ESSAY: Not Consumed By Fire (Parashat Vayakhel)

Our parsha begins with the commandment to keep shabbat.   In this iteration of shabbat, we are told one specific prohibition:

לֹא־תְבַעֲר֣וּ אֵ֔שׁ בְּכֹ֖ל מֹשְׁבֹֽתֵיכֶ֑ם בְּי֖וֹם הַשַּׁבָּֽת
Do not kindle a fire in all your dwelling places on the day of Shabbat. (Exodus 35:3)

I want to offer an interpretation of this instruction that relates to our emotional and spiritual inner work. 

Connection to the Burning Bush

The root ba’ar, meaning to kindle or to burn – here, lo teva’aru – is not found frequently in the Torah.  The first time it occurs is with reference to the burning bush. Moshe sees a sneh, a bush, bo’er ba’esh, being burned up by fire, but somehow not being consumed.   He ponders this phenomenon, asking – madu’a lo yivar hasneh (Exodus 3:3)?  Why is the bush not being completely burned up, totally consumed?   His question is not  given a direct response and it continues to reverberate in the Torah and in us – indeed, why doesn’t the bush burn up?  

I want to suggest that our shabbat commandment not to be bo’er esh, to burn a fire, in all your dwelling places, is in dialogue with this burning bush scene.    Here is how I read it:  The fire represents our most intense emotions, despair, anger, anxiety, fear, sadness, even passion, whatever it is, the feelings that tend to rage strongly in us and threaten to consume us, to completely take us over.   And the shabbat commandment here is saying: Don’t let those fires burn you up completely, don’t let them be bo’er, burn, bekhol moshvoteikhem, in all your dwelling places, don’t let your whole self – body, mind and soul – be consumed by these fires so that there is nothing else.   Be rather like the miraculous burning bush that Moshe witnessed, eynenu ukal, somehow not consumed by the raging flames.  

We Do Get Consumed By Fire

What is that esh, that fire for you?  What fiery emotions tend to consume you or perhaps are threatening to consume you at this very moment?  Earlier in Shmot, in the laws of Mishpatim, this bo’er burning term is used for a blaze that begins with some thorns and ends up consuming an entire field (Exodus 22:5).  This happens to us, too; a small flicker of emotion inside grows and spreads until it consumes our entire field of consciousness.   We feel that we are our anxiety or our despair or our rage.  There is nothing else. 

How can we become like the burning bush and not be so entirely consumed?  How is that possible? This was essentially Moshe’s question back at the original scene – madu’a lo yivar hasneh?  Why doesn’t the bush get consumed?  What’s the mechanism here?   

Shabbat As The Answer

That question is answered here, in our parsha.  The answer is shabbat.  The answer is to remember shabbat, to remember that piece of yourself that is shabbat, to remember the place inside you that is always at peace, your inner point of perfect rest, like the eye of the storm; everything can be raging and storming all around, all fires blazing, but right at the center of you is that place of perfect calm. When you remember that place, you will not be entirely consumed by those intense emotions

We are not trying to get rid of those internal blazes, but just asking them not to take over all of you, kol moshvoteikhem, asking them to leave some room for you to access your shabbat place. You can allow – and even welcome – the strong emotions to be there, swirling about as they need to, and at the same time, you can retain an awareness of your shabbat place,  sensing both at once in your body.  You are the sneh, the burning bush that Moshe saw and wondered about.  You burn with emotion and yet are not consumed, because you always retain your awareness of shabbat.  

Rooted in Shabbat

Maybe we can do even better than an awareness of our shabbat place.  Maybe we can actually root ourselves in this place.  Shetulim beveit Hashem, planted in the house of God, the shabbat psalm says.  Maybe you can feel what that might be like, to situate yourself, to root yourself, to plant yourself, in shabbat, in a place of calm, to make that your primary dwelling, your seat, your anchor, and from that place to feel and observe and witness and tend to the fires inside and outside you.  You can still feel them, but you are not identified with them. You are not your anxiety.  You are not your despair.  You are the you that is anchored in shabbat, and you hold the anxious fiery parts tenderly from that place of deep rest.  

Earlier in the Torah, it says that on shabbat, al yetze ish mimkomo, “a person should not leave his place” (Exodus 16:29).  What is your makom, your place?  Your place is this shabbat home, this inner point of calm.   And the message is – stay strong in that place, don’t allow yourself to get knocked out of it.  Stay in your strength, in your shabbat power, as if you are planted and strapped into your seat on a wild roller coaster ride, staying steady as you get pushed and pulled, as you go up and down, as the storm rages around you.  You are strong in yourself, steady in your makom, in this home base of shabbat.  

Together With God

And maybe you have a part of you that doubts your capacity to do this, to find such peace within the fiery climate you live in.  Maybe this part of you says simply – I can’t.  I get too consumed by the despair, by the anger, by the anxiety.  I can’t find the calm.  I have no calm. But the thing is that you are not doing this alone.  Shabbat is not a place that you dwell in alone inside you.  Ot hi beyni ubeyneykhem.  It is a sign between me and you, says God.  Shabbat is that place inside where you and God meet; it is the connecting point between you.  You don’t have to invent this sense of peace on your own.  You meet God in that place inside you and allow the divine energy to strengthen you.  You have God’s own peace, God’s own stillness, to help you hold the fires, to help you stay steady in the storm of emotions that threaten to overwhelm you.  It is God in you that makes you such a burning bush that cannot be consumed.  

The Fire That We Do Have On Shabbat

We have been talking about not burning fire on shabbat, but of course, shabbat has her own fire, ner shel shabbat, the shabbat light that we kindle in our homes.   This shabbat light, this ner, this or, is of a different order from the esh, the fire, that we light for havdalah when shabbat ends.   One is light and the other is fire; one is a single pure otherworldly flame that nourishes us from within and the other is a blazing medurah, a torch of multiple wicks that acts in the world, that consumes, produces, and also destroys.   One is a white glowing light, while the other is a blazing, spitting, orange campfire, exciting, chaotic and dangerous.  

We need them both, but in order not to be consumed by the havdalah fire of this world, we need to stay centered in our own inner divine shabbat light.  Maybe you can imagine and feel that pure white shabbat light in your center, radiating outwards.  Situate yourself in its aura, and from that place, turn to face whatever wild fires are raging inside you.  Stay in the calm as you tend to those fires and make use of them in the world.  Offer them some nourishment from the steady divine shabbat light where you dwell.   Lo teva’aru esh bekhol moshvoteikhem.  Don’t let the fires consume you.   Stay in your shabbat peace.  Make that your home.  

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