Fire and Water (Vayakhel)

I have written about Parshat Vayakhel numerous times in connection with my work at NJOP and its annual Shabbat Across America and Canada program, so I set about reading the parsha expecting to be challenged finding a topic about which to write. I was wrong, as I so often am when I make assumptions about the parshiot. In fact, I was only three verses in when I stopped and reconsidered the importance of the verse: “You shall not kindle a fire throughout your settlements on Shabbat day” (Exodus 35:3). 

While this does not seem like a particularly interesting verse, it is interesting in light of its following “On six days work may be done, but on the seventh day you shall have a sabbath of complete rest, holy to the Lord; whoever does any work on it shall be put to death” (35:2) – the only two verses about Shabbat in a chapter that otherwise focuses on the making of the items for the Mishkan. Commentaries on these verses abound, and there are many sages who also wondered why kindling a fire was singled out. Many commentaries focus on the entire pasuk, on how the verse is there to specify how kindling a fire is separate and different from the other 39 melachot, and therefore has different consequences. Others focus on the uniqueness of the activity of kindling a fire, such as Sefarno says: “Even though, generally speaking, lighting a fie is not a productive but a destructive activity, seeing that it is an almost indispensable ingredients in most activities that Torah prohibited it as unsuitable for Shabbat.”

The Hebrew word for kindling, however, is actually rather interesting: Beis – Ayin – Reish. In this pasuk: tiva’aru. (It’s a fairly recognizable root given the quickly approaching time for Biur Chametz, burning the chametz.) The root of the word tiva’aru is strikingly similar to a word connected to another one of the primary elements: b’air, a well, which has the shoresh of Beis – Aleph – Reish. Aleph and Ayin are notably connected. What might the connection be between kindling fire and a well of water. One interesting thought is that they are both mankind’s means for controlling nature. Fires can happen naturally, usually by something like a lightning strike, and water flows where it wishes too. But mankind learned to kindle, to call forth a flame, on his own, and mankind learned to dig deep into the earth to find the water essential for his survival. Both acts are inherently creative in their harnessing nature.

On the other hand, fire and water are opposing elements that can co-exist near each other, but not together. Rabbi Shimshon Raphael Hirsch says about this verse: “But, on the other hand, the ability to produce fire artificially is just that which first gave Man his true mastery over the materials of the world. Only by fire can he create his tools, can he analytically and synthetically probe into the inner nature of things.” Fire is connected to the actions that mankind uses to control the physical world. What about water? Water is connected to the spiritual; Torah is mayim chaim, living water or the source that sustains the Jewish people. The Jewish ideal is for a person to balance their neshama and their guf, two elements that coexist and yet, ideally need to remain unique so one does not quell or evaporate the other. On Shabbas, on the day we are meant to strive for our deepest connection with Hashem, it is the time of mayim, water, spiritually, and it is not the time for kindling fire, for striving to control the natural world and focusing on the physical. – May we all find the perfect balance of the elements in which we live.