Shabbat, first day or last? In the immensely lengthy and detailed accounting of the making of the Mishkan, the tabernacle, the Torah tells the story twice, first in Truman Tsatsava's divine instruction, then in Vayakel and Pekudea's human implementation. In both cases, the construction of the building is juxtaposed

to the command of Shabbat. And there are, of course, halapik and theological implications.

First, according to Jewish tradition, the juxtaposition was intended to establish the rule

that Shabbat overrides the making of the tabernacle. Not only

it's the seventh day of time when secular work comes to an end, it also brings rest from

the holiest of labors, making a house for God. Indeed, the oral tradition defines work,

Malachah, which is forbidden on Shabbat, in terms of the 39 activities involved in making the sanctuary.

At a more metaphysical level, the sanctuary mirrors, in fact is the human counterpart to the divine creation of the universe.

Just as divine creation culminates in Shabbat, so human creation the sanctity of place take second

position to the holiness of time however there is one marked difference between

the account of God's instruction to build the sanctuary and Moses instruction to

the people in the first case the command of Shabbat appears at the end

after the details of the construction,

that's in our Parasha.

But in the second case, the beginning of Vayaquel,

Shabbat appears at the beginning,

before the details of the sanctuary.

Why so? The Gemara in Shabbat raises the following question.

What happens if you're far away from human habitation and you forget what day it is? And there's no one

around to ask. How do you observe Shabbat? The Gmara offers two answers.

Rab Khoneh says if you're traveling on a road or in a wilderness and you don't know when it's Shabbat,

you count six days from the day you realize that you've forgotten, and then you observe the seventh day of Shabbat.

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