(Delivered March 7, 2026)

Years ago, in my singing phase, I was enamored of a short song by the Austrian composer Hugo Wolf, called Auch kleine Dinge. With poetry by Paul Heyse, this little gem from the Italienisches Liederbuch sang the praises of small things. Maybe it’s because I am small myself, maybe it’s because I’m a middle child: Ever since I turned my attention to Torah, I have always been drawn to the small details that might otherwise be overlooked. I can linger over a phrase or a word. I can outright obsess over a passage that, if I were a quicker reader, I might just breeze through. 

Parshat Ki Tissa, this week’s portion, is chock full of iconic passages; it’s… eventful. It’s mostly known for עֵגֶל הַזָהָב—the golden calf, and for Moses’s deep encounter with God at the cleft of the rock. Yet what spoke to me in this eventful week was six psukim that focus not on events or actions but on their absence. I’m referring, of course, to the parsha’s brief, stark, mildly confusing passage about Shabbat.

In chapter 31 verses 12 and 13 we read: 

וַיֹּאמֶר ה’ אֶל־מֹשֶׁה לֵּאמֹר׃
וְאַתָּה דַּבֵּר אֶל־בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל לֵאמֹר אַךְ אֶת־שַׁבְּתֹתַי תִּשְׁמֹרוּ 
כִּי אוֹת הִוא בֵּינִי וּבֵינֵיכֶם לְדֹרֹתֵיכֶם לָדַעַת כִּי אֲנִי ה’ מְקַדִּשְׁכֶם׃
God said to Moses, “You speak to the Israelites, to say:
‘Indeed you will keep My Shabbatot, for it is a sign between Me and you for the generations, 
to know that I, Adonai, make you holy.’”

This couplet sparks many questions in my mind. The way pasuk thirteen is phrased is quirky enough to raise the commentators’ curiosities as well. For example, why does it say וְאַתָּה? Typically when God speaks to Moses, there’s a formula: וַיֹּאמֶר ה’ אֶל־מֹשֶׁה לֵּאמֹר—and God spoke to Moses to say, and then it just launches with the verb: דַּבֵּר אֶל־בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל—speak to the Israelites. Here, it specifies וְאַתָּה. Why? Inserting the vav prefix before a pronoun is a way of drawing attention—think וַאֲנִי תְפִילָתִי. Why might that emphasis be needed here? The Mechilte de Rabbi Shimon proposes that the emphasis is to show that Moses specifically should speak to the Israelite people, not a messenger, not an angel. Moses himself. The Emek Davar sharpens this point: it’s Moses and only Moses who is responsible for sitting down with each and every person working on the Mishkan, to make sure they understand they have to pause for Shabbat. Despite all that took place in Parshat Yitro, with Moses carefully establishing a system of delegation, teaching about Shabbat is important enough that it can’t be outsourced. Some things you simply have to do yourself. The vav and the pronoun here are meant to slow us down and get our attention.

Then there’s the question of that אַךְ. Another untranslatable particle, אַךְ can mean indeed, or nevertheless. There’s a world of difference, though, between, “Indeed you will keep my Shabbatot,” and, “Nevertheless, you will keep my Shabbatot.” The first represents continuity, assuming and reinforcing that we’ll keep the commandment; the second represents a rupture. The second presupposes there’s a reason not to. The ambiguity of the vocabulary points to an underlying tension in the whole notion of Shabbat, with “indeed” representing what we should do, and “nevertheless” representing the temptation not to. In case you think your personal flavor of resistance to Shabbat practice is unprecedented, the Torah is here to remind us all that, as Fern said at Torah study this week, spirituality is difficult.

It’s tempting to wonder why bother.

The continuation of the pasuk attempts an answer, but, again, it’s not simple. Shabbat is a sign throughout the generations between God and the Israelites לָדַעַת כִּי אֲנִי ה’ מְקַדִּשְׁכֶם—to know that I, Adonai, make you holy. It seems perfectly obvious till you think about it. What does this actually mean? How exactly does Shabbat help people to know that God makes us holy? What are the mechanics of that knowing? For Rashbam, the knowing is in the doing. He says the Israelites keep Shabbat in imitation of God, and this is how we know we belong to God. The Rashbam doesn’t allow for an intellectual understanding of Shabbat that might infuse us with knowing that God has made us holy. We have to experience it. It’s in the doing—or, more accurately, in the not doing— that Shabbat has its way with us. This is how we come to know the ways in which God has made us holy. Elsewhere, the Midrash Aggadah teaches that when a person observes Shabbat, it’s as if they themselves have invented it.

The passage in our parsha goes on to say that those who desecrate the sabbath by working will be put to death, will be cut off from their kinfolk. Although our ancestors may have lived in a world in which that was taken literally, we have the privilege and perspective to read this metaphorically. In fact, I’d say we have an obligation to read it as metaphor, rather than simply dismissing it as impossibly draconian and therefore irrelevant. The warning is not that our physical lives will end if we don’t keep every teaching about Shabbat. Rather, that if we continue our labors without pause, if we work as if work is the only thing that matters, we suffer a kind of spiritual death. In this way we are definitionally cut off from our kinfolk, for we lose our sense of connection to others when we focus only on our own pursuits. 

Of course the Torah offers another vision. In verse 17, we read וּבַיּוֹם הַשְּׁבִיעִי שָׁבַת וַיִּנָּפַשׁ—on the seventh day, God paused וַיִּנָּפַשׁ. This word וַיִּנָּפַשׁ dances around meanings of: soul, mind, breath, life, desire, self. In other words, in resting, the very breath of God was restored. In resting, God’s self returned.

That’s a strong message for a mere six verses. And yet, leveling up to view the verses in context, the message becomes even more vivid. The sequencing of this passage, the smichut parshiot, is a teaching in itself. Our six verses about Shabbat are tucked in, as if into the cleft of a rock, between the מִשְׁכָּן (the tabernacle) and the עֵגֶל (the Golden Calf). Between labor and disaster. 

You might think that the exhaustion of a full week’s work would force our hand, would inspire us to rest. But the Torah knows us better than we know ourselves. It knows that the momentum of work is a powerful force. It knows that work offers us a shiny distraction from the sometimes much more difficult life of the spirit. It knows that, much as we need that holy pause that revives the soul, there will always be a part of us that resists it. After all, even with the warning that Shabbat should be observed on pain of death, we still struggle with it.

The nineteenth-century Zionist thinker Achad haAm is famously quoted as saying, “More than the Jewish people have kept Shabbat, Shabbat has kept the Jewish people.” Despite having drifted away from his Orthodox upbringing, he got the message about Shabbat and why it’s important. If labor continues without pause, it leads to spiritual disaster. Desecrating Shabbat—that is to say, removing its holiness—cuts us off from what makes us whole, cuts us off from our very selves.

And so I say, as a prayer and a wish, for today and for every Shabbat to come:

Shabbat shalom!