Day #39–Rambam DAILY Sefer HaMitzvos

day number 39 of our daily study of ramam Savar Mitzvahs and we are continuing in the laws of Shabbos in our daily study of three chapters of mishna and we have a new Mitzvah but we have a new Mitzvah even though we're continuing with Shabbos we have a new Mitzvah and here it is negative commandment now it's a negative commandment number we usually translate as labor probably it's more accurately a creative act and let's talk about what malacha is and where we know it from it actually is in today's three chapters of rambam where we're doing chapters six seven and eight so in chapter seven it begins to go through the 39 forms of malacha of prohibited labor or create creative Acts um where do we derive those from the building of the mishkan the sanctuary in the desert when the Jewish people were in the desert after they left Egypt before they landed entered the promised land so they had a temporary structure um called the mishkan and whatever labor was involved in building that structure that is what constitutes creative work that is prohibited on Shabbos so what does that tell you that tells you that during the six days when we are working we are building a mishkan a sanctuary to Hashem you know what the difference is though that in the wilderness they built one very specific spot to be Hashem Sanctuary but the sanctuary that we're working on now is to turn the entire world into hashem's Sanctuary through using material resources for the sake of heaven and refining them and uplifting them and turning them into Holiness instead of being mundane we we make them holy and then we turn the entire physical world into a dwelling place for Hashem that's a little mystical insight into this concept at any rate that negative commandment 320 the prohibition against labor that is distinct from the Mitzvah that we had the past couple of days which was the positive version of that remember we had positive commandment 154 which was Tish bites to rest so sometimes you'll have this in Toyota where you'll have a positive and a negative version of the same essential commandment in other words they're both describing basically the same thing but there is the positive and negative aspect of it so that by resting on Shabbos one is both adhering to a Prohibition as well as performing a positive commandment okay we're gonna see you again tomorrow for more Shabbos God willing