Shabbos Parashas Beshallach - 5775
Shabbos Parashas Beshallach - 5775 Rabbi Hal Miller
Let every man remain in his place, let no man leave his place on the seventh
day. [Shemos 16:29]
The people were on the move, having just left Egypt. We might think they were looking forward, but instead they complained. The complained to Moshe about the lack of comforts. They complained about the food. G-d provided quail meat and they complained about that. He provided manna and gave simple instructions
about picking it: only enough for that day, trust that there will be more tomorrow. They ignored this and were rewarded with lots of spoilage the next morning. G-d told them to pick double on Friday as there would be none on Shabbos.
They went out to pick it on Shabbos anyway, and finally Moshe had enough.
He chastized the people for not listening to him and observing the commands of G-d, in particular with regard to Shabbos. In doing this, Moshe states our verse.
Why does he say this at all? Why the apparent repetition? What is "his place"?
In his mitzvah number 24, Sefer HaChinuch states, "There is one negative precept in this sidrah, which is that we are restricted from going on the Sabbath beyond the known bounds." Our verse is the direct source for one of the 613 commandments of the Torah. How did this end up in the middle of Moshe's reprimand of the people over food? Sefer HaChinuch continues by describing the distances involved in the command, and explaining that most of what we practice today is rabbinic in nature, rather than directly from this short verse in the Torah. He then writes, "At the root of this precept lies the aim that we should remember and know that the world was engendered out of non- existence and was not pre-existent. It is fitting for us that we should rest in one place."
Rashi goes so far as to say that the Torah commandment ONLY applied to the generation in the desert. It was extended by Chazal to future generations, as we see in Gemora Eruvin. He explains the apparent repetition ("remain in his place" and "no man leave his place") as referring to the four amos to which we limit a person in general. The second phrase means the limitation to the city in which one lives, or what we today refer to as "techum", or in some cases, "eruv". Thus, the two
clauses of our verse have separate meanings. But this is not apparent from the text of our verse. What seems to be the simple meaning is that there are two 'places' involved here. "Let no man leave his place on the seventh day" refers to going out to do the labors of Shabbos which had just been prohibited. "Let every man remain in his place" refers to his position in the world to
come. "His place" in one sense is the physical world, and in the other sense is the spiritual world. When the clauses are tied back together into one verse, in the order in which they appear in the Torah, what we can understand is something like this: It was G-d Who created the world to come; In order for a person to retain his position in the world to come, he must restrain himself from violating the commandments of Shabbos. This was Moshe's warning.
The next verse [30] says simply, "The people rested on the seventh day." It seems that they understood Moshe.