Omer Week 6 - Working 6 Days

(15) God יהוה settled the Human in the garden of Eden, to work it and keep it. (16) And God יהוה commanded the Human, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you are free to eat;

(17) To Adam [God] said, “Because you did as your wife said and ate of the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ Cursed be the ground because of you;

By hard labor shall you eat of it

All the days of your life: (18) Thorns and thistles shall it sprout for you.

But your food shall be the grasses of the field;

(19) By the sweat of your brow

Shall you get bread to eat,

Until you return to the ground—

For from it you were taken.

For dust you are,

And to dust you shall return.”

(10) Shemaiah and Abtalion received [the oral tradition] from them. Shemaiah used to say: love work, hate acting the superior, and do not attempt to draw near to the ruling authority.

(2) "Love work": Even if you have enough to sustain yourself, you are obligated to work, as idleness leads to distraction (Ketuvot 59b)

Love work.” How so? This teaches us that a person should love work, and not hate work. For just as the Torah was given in a covenant, so work was given in a covenant, as it says (Exodus 20:10), “For six days you shall labor and do all your work, and the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Eternal your God.” Rabbi Akiva would say: Sometimes a person labors and escapes death, and sometimes a person does not labor and becomes liable for death from Heaven. How so? Say a person sat around all week and did no labor, and then on the eve of the Sabbath he had nothing to eat. But he had money that had been designated [to the Temple] in his house. So he took from this and ate, and thus became liable to death from Heaven. However, if he had labored on the building of the Temple, then even though they paid him in money designated for the Temple and he took that money and used it for food, he would still escape the death penalty.
Rabbi Dostai would say: How do we know that if someone did no work all six days, he will end up doing work on the seventh? For, see, if he sat all the days of the week and did no work, and then on the eve of the Sabbath he had nothing to eat, he would then go out looking, and end up seized by conscription officers, who would grab him by the collar and force him to do on the Sabbath all the work that he did not do for six days.
Rabbi Shimon ben Elazar would say: Even Adam did not taste anything until he worked, as it says (Genesis 2:15–16), “And God placed him in the garden, to work it and guard it”; and then [it says (verse 17)], “From every tree of the garden you may certainly eat.”
Rabbi Tarfon would say: Even the Holy Blessed One did not rest His presence upon Israel until they had done work, as it says (Exodus 25:5), “Make Me a Sanctuary, and I will dwell among them.”
Rabbi Yehudah ben Beteira would say: If someone who has no work to do, what should he do? If he has a dilapidated yard or field, he should go and work on them, as it says (Exodus 20:10), “Six days you shall labor and do all your work.” What do we learn from the phrase, “do all your work”? That even someone who has dilapidated yards or fields should work on them.
Rabbi Yosei HaGalili would say: A person dies only because of idleness, as it says (Genesis 49:33), “And he expired [or: exhausted himself], and so was gathered to his people.”1It does not say that Jacob “died,” only that he was “gathered to his people.” Rabbi Yosei is reading that as a reward for “exhausting himself,” i.e., not being idle. And see, if someone is pushed and falls over on his own craftwork and dies, we know his death was because of idleness. And if he was standing on the top of the roof, the top of a palace, or the top of any building, or at the edge of the river, and he fell and died, we know his death was because of idleness.
All this we know to be true for men. And how do we know it is also true for women? For it says (Exodus 36:6), “Let no man or woman do any more work for the donations to the Sanctuary.” And how do we know it is true also for children? For it says (there), “So the people stopped bringing.”
Rabbi Natan said: When Moses was carrying out the work of the Tabernacle, he did not want to take direction from the chiefs of Israel. So the chiefs of Israel sat there quietly and said: Perhaps now Moses will need our help. When they heard the announcement in the camp that said enough work had been done, they said: Alas, we have not participated at all in the work of the Tabernacle! So they got up and added a great thing by themselves, as it says (Exodus 35:27), “And the chiefs brought the shoham stones [for the breastplate of the high priest].”

And Rav Zutra bar Toviya said that Rav said: What is the meaning of that which is written: “God has made everything beautiful in its time...” (Ecclesiastes 3:11)? This teaches that each and every individual, God has made their work pleasant for them in his own eyes. Rav Pappa said: This is the proverb that people say: Hang a heart of palm on a pig, and he will continue to act as normal.