“Moshe commanded and they thereupon had this proclamation made throughout the camp: ‘Let no man or woman make further effort…’” (Shemos 36:6)

In English the concept of doing “melacha” on Shabbos is generally translated as doing “work”. When one studies the halachos, one becomes aware that that translation is a little inaccurate, and a better translation would be doing “creative work”. While moving heavy objects may burn many calories, it is not called a melacha regardless of how difficult and strenuous the work might be. A melacha is defined as a creative activity which moves an object from one state to a (more) useful state, improving the object.

The commentators refer to the melacha of hotzaa (moving an object from one domain to another) as a melacha garua (a melacha of lessor caliber) and the reason is because moving an object between domains is not really doing much creatively. The gemora tells us (Shabbos 96b) that we learn from the verse quoted above the prohibition of carrying on Shabbos. Reb Yaakov Kamenetsky questions why the melacha of carrying wasn’t given together with the other Shabbos melachos? He answers based on the concept of what the mishkan represents. Boundaries define places and tell us where one place starts and one ends. I recall as a small child asking my teacher in school when learning the map of the United States, “How come the lines between the states are jagged? Why didn’t they just make a straight line across the territory? (At that young age I didn’t realize that teachers didn’t know the answers to all questions). As I got older, I realized that in many instances, topography, which includes the natural physical features of territories, caused the boundaries to be drawn. For instance, as I travel from Beit Shemesh to Jerusalem I am constantly reminded of the unbelievably drastic change that occurs at Shaar Hagai. That gas station is at the foot of a mountain range, and from there to Jerusalem is all mountains and the road transverses them going up and down. Yet from there to the Mediterranean is more or less flat. Indeed, in Hebrew, these lands are called the sh’feila – the flatlands.

I heard my Rosh Yeshiva explain why there are mountains and valleys in the world. He quoted a sefer that explains that in the map in Heaven, the topography is built around the amount of kedusha there are in different places. As the Maharal teaches us, every place of kedusha must be guarded and covered. Thus, every place where there is a mountain, it is a sign that there is kedusha in that place. So, the topographical map of the world is actually flat – it is the coverings of the kedusha that make its physical appearance irregular.

However, things changed after the mishkan was created.  The home of the Shechina became physically expressed, causing the idea of domains to become prominent. This was the groundwork necessary to create the prohibition of carrying between domains. Places changed from being mere points on a map, to each having its own spiritual character.

Similarly, the gemara tells us that even though an am ha’aretz may lie during the week, he won’t lie on Shabbos due to the fear of Shabbos. The Chofetz Chaim also put great emphasis on doing mitzvos and learning Torah on Shabbos, since the day is holier, thereby causing one to reach greater heights doing these mitzvos on Shabbos. Yes, there are boundaries, not only on place, but in time as well.

In American Suburbia, there is a zone for the home, another zone for the mandatory front yard in front of the home, and then another zone for the street. Each of those zones have different halachic terms and parameters.

As we see in the parsha, everyone gathered together to learn the laws of Shabbos. We learned that there are differences not only in time between the six days of the week and the seventh day, but differences between places as well. Once this lesson is in understood, it should be obvious to all of us that davening at home, davening in a courtyard, davening in the street, and davening in the shul are not all the same. The more we strive to have kedushas hamakom in the place of our prayer, the closer that place will be to the ultimate kedusha, and possibly our yearning for kedushas hamakom will bear fruit shortly in our days.