Parshat Vayaq’hel connects the Shabbat and the Mishkan (Tabernacle).
The 39 malakhot (general categories of labor) that are prohibited on Shabbat are learned from the work necessary to construct the Mishkan.
Why? Because through the work of these specific labors, we build the world in a way that sanctifies it and transformation it to holiness. These necessary labors for building the Mishkan are also the labors with which the world was built.
HaShem created the world through ten utterances. For each of these utterances, there are two components: the content and the sound.
The content is the ten s’firot and the sound is the letters from which it’s composed. Of the 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet, seven letters have two different forms – a hard plosive sound and a light fricative sound (the distinction is marked with a dagesh dot in the letter).
These letters are bet, gimel, dalet, kaf, pay, resh, and tav (according to the Sefer Yetzira, the letter resh once had two versions).
The s’firot plus total number of letters (including the doubles) equal 39 (10+22+7= 39) such that also the labors with which HaShem created the world are 39.
To understand the connection between the malakhot of Shabbat to the ten utterances, we should divide the malakhot according to categories:
11 required labors for preparing bread (plowing, sowing, etc.).
11 required labors for preparing clothing (shearing, bleaching, spinning, etc.).
These labors parallel the 22 letters and are required for the basic needs of humanity (bread for eating and clothes for wearing).
In the category of clothing should also be included those made from leather, which requires additional investment. Working with leather requires seven labors that parallel the seven additional letters.
Until here are quality labors. And now, we will turn to the quantity labors.
In the ten utterances through which the world was created, four are foundations. These are earth, fire, air, and water.
Two of the labors are connected to earth: building and demolishing.
Two are connected to fire: kindling and extinguishing.
Two are connected to air: tying and untying (a knot strengthens a connection in resistance to wind).
Two are connected with water: writing and erasing (because the writing is performed with ink).
The last two are connected to the foundation of creation. The world was created in two phases. At first HaShem created a place for the world within His being and formed nothingness. In the second stage, the appearance of existence emerged from within that nothingness.
The parallel labor to the second phase – from the “nothingness” to the “existence” – is striking with a hammer (as it reveals something that didn’t exist before).
The labor paralleling the first phase of creation – from the “existence” to the “nothingness” – is the labor of transferring from one domain to another.
It turns out that the labor of transferring is the most fundamental and invisible of all, the one that is not felt. And therefore the Tosafot nicknamed it “the bad labor” because we don’t see a change in an object.
This parallel of the malakhot of Shabbat to the letters and utterances of the creation of the world reminds of a teaching from our sages, that Betzalel was chosen to make the Mishkan because “Betzalel knew to attach letters that in them were created the Heaven and Earth” (Brakhot 55).
Namely, Heaven and Earth and the Mishkan were created by the same 39 letters and utterances.
