(א) בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה ה' אֱ-להֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעולָם אֲשֶׁר קִדְּשָׁנוּ בְּמִצְותָיו וְצִוָּנוּ לַעֲסוק בְּדִבְרֵי תורָה:
Blessed are You, Eternal our God, Source of the Universe, Who has sanctified us with commandments and commanded us to be involved with words of Torah.
(1) Moses then convoked the whole Israelite community and said to them: These are the things that Hashem has commanded you to do: (2) On six days work may be done, but on the seventh day you shall have a sabbath of complete rest, holy to Hashem; whoever does any work on it shall be put to death. (3) You shall kindle no fire throughout your settlements on the sabbath day. (4) Moses said further to the whole community of Israelites: This is what Hashem has commanded: (5) Take from among you gifts to Hashem; everyone whose heart so moves him shall bring them—gifts for Hashem: gold, silver, and copper; (6) blue, purple, and crimson yarns, fine linen, and goats’ hair; (7) tanned ram skins, dolphin skins, and acacia wood; (8) oil for lighting, spices for the anointing oil and for the aromatic incense; (9) lapis lazuli and other stones for setting, for the ephod and the breastpiece. (10) And let all among you who are skilled come and make all that Hashem has commanded: (11) the Tabernacle, its tent and its covering, its clasps and its planks, its bars, its posts, and its sockets; (12) the ark and its poles, the cover, and the curtain for the screen; (13) the table, and its poles and all its utensils; and the bread of display; (14) the lampstand for lighting, its furnishings and its lamps, and the oil for lighting; (15) the altar of incense and its poles; the anointing oil and the aromatic incense; and the entrance screen for the entrance of the Tabernacle; (16) the altar of burnt offering, its copper grating, its poles, and all its furnishings; the laver and its stand; (17) the hangings of the enclosure, its posts and its sockets, and the screen for the gate of the court; (18) the pegs for the Tabernacle, the pegs for the enclosure, and their cords; (19) the service vestments for officiating in the sanctuary, the sacral vestments of Aaron the priest and the vestments of his sons for priestly service.
(1) ששת ימים SIX DAYS [MAY WORK BE DONE] — [God] intentionally mentioned to them the prohibition in reference to the Sabbath before the command about the building of the Tabernacle in order to intimate that it does not set aside (supersede) the Sabbath (cf. Mekhilta d'Rabbi Yishmael 35:1:1).
... וטעם אומרו ששת ולא בששת כדי שלא תטעה כי יש מצוה בעשיית מלאכה בהם. (ג) עוד ירמוז כי לא יקומו ששת ימים במלאכתם אשר הכינם ה' לעשות אלא אם יום השביעי יהיה לכם קדש אבל אם לא ישמרו שבת לא יהיו הששת ימים כי שבת הוא נפש קיום העולם, וכמו שהקדמנו בפרשת בראשית בפירוש פסוק (ב' ב') ויכל וגו' ביום השביעי יע''ש:
.... The reason the Torah writes ששת instead of בששת, is to remind us that work performance during the six days of the week is a מצוה, a positive commandment. (3) There is also a lesson here that the success of the work performed during the six days of the week depends on the observance of the seventh day as a holy day. The reason is that the Sabbath is the soul of the world as we explained in our introduction to Genesis on Genesis 2,2.
(20) So the whole community of the Israelites left Moses’ presence. (21) And everyone who excelled in ability and everyone whose spirit moved him came, bringing to the LORD his offering for the work of the Tent of Meeting and for all its service and for the sacral vestments. (22) Men and women, all whose hearts moved them, all who would make an elevation offering of gold to the LORD, came bringing brooches, earrings, rings, and pendants—gold objects of all kinds. (23) And everyone who had in his possession blue, purple, and crimson yarns, fine linen, goats’ hair, tanned ram skins, and dolphin skins, brought them; (24) everyone who would make gifts of silver or copper brought them as gifts for the LORD; and everyone who had in his possession acacia wood for any work of the service brought that. (25) And all the skilled women spun with their own hands, and brought what they had spun, in blue, purple, and crimson yarns, and in fine linen. (26) And all the women who excelled in that skill spun the goats’ hair. (27) And the chieftains brought lapis lazuli and other stones for setting, for the ephod and for the breastpiece; (28) and spices and oil for lighting, for the anointing oil, and for the aromatic incense. (29) Thus the Israelites, all the men and women whose hearts moved them to bring anything for the work that the LORD, through Moses, had commanded to be done, brought it as a freewill offering to the LORD. (30) And Moses said to the Israelites: See, the LORD has singled out by name Bezalel, son of Uri son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah. (31) He has endowed him with a divine spirit of skill, ability, and knowledge in every kind of craft (32) and has inspired him to make designs for work in gold, silver, and copper, (33) to cut stones for setting and to carve wood—to work in every kind of designer’s craft— (34) and to give directions. He and Oholiab son of Ahisamach of the tribe of Dan (35) have been endowed with the skill to do any work—of the carver, the designer, the embroiderer in blue, purple, crimson yarns, and in fine linen, and of the weaver—as workers in all crafts and as makers of designs. (1) Let, then, Bezalel and Oholiab and all the skilled persons whom the LORD has endowed with skill and ability to perform expertly all the tasks connected with the service of the sanctuary carry out all that the LORD has commanded. (2) Moses then called Bezalel and Oholiab, and every skilled person whom the LORD had endowed with skill, everyone who excelled in ability, to undertake the task and carry it out. (3) They took over from Moses all the gifts that the Israelites had brought, to carry out the tasks connected with the service of the sanctuary. But when these continued to bring freewill offerings to him morning after morning, (4) all the artisans who were engaged in the tasks of the sanctuary came, each from the task upon which he was engaged, (5) and said to Moses, “The people are bringing more than is needed for the tasks entailed in the work that the LORD has commanded to be done.” (6) Moses thereupon had this proclamation made throughout the camp: “Let no man or woman make further effort toward gifts for the sanctuary!” So the people stopped bringing: (7) their efforts had been more than enough for all the tasks to be done. (8) Then all the skilled among those engaged in the work made the Tabernacle of ten strips of cloth, which they made of fine twisted linen, blue, purple, and crimson yarns; into these they worked a design of cherubim.
The journey the Israelites take is, crucially, from one building project to another. They are transformed from slaves of an earthly ruler to servants of a Heavenly One. Freedom, as imagined by the book of Exodus, is decidedly not about casting off the burdens of service altogether. In fact, it says a great deal about our secularized society that while we often cite the demand that Pharaoh “let my people go!” we usually omit the telos of that call, “that they may serve Me.” The Torah is passionately concerned with a journey from slavery to freedom, but it imagines freedom in ways that are different from (one is tempted to say antithetical to) the ways freedom is commonly spoken of in contemporary consumerist America. Doing whatever I want, whenever I want, is arguably not freedom at all, but enslavement to impulse. The depths of freedom are discovered not in self-assertion but in rare moments of authentic self-transcendence. Authentic freedom, Jewish theology insists, is found in service of something (and Someone) greater than oneself.