Kindle the Fire
When Moses assembled the Jewish people to relate to them about the construction of the tabernacle, the sanctuary they were to build in the desert, he first reiterated the the Mitzvah of resting on Shabbat:
Six days work may be done, but on the seventh day you shall have sanctity, a day of complete rest to the Lord. (Exodus 35:2)
Of all the thirty nine prohibited categories of labor, the Torah proceeds to name only one specific example of a prohibition. The Torah states:
You shall not kindle fire in any of your dwelling places on the Sabbath day." (Ibid. 35:3)
Why does the Torah emphasize that the commandment about not kindling fire applies to “all your dwelling places”? Why would we assume that the prohibition is limited to a specific place?
The Midrash explains that the words “in all your dwelling places” teach us that we may not kindle fire in all our dwelling places, we may, however, kindle fire in the temple. Elsewhere the Torah commands “A continuous fire shall burn upon the altar; it shall not go out.” We may have thought that the prohibition of kindling fire on Shabbat supersedes the commandment to continuously maintain the fire on the altar, and we would therefore conclude that the commandment to continuously kindle fire on the alter applies to the six days of the week but not to Shabbat. The Torah therefore states that the commandment against kindling fire applies specifically to “all your dwelling places” but does not apply to the temple (which is not our dwelling place, it is the dwelling place for G-d).
Every teaching in the Torah has both a body and a soul. In addition to the legal interpretation there is also a spiritual interpretation of the same legal concept. Here too the “fire”, the “dwelling places” and the “temple”, have a spiritual interpretation as well.
Fire represents passion. Fire represents the joy, the excitement, and the vitality that energizes us and keeps us motivated and imbues our actions with spirit and feeling. During the six days of the week, our passion is invested in the world outside of us. We seek to build, to accomplish and to succeed in the material world. And then Shabbat arrives. Shabbat is far more than a day of rest in the conventional sense. On Shabbat we stop working so that we can pause from the specific details of our life and focus on the big picture. On Shabbat we have time to focus on the purpose of the rest of the week: What is the point of all our work? What are we seeking to accomplish? What is the meaning of our life? Are we living the life we want to live? Are we spending our time and attention with the people that mean most to us?
On Shabbat we may not kindle fire in “our dwelling places”. Our “dwelling places”, as opposed to the temple, represent our physical needs and activities. Shabbat is the day when we redirect our passion, to the “temple”, to the holy aspects of our life. Shabbat is the day that we redirect our passion to G-d, to our family, and to our spiritual life.
(Adapted from the teachings of the Rebbe, Shabbat Ki Tisa 5717).