Parashat Ki Tisa · Shemot (Exodus) 31:16-17
And They Shall Keep
וְשָׁמְרוּ בְנֵי־יִשְׂרָאֵל
Two verses said every Shabbat, in prayer and at Kiddush: the day is an everlasting covenant and a standing sign between God and Israel.
Before you read
For a child
Moshe is high on the mountain with Hashem. After forty days of instructions for building the Mishkan, Hashem says one last thing before giving Moshe the stone tablets: keep the Shabbat. It is the sign that we belong to Him.
For a teen
Forty days of building plans (gold, curtains, oil, exact measurements), and then, right before the tablets are handed over, God stops and says something else: keep Shabbat. Two verses, placed exactly where the holiest building project in history has to pause. They are said every Shabbat, in Maariv on Friday night and again at Kiddush in the morning, usually without anyone hearing how strange the last word is.
For an adult
These two verses close the long Mishkan section that runs through Terumah, Tetzaveh and into Ki Tisa, and they arrive just before the tablets are given, tablets that are broken in the very next scene. Placing Shabbat here is the classical source for the principle that building the Mishkan does not override Shabbat: the melachot of Shabbat are derived from that very work. The language shifts here from instruction to covenant (brit olam, ot), the vocabulary the Torah uses for the rainbow and for milah. And the section ends on vayinafash, a word applied to God that has occupied commentators from Rashi to Rambam, because on its plain reading it says something no one is comfortable saying.
Shemot 31:16
וְשָׁמְרוּ בְנֵי־יִשְׂרָאֵל אֶת־הַשַּׁבָּת לַעֲשׂוֹת אֶת־הַשַּׁבָּת לְדֹרֹתָם בְּרִית עוֹלָם׃
V'shamru v'nei Yisra'el et haShabbat, la'asot et haShabbat l'dorotam brit olam.
The children of Israel shall keep the Shabbat, to make the Shabbat throughout their generations, an everlasting covenant.
For a child
Hashem tells Moshe that Shabbat belongs to the Jewish people for ever: to us, to our children and to their children. It is not a one-time break. It is a promise that never runs out.
For a teen
Why does the verse say to make Shabbat rather than simply to rest on it? Resting is about what you stop; making is about what you build. The verse seems to be saying that a day off is not automatically a Shabbat. Somebody has to put the day together: the table, the people, the tone. Brit olam then adds the other half: this is not a personal arrangement you renew when you feel like it; it is a standing agreement, handed down l’dorotam, generation by generation.
For an adult
The doubled phrase (guard the Shabbat, in order to make the Shabbat) has carried a great deal of weight. The Talmud in Yoma 85b reads it as the source for setting aside one Shabbat so that a person may live to keep many, taking veshamru as guarding the Shabbat-keeper and not only the day. Others hear la’asot as a positive charge: the day has to be made, not merely left empty. The covenant language is deliberate; Ramban emphasises that Shabbat functions as testimony, a public statement that the world had a beginning and a Maker, which is why it is called a brit rather than simply a chok. Note that the obligation is framed l’dorotam, addressed to the chain of generations rather than to individuals, which is why Shabbat is transmitted at a table and not in a book.
Words from the verse
- וְשָׁמְרוּv'shamruand they shall keep, guardroot ש-מ-רThe same root as shomer and mishmeret: active guarding, not passive observance.
- לַעֲשׂוֹתla'asotto make, to doroot ע-שׂ-הA striking verb for a day of no melacha: the day itself is something one makes.
- לְדֹרֹתָםl'dorotamthroughout their generationsroot ד-ו-רFrom dor, a generation: the mitzvah is framed as something handed on.
- בְּרִיתbritcovenantThe same word used for the rainbow given to Noach and for milah: a bond that carries a visible sign.
Shemot 31:17
בֵּינִי וּבֵין בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל אוֹת הִוא לְעֹלָם כִּי־שֵׁשֶׁת יָמִים עָשָׂה ה׳ אֶת־הַשָּׁמַיִם וְאֶת־הָאָרֶץ וּבַיּוֹם הַשְּׁבִיעִי שָׁבַת וַיִּנָּפַשׁ׃
Beini uvein b'nei Yisra'el ot hi l'olam, ki sheshet yamim asa Adonai et hashamayim v'et ha'aretz, uvayom hashvi'i shavat vayinafash.
Between Me and the children of Israel it is a sign for ever, for in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day He ceased and took breath.
For a child
Hashem made the whole world in six days, and on the seventh He stopped. When we stop too, everyone can see who we belong to. The last word means He took a breath, the way you breathe out when you finally sit down.
For a teen
The word at the end, vayinafash, is the hard one. It comes from nefesh, breath or soul, and it means something like He caught His breath, which sounds impossible to say about God, who does not get tired. Rashi answers plainly: God, of whom it is written that He neither tires nor wearies, describes rest for Himself in order to speak in words a human ear can take in. Which means the word is there for you, not for Him: it is telling you what the seventh day is supposed to do to a person.
For an adult
Vayinafash is the crux. Rashi derives it from nefesh, one who restores his soul and his breath after the strain of work, and adds that the One of whom Yeshayahu says He neither tires nor wearies ascribes rest to Himself in order to speak in terms the ear can absorb. Rambam, in the Moreh, treats such language about God as borrowed from human experience and warns against reading it literally; the anthropomorphism is a concession to language, not a description. The Talmud in Beitzah 16a hears something else in the word: Reish Lakish links shavat vayinafash to the neshama yeteira, the additional soul granted on Shabbat and withdrawn when it ends. Note also that shavat means ceased rather than rested: Shabbat is named for stopping, and the refreshment is what stopping produces, not a synonym for it.
Words from the verse
- אוֹתota signThe same word as the sign of the rainbow and of tefillin: something visible that stands for an agreement.
- שָׁבַתshavatHe ceased, stoppedroot ש-ב-תThe noun Shabbat is built from this verb: the day is named for stopping, not for resting.
- וַיִּנָּפַשׁvayinafashand He took breath, was refreshedroot נ-פ-שׁBuilt on nefesh, soul or breath; modern Hebrew nofesh, a holiday, comes from the same root.
- בֵּינִיbeinibetween MeThe verse is phrased as a relationship between two parties, not as a rule imposed on one.
What to take away
For a child
This Shabbat, look around the table when the candles are lit. Hashem picked this day to share with you, and He left it for you to make. Pick one small thing that happens only on Shabbat in your house (a song, a story, a game) and make sure it happens.
For a teen
The verse does not say “endure Shabbat”; it says “make it”. That means the day is not finished when the phone goes down; that is only the clearing of the space. Choose one thing this week that will fill it (a meal you actually stay at, a walk with someone, ten minutes of learning you picked yourself) and put it in on purpose. And notice what the word vayinafash is offering you: not collapse, but breath coming back. You are allowed to end Shabbat with more in you than you started with.
For an adult
Take the two verbs seriously this week. Veshamru asks for guarding: deciding on Friday afternoon what will not be touched, rather than negotiating with yourself at nine in the evening. La’asot asks for building: one thing that makes the day itself rather than merely the absence of the week, such as a table you sit at until the food is cold, a fixed seder of learning or an hour with a child that is not squeezed in. And let vayinafash set the standard. If Shabbat leaves you only unexhausted, something has been guarded but not made. Aim to walk into Sunday with breath returned, which is what the verse claims the day is for.
A question to sit with
For a child
What is one thing that happens in your house only on Shabbat, and never on any other day?
For a teen
The verse says to make Shabbat, not only to stop working. If stopping is the empty space, what would you actually put into it, and what stops you from putting it there?
For an adult
A sign is something visible; a covenant is something two sides hold to. If somebody watched your Shabbat from outside, without hearing a word of explanation, what would it be a sign of? And where in the day, honestly, does vayinafash happen for you: the point at which breath comes back rather than merely runs out?
The verses are from Miqra according to the Masorah (Wikisource, CC BY-SA 4.0), via Sefaria, without the cantillation marks. On this site the four-letter Name is written ה׳.
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