orally. So in actuality, someone who doesn’t believe in Torah Shebeal Peh could not really keep Shabbat, because they would not know what to refrain from. Another example of how we cannot keep the Torah properly without the Torah Shebeal Peh is found in the mitzvah of the Four Minim on Sukkot: The Lulav, Etrog, Hadasim and Aravot. The Torah tells us
ולקחתם לכם ביום הראשון, פרי עץ הדר כפות תמרים ענף עץ עבות וערבי נחל….
How on earth do we know what those are? What you and I know to be a lulav and etrog, how do you know that is what Hashem wanted you to use on Sukkot? The only answer is that there is an entire chapter in the Talmud which explains to us what a פרי עץ הדר is. It happens to be the fruit of a citron tree and we are given very exact directions as to how to search and recognize the tree and the fruit. The same is true for the lulav, hadasim and aravot. The moral of the story: without the Talmud, we could not possibly keep the Torah properly.
There are many examples which show the supremacy of the Torah Shebeal Peh. I believe Hashem chose Shabbat, the holiest day of the week and an integral part to our Torah observance, to send us this message. Judaism goes well beyond the five books of the Chumash; it goes into volumes of the Talmud and Medrash. If you want to understand the Chumash, if you want to understand what Hashem wants from you, start by learning and appreciating the importance of the Torah Shebeal Peh.
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