Shmot

Our parasha begins with the laws of Shabbat (Shmot 35:1-3) before beginning the description of the actual building of the Mishkan. We also find that in the previous parasha, Ki Tisa, there is mention of the mitzva of Shabbat. “Hashem said to Moshe, speak to Bnei Yisrael: You shall nevertheless keep my Shabbatot, for it is a sign between Me and you…” (Shemot 31:12-13).

In honor of parshios Vayakheil/Pekudei and the assembly of the Mishkan, it is appropriate for us to study the laws of Shabbos

Parshas Ki Sisa discusses the laws of Shabbos and of the yomim tovim. We are all aware that there are 39 melachos of Shabbos, and most of us are fairly familiar both with the concepts and with many of the details of such varied melachos as kosheir, tying knots, boreir, selecting, and hotza’ah, carrying. However, there are several melachos, for example, menapeitz, toveh, meisach, oseh batei nirin and potzei’a that are unfamiliar, and perhaps we could say virtually unknown, to most people. Since all of these melachos are involved in the manufacture of textiles, they all apply min haTorah on Shabbos and Yom Tov according to all opinions, which makes a wonderful incentive to study them. I will present these melachos in the order in which they appear in the list of the 39 melachos in the Mishnah in Shabbos (73a).

Purim, with its central mitzva of reading Megillat Esther, finds us in the midst of our preparations to read Parashat Ki Tisa. This prompts me to look for overlapping themes. I have always been fascinated by the Jewish people’s change in fortune with Mordechai and Esther’s ascendance to prominence and the fall of Haman. Despite Achashveirosh’s sudden good will toward the Jews, he presented Mordechai and Esther with a frightening refusal. He claimed that he was incapable of rescinding his/Haman’s orders to have the Jews killed. He just allowed them to write new letters – that do not contradict the first ones (see Malbim, Esther 8:8). The letter that Mordechai sent simply allowed the Jews to actively defend themselves. It did not even command local officials to side with them (Esther 8:11), as indeed they had been told previously to take part in the murder. Why should we think that the Jews would have the upper hand in the fighting that transpired?

Several years ago on this parasha, we wrote about Shlomo Hamelech’s building of his palace close to the Beit Hamikdash. We explained that this represented his thesis that one should view the holy and the mundane and the Torah and the kingdom as inseparable. When the kings of the Kingdom of Yehuda sinned, the proximity to the Beit Hamikdash became a sore point, as Yechezkel highlighted (see Yechezkel 43:8). Was the approach of Shlomo’s father, David, the same as his son’s? The navi Shmuel (II,5) describes the conquer of Yevus and its transition into the eternal Israelite capital of Yerushalayim. We are told that David turned a fortress known as Metzudat David into his home and built around it, extending the city and building a wall around it (ibid. 7-10). The wall encompassed both the City of David and the Temple Mount, upon which the Beit Hamikdash would be built, and, in between, he left an area called the Milo for sleeping quarters for pilgrims to the Beit Hamikdash. David’s palace was built in the City of David, and, apparently, parts of it have been uncovered in excavations at that site.