Sanhedrin 101

11:
The account of the creation in Genesis was influenced by the creation sagas of other ancient religions. But, as Professor Umberto Cassuto emphasized in his magnificent commentary to parts of Genesis, what is noteworthy is how the Torah is so very different from the other sagas. [Umberto – Moshe David – Cassuto (Italy and Eretz-Israel 1883-1951) was Professor of Bible at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem from 1939.] Where the Babylonian Enuma Elish, for example, sees the universe as having come about because of friction and killing among the various gods, the Torah emphasizes that the universe came into being by the fiat of one supreme and unique Deity; that it was created in an orderly fashion according to a preconceived plan; that it is "good" (i.e. accords with the Divine purpose); and that it is complete and whole.

12:
In his great work on Jewish religious philosophy, "The Guide for the Perplexed", Rambam [Moses Maimonides, North Africa, 12th century CE] emphasizes this last point.

14:
We should note here that two terms are habitually mistranslated into English, and therefore generally misunderstood. God did not "rest" on His Shabbat, He "ceased", "desisted", "stopped". (In modern Hebrew the word for a workers' strike comes from the same root.) Secondly, it was not from "work" that God ceased, but from creative activity: the Torah does not use the Hebrew word for work, Avodah, but uses another term, Melakhah. When they came to interpret and elaborate on the dictates of the Torah, the sages had to address the important issue of how the term Melakhah, in the context of Shabbat, is to be defined and understood.

15:
When Moses instructs the Israelites concerning the construction of the Mishkan, the tabernacle where the Divine Presence would be felt, he juxtaposes this task with a warning not to engage in the erection of the Mishkan on Shabbat. The introduction of this caveat at this point is so remarkable that the sages saw in it two cognate ideas. In an extended passage in the book of Exodus [25:1-31:11] Moses is instructed how the Mishkan, its furniture and appurtenances are to be constructed. Chapter 32 leaves this theme completely and describes the apostasy of the Golden Calf. Thus Exodus 31:12-17 must be seen as the culmination of the instructions connected with the Mishkan:

16:
It is not surprising, therefore, that the sages saw in the construction of the Mishkan the fundamental definition of Melakhah. Any activity that had to be done in order to construct, erect and maintain the Mishkan must be understood as Melakhah, for the construction of the Mishkan was the most noble creative activity that the Israelites were to engage in. A very careful analysis of that process yielded up thirty-nine activities that may be considered Melakhah in connection with Shabbat – they and all secondary and derivative activities that stem from them or are an extrapolation of one or more of them. These thirty-nine Melakhot are detailed by the Mishnah in Tractate Shabbat, Chapter Seven, Mishnah 2. I shall not detail them here, since they are not germane to the understanding of our present Mishnah; but I shall briefly indicate their scope. It is my personal belief that they may be subsumed under three headings:

1. Activities in connection with providing food and sustenance – eleven Melakhot that are involved with the production of bread from the moment of ploughing to the moment of baking.
2. Activities in connection with providing shelter and warmth – twenty-seven Melakhot that are involved with the production of a primitive shelter from the trapping of an animal for its hide down to putting out the fire which has warmed us.
3. Activities in connection with social cohesion – one Melakhah.

I repeat: the three headings above have no direct connection with the building of the Mishkan and they are therefore purely my personal observation.

17:
In his magnum opus on Halakhah, Mishneh Torah, Rambam commences his exposition of the laws of Shabbat as follows:

To be continued.