Parashat Vayakhel begins with Moshe commanding the people to observe Shabbat. He says: ששת ימים תעשה מלאכה, וביום השביעי יהיה לכם קודש שבת שבתון לה' – “For six days, work shall be done; and on the seventh, there shall be a sacred day of rest for Hashem” (35:2).
Why does Moshe mention the six workdays when telling the people that they must observe Shabbat? Why doesn’t he simply tell them not to work on Shabbat, instead of first saying that work should be done during the other six days?
Secondly, we need to understand why Moshe says, ששת ימים תעשה מלאכה – “For six days, work shall be done.” Instead of saying, “You shall do work for six days,” Moshe says that work “will be done.” Why?
The answer touches upon the balance between emunah (faith) and hishtadlut – the need to make an effort.
Since Adam’s sin in Gan Eden, human beings need to work and struggle to obtain their needs. We don’t get everything we need right away. We have to work. However, the need to work has nothing at all to do with Hashem’s control over the results. We need to work because Hashem determined that we need to work. But the results are entirely up to Hashem. They do not depend on our work.
This is why Yetziat Mitzrayim features so prominently in our tefilah, and why we are constantly reminded of the events surrounding our ancestor’s freedom from Egypt. Nobody would ever think that their efforts got them out of Egypt. Nobody would ever think that their jumping into the water made the sea split. It was clear and obvious that Hashem brought them out of Egypt and brought them through the sea.
This is how we are to view everything in life. We work because we have to work – but the results depend solely on Hashem, and not on our efforts.
People don’t get frustrated when they have to work hard; most people are prepared and even glad to work hard. The frustration comes when they don’t see their hard work yielding results. When they try so hard to get their daughter married, but she’s still single. When they run from interview to interview but still don’t have a job. When they invest so much time and effort into the business, but it’s still not making money.
This is where emunah comes in. Once we believe that the work and the results are two completely separate things, life becomes much less frustrating. When we live with this emunah, from the outset we recognize that our efforts might not produce the results we want, and that the results will come from Hashem in the way He chooses. This realization saves us so much aggravation when things don’t work out the way we want.
ששת ימים תעשה מלאכה. Moshe here teaches us that throughout the six days of workweek, we must realize that our work is being done, that the results are not dependent on us. Once we have this realization, then ביום השביעי יהיה לכם קודש – we can observe Shabbat properly, with complete serenity and peacefulness. The litmus test of emunah is how we experience Shabbat, if we remain perfectly calm and at ease on Shabbat, leaving everything in Hashem’s hands on this day when we are forbidden from working. Only if during the rest of the week we live with a sense of תעשה מלאכה, knowing with certainty that the results are being produced for us by Hashem, and not by our work, can we experience a true day of rest on Shabbat.
And this mindset will also spare us so much anxiety and stress during the week. If we truly believe that תעשה מלאכה, then we will not be frustrated when we don’t see our efforts yielding results – because we already know that the results depend on Hashem, and not on the work that we put in.