How would R’ Elazar ben Azaria, Rav Sheshet and Rambam vote on October 27?
The Mishnah says: “Who are disqualified from serving as witnesses?… those who play with dice” (i.e. gamblers)
Rav Sheshet says: “This is because they are not engaged in the settlement of the world” (i.e. productive labor)
Talmud Sanhedrin 24b
I am not among those whose idea of Torah begins and ends with the Babylonian Talmud. Nevertheless, there is no shortage of pithy statements in the Talmud that merit repetition, the above being among them.
Rav Sheshet a mid -3rd century Amoraic sage did not earn his living sitting in a kolel. Like virtually all his contemporaries, predecessors and successors he worked for a living. Indeed, Rav Sheshet was a common laborer, a porter who transported heavy lumber. Apparently, this did not prevent his establishing himself as a major Talmudic sage.
This week we start the new annual cycle of Torah readings from the very beginning, with Parshat Bereishit, perhaps the best known and least understood parsha in the Torah. Yes, it makes for great Bible stories, what with the creation of the world, the saga of Adam, Hava and the serpent, the expulsion from Eden, and the fratricidal tale of Kayin and Hevel.
Regardless of whether we treat Bereishit as fact or legend, the most novel, profound and overriding aspect of the creation story is … the very idea of creating. Whatever may have existed prior to God’s creation of the world, what was certainly absent was creativity. It was all tohu vavohu
וְהָאָ֗רֶץ הָיְתָ֥ה תֹ֙הוּ֙ וָבֹ֔הוּ וְחֹ֖שֶׁךְ עַל־פְּנֵ֣י תְה֑וֹם וְר֣וּחַ אֱלֹהִ֔ים מְרַחֶ֖פֶת עַל־פְּנֵ֥י הַמָּֽיִם׃
the earth being unformed and void, with darkness over the surface of the deep and a wind from God sweeping over the water
— (Bereishit /Genesis 1:2)
What we are being introduced to here is the very notion of taking inchoate matter and recognizing the possibility of fashioning it into something coherent, alive, colorful, organic, sensory, productive, reproductive, and pregnant with infinite possibility.
This is not merely a chapter in history or a fanciful legend. It is a confrontation with our own purpose and our own destiny. It is a challenge for us to replicate and further this concept and process in our own lives.
This is what is meant by:
וַיִּבְרָ֨א אֱלֹהִ֤ים ׀ אֶת־הָֽאָדָם֙ בְּצַלְמ֔וֹ בְּצֶ֥לֶם אֱלֹהִ֖ים בָּרָ֣א אֹת֑וֹ זָכָ֥ר וּנְקֵבָ֖ה בָּרָ֥א אֹתָֽם
And God created humankind in the divine image, creating it in the image of God—creating them male and female. (1:27)
Man and woman are designed to do exactly what God had done, to take the rawest matter, an insignificant seed and turn it, virtually ex nihilo, into something both valid and viable.
Creativity – and not just the artistic sort – is the domain and responsibility of every human being. And it is this creative activity from which God pauses on the seventh day, and from which we are enjoined to pause on Shabbat.
I am providing here references from a most mainstream, traditional Orthodox source so as not to be accused of imposing my own interpretations:
The kind of work prohibited on Shabbos is called melacha, meaning creative labor (OU Torah)
The rabbis of the Talmud posited that the creative labor prohibited on Shabbat is limited to those labors needed for the fashioning of the Mishkan/Tabernacle. This is a cute conceit, yet telling. Because the activities required for the making of the Mihkan ran the gamut form the sublime to the menial. There was much artistry and craftsmanship involved on the one end, and brute, unskilled labor on the other. Yet all of these 39 labors were productive.
Farming, in all its aspects, is the archetype of productive labor. For it is the farmer who literally takes a seed and makes miracles of agriculture grow from “earth unformed and void”.
And, indeed, farming was man’s first vocation, a calling by God to eat bread by the sweat of our brows. By its very nature, creative labor is exhausting. Hence man, like God, deserves a break on the seventh day.
Humankind evolved somewhat since those Genesis days, with options to choose among many more trades and professions that meet the criteria of productive labor.
Unfotunately, there are also many occupations that cannot, even charitably, be classified as such. I would suspect that the malaise of dissatisfaction that is so rampant is especially endemic among those who work endless hours, often with great material remuneration, and yet they produce absolutely nothing that contributes to “the settlement of the world.”
Sixty hours a week spent in endless meetings, or being on the road selling something noone needs, or canoodling with verbiage for fine print in an insurance contract is exhausting, but not exhilarating. One comes home with nothing of an actual, beneficial nature to show for all that mental exertion. Not even a potato, or a shirt, or a brick. Whether conscious of it or not, there is an acute dissatisfaction at play. And, paradoxically, the only thing this dissatisfaction yields is an impetus to up the ante and achieve even greater dissatisfaction in the form of a bigger paycheck or more power within that corporate monoculture.
Such men and women rarely wake up to the ineluctable reality that they have never moved past “unformed and void, with darkness over the surface of the deep”. They are just more sophisticated Willy Lomans, with fancier clothes, faster cars, bigger mortgages. But they are still Willy Lomans with nothing to show at the end of the day.
There are rare exceptions, those who don’t wait until they die with the most toys. They are the heroes of our era and should be celebrated and held up as exemplars.
Here in Israel, we have an entire society in which tens of thousands of able-bodied people are born, live, and die without having ever done a single act that “contributes to the settlement of the world.” The Shabbat of such men is conceptually meaningless, as they also spend the prior six days disengaged from productive labor of any kind. And the ironic thing is that these men – for they are always men – actually spend their time poring over texts such as the one featuring Rav Shheshet and his reason why gamblers are disqualified from serving as witnesses. Indeed, Rav Sheshet would probably lump all these tens of thousands of indolent men in the same category as those who “play with dice” because they produce … zilch.
Eschewing any kind of productive work is hardly their only major deviation from the Torah’s ethos. They also disdain any share in the the defense of the Jewish People. And they believe the 8th commandment does not apply to them. They rationalize their indolence by claiming תורתם אומנותם , their Torah is their vocation. Rav Sheshet would be shocked, as Torah is not a vocation. Indeed, a much earlier sage, the tanna Rabbi Elezar ben Azaria declared in the Mishna (Avot 3:17) אם אין דרך ארץ אין תורה, there is no Torah without worldly engagement.
And, as a much later sage, Rambam, declared (Mishna Torah Chapter 3, Halacha10)
“כל המשים על לבו שיעסוק בתורה ולא יעשה מלאכה ויתפרנס מן הצדקה, הרי זה חילל את השם וביזה את התורה וכיבה מאור הדת וגרם רעה לעצמו ונטל חייו מן העולם הבא
“Whoever resolves to occupy himself with Torah study without engaging in work, relying instead on charity for his livelihood, has profaned the Divine Name, brought contempt upon the Torah, extinguished the light of faith, brought harm upon himself, and forfeited his life in the World to Come.”
It behooves every eligible Israeli citizen to keep this foremost in mind when entering the voting booth on October 27th.
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For a change of pace, here’s a link to an earlier column: Cain and Abel, a lesson on how not to be a parent
https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/bereishit-cain-and-abel-a-lesson-how-not-to-be-a-parent/