 At times during the weekly give and take of divrei Torah that are presented I will pose and point out a question for which I have no ready answer. A concern was raised that since
the ma’amorim go out on the internet and non-religious people might see them, they might get the impression that we, the religious, also don’t understand the Torah.
The Other Track
My feeling is that the case can be made on the other track just as easily. The non-religious person will see that we are not naïve and not afraid, as some, if not many, believe, or that we accept everything and anything without question. The questions are asked. But we also know how to keep going, question or not. There is a well known Yiddish expression – “Fun a kashya staarbed mehn nisht (one doesn’t die from a question).”[1]
In fact, questioning and attempting to answer is one of the main ways to grow in Torah. Three episodes from Rav Shach on the Hagadah are instructive.
Mah Nishtanah
“One of Rav Shach’s students came to visit him on the first day of Pesach. ‘So where were you for the Seder last night?’ asked Rav Shach. ‘By my parents.’ ‘And did you ask the Mah Nishtanah (the Four Questions)?’ ‘No, my little girl did that.’ ‘That’s not good,’ Rav Shach told him. ‘Each generation should ask the one before it.[2] Your daughter should ask you and you should ask your father.’”
The question and answer format is all important. Even if one individually makes a Seder, he should ask himself the four questions.[3]
To Create and Destroy
“Hashem created worlds and destroyed them … until He created this world. He said, ‘This world I like, the others I didn’t like.’”[4] [5]
Asks Rav Shach, “How can this be understood? Clearly, Hashem did not need to go through a trial-and-error process before obtaining the desired result. Rather, the world was created for the sake of the Torah[6] and in accordance with the dictates of the Torah. The wisdom of the Torah is transmitted through discussions and dialogue, through questions and answers, through establishing working assumptions and then confirming or eliminating them. It was for this reason that the very creation of the world had to have these processes embedded into it.”[7]
Sleepless Nights
One of Rav Shach’s earliest students in Ponevezh related the following. “The morning after Rav Shach’s weekly shiur (lecture), Rav Shach approached me, tapped me on the hand, and asked if I had slept well the night before. ‘I slept well,’ I answered. But Rav Shach was not satisfied with my answer. ‘Tell me the truth, did you sleep well, really?’
“I answered in the affirmative once again, but the Rosh Yeshiva inquired once more. At this point, I became puzzled by his persistence and asked if there was something wrong with my appearance. He said that no, my appearance was fine, but nevertheless he thought that I might not have had a good night’s sleep.
“Then he asked, ‘Were you in shiur (lecture) yesterday?’
“‘Certainly!’ I answered, and added, ‘I can even repeat the whole content of the shiur now if the Rosh Yeshivah would like me to!’
“‘That is not necessary,’ he answered. ‘But tell me, what did we end the shiur with?’
“‘A strong question on the Rashba,’[8] I answered confidently.
“‘When one is left with a question on the Rashba,’ he admonished, ‘how is he capable of sleeping on his bed in peace and tranquility? I myself didn’t sleep the whole night! Yet you tell me that you slept, as if there was nothing on your mind to interfere with your sleep!’”
Back to the Concern
Of course, all this had nothing to do with the aforementioned concern. I only used it as an opening to bring before the reader the great importance of asking questions and attempting answers in learning Torah.
In regard to the actual concern, I queried a Rosh Yeshivah whom I often ask regarding such issues. He felt there was no problem involved here.
A Caveat
There is, however, a caveat to the above. As a rule, I generally do not get into faith related issues and questions. The difference here is not only that one shouldn’t plant such questions in people’s minds, but also that the answers must be very carefully worded to avoid the writer meaning one thing and the reader understanding something completely different.
Ma’amar 2
Shabbos and the Mishkan (Tabernacle)
“…exclude Shabbos from the work of the Mishkan”[9] and again, “Hikdim lohem azhoras Shabbos letzivui meleches hamishkan” “to tell you that the work of the Mishkan does not override the Shabbos.”[10]
The reason that the Mishkan does not override Shabbos is because of the intrinsic connection between the two. We find another connection also in that we learn out the thirty-nine categories of melacha (“work”)[11] which are prohibited on Shabbos, from the thirty-nine categories of work associated with the Mishkon.
Three Mitzvos That Do Override
There are three mitzvos which do override the Shabbos.[12] (a) Miloh (circumcision) on the eighth day, (b) korbanos (sacrifices), (c) that which is needed to declare a new month.[13] We need to understand why specifically these mitzvos were empowered to override the Shabbos.[14]
Miloh
See the Maharal[15] that the reason that Miloh overrides Shabbos[16] is because Shabbos is part of teva (nature), the seven days of creation. Miloh removes the teva (that which the child is born with) and, therefore, is on the eighth day, beyond teva. Therefore, if the eighth day comes out on Shabbos it overrides Shabbos.
Torah
So also, Torah is beyond teva which is why it was created two thousand years before the world was created.[17] Therefore, Shavuos, when the Torah was given, comes out after seven times seven days of counting the omer, seven, again, connoting teva. The day after (fifty) connotes beyond teva and therefore, Torah.
Shmini Atzeres
Again, on the seven days of Succos we bring sacrifices to maintain the seventy nations of the world. After that is Shmini Atzeres (the eighth day) which represents Hashem’s closeness to Yisroel. It is this significance of the number eight that led to the minhag (custom) to establish Simchas Torah on Shmini Atzeres – Torah is eight.
Chanukah
Chanukah, which connotes the light of Torah, is eight days.
The Three Connotations of Seven as Teva (Nature)
Time
(a) In the realm of time. The world was created in seven days with the seventh day connecting it to kedushah (holiness) – Shabbos, which unites them all.
Space
(b) In the realm of Space. The world has six directions including up and down. They are all connected at the center which also connotes an element of kedushah and is called “heichal hakodesh.”
The Many
(c) Seven connotes the many as opposed to above teva which is the singular and unique. That is why the seven days of Succos represent, to a certain extent, the seventy-nations whereas Shmini Atzeres represents Yisroel.[18]
Korbanos
The following two categories – korbanos (sacrifices) and kiddush hachodesh really need some in-depth explaining. In lieu of that it will suffice to say that we see the concept of korbanos being above the teva by the fact that a korban cannot be brought before the animal is eight days old. Again, the inauguration and consecration of the Mishkan (Tabernacle) and mizbei’ach (altar) lasted eight days – the shmoneh yemei hamilu’im. In this rather abbreviated manner we see that korbanos are above teva and, therefore, override Shabbos.[19]
The Two Aspects of Shabbos
Therefore, kiddush hachodesh (sanctifying the new month) also overrides Shabbos (if need be – e.g. the need for witnesses to travel on Shabbos to come to the Sanhedrin).[20] There are two concepts in Shabbos. It testifies that (a) Hashem created the world, and (b) that he took us out of Mitzrayim (Egypt). In the main, it testifies to creation. But the fact that we are required to keep the Shabbos or even allowed to[21] is due to the Exodus from Mitzrayim.
Shabbos and Mo’adim
In this way Shabbos is connected to the Mo’adim (Holidays) and is listed among them.[22] The first mitzvah in the Torah to Yisroel as a people is that of kiddush hachodesh.[23]
Kiddush Hachodesh
Through kiddush hachodesh Yisroel is in charge of the mo’adim.[24] Therefore, kiddush hachodesh overrides the Shabbos because even though Shabbos is not dependent on kiddush hachodesh,[25] however, our keeping of the Shabbos is dependent on zecher l’yetzias Mitzrayim as before. Therefore, if kiddush hachodesh doesn’t override Shabbos and thereby the kiddush hachodesh is not on the proper day, then yetzi’as Mitzrayim will not be on the proper day. This, in and of itself, will minimize the aspect of Shabbos which is zecher l’yetzias Mitzrayim (a commemoration of the leaving from Egypt).
Time and Space and the Center of the World
There’s a ways more to go but we’ll stop here. I do want to add that the connection between Shabbos and the Mishkan is that Shabbos is kedushah of the teva, time-wise, whereas the Mishkan is kedushah of the teva, space-wise.[26] This indeed is why we learn out the melachos of Shabbos from the melachos of the Mishkan.
[1] There is a joke regarding this phrase. Hashem had told Odom that “on the day you eat from the eitz hada’as (tree of knowledge good and bad) you will die (Genesis 2:17). Yet Odom lived to be nine hundred and thirty years old (ibid 5:5). It’s a question (a kashya). You see from here that from a question you don’t die. (In fact they speak about this question.)
[2] “Ask your father and he will tell you.” (Deuteronomy 32:7)
[3] Rav Shach p. 41-42
[4] Genesis Rabah 9:2
[5] I’ve often considered this Medrash as a possible basis for the fossils which have been discovered which, therefore, have no direct connection to the present world. Perhaps.
[6] Rashi Genesis 1:1
[7] Rav Shach p. 42
[8] One of the greatest Rishonim (1235-1310)
[9] Rashi Exodus 31:13. You cannot desecrate Shabbos to work on the Mishkan.
[10] Ibid 35:2 in the name of the Mechilta.
[11] “Work” means halachic work, not sweat work. Carrying a handkerchief outside one’s home might be considered “work” whereas carrying a table inside one’s home would not.
[12] Besides danger to life which is a different concept altogether.
[13] The mitzvah is for the Sanhedrin (court) to declare a new month based on the testimony of two witnesses regarding the position of the moon. This was known as kiddush hachodesh (to sanctify the new month). When that became impossible, the monthly calendar, as we know it, was established.
[14] The mitzvah of bringing the omer can be included in the korbanos.
[15] Chidushei Agodos Shabbos 21b
[16] Nedorim 31b
[17] Shabbos 88b
[18] Maharal, Netzach chp. 32; Chidushei Agodos Rosh Hashonoh 21b; Rav Tzodok, Komeitz Hamincho, part 1, ose 59
[19] These are mostly congregational korbanos, not personal ones.
[20] Rosh Hashanah 21b
[21] A non-Jew is not allowed to observe the Shabbos.
[22] Leviticus 23:1-3
[23] Rashi, Genesis 1:1
[24] Yom Tov will come out depending on which day the Sanhedrin was mekadesh the chodesh.
[25] Since it is on the same day, week in, week out.
[26] It is what holds all the directions of the world together. This is why Chazal (the Sages) call Yerushalayim and specifically the Bais Hamikdash the “center of the world” the “Heichal Hakodesh” as before. 
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