For seven days, beginning on the 23rd of Adar, Aaron consecrated the Kohanim (Priests), initiating them into the role which they were about to assume (Leviticus 8:33). Each day Moshe constructed the Mishkan (the Tabernacle), preparing for its service, and then took it down again.
And now, Parashat Shmini opens on the eighth day, the 1st of Nissan:
“It happened on the eighth day: Moshe called to Aaron and his sons, and to the Elders of Israel; and he said to Aaron, Take to yourself a bull-calf as a sin-offering, and a ram as a burnt-offering – unblemished – and sacrifice them before Hashem” (Leviticus 9:1).
Many commentators, going all the way back to Rabbi Ya’akov ben Rabbi Asi in the Midrash (Tanhuma, Pekuddey 2), have noted the many parallels between the construction of the Mishkan and the Creation:
The Creation opens with the words “In the beginning G-d created the Heavens and the Earth”, which the Psalmist lyricises with the words “Who stretches forth the heavens like a curtain” (Psalms 104:2); and parallel to this, “You shall make curtains of goat-hair for a tent over the Mishkan” (Exodus 26:7).
On the second day of Creation “G-d said: Let there be a firmament…which will divide between waters and waters” (Genesis 1:6), and parallel to this, “You shall put the Veil…and the Veil will divide between the Holy and the Holy of Holies” (Exodus 26:33).
On completing Creation, “G-d saw all that He had made, and behold it was very good” (Genesis 1:31), and paralleling this “Moshe saw all the skilled work, and behold they had done it; as Hashem had commanded it they had done” (Exodus 39:43).
Summing up Creation, the Torah says “The Heavens and the earth and all their hosts were completed” (Genesis 2:1), and summing up the construction of the Mishkan the Torah says “All the work of the Mishkan of the Tent of Meeting was completed” (Exodus 39:32); for Creation the Torah uses the word וַיְכֻלּוּ, and for the Mishkan it uses the word וַתֵּכֶל, both the same root.
“And G-d completed all the work that he had done” (Genesis 2:2), which parallels “And Moshe completed the work” (Exodus 40:33).
As the crowning splendour of Creation, “G-d blessed the seventh day” (Genesis 2:3), just as “Moshe blessed them” (Exodus 39:43). And following this, “G-d sanctified it” (Genesis 2:3), just as G-d commanded Moshe “You shall sanctify it and all its vessels” (Exodus 40:9).
There is far more, but we have established the principle that constructing the Mishkan paralleled the Creation.
Nevertheless, I note a crucial difference: the Creation took six says, and on the seventh day, Shabbat, G-d ceased from His labour. Indeed, upon completing His instructions to Moshe on constructing the Mishkan, G-d added the injunction, “The Children of Israel shall keep the Shabbat…because in six days Hashem made the Heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day He ceased from labour and was infused with spirituality” (Exodus 31: 16-17).
But the construction of the Mishkan lasted 7 days, and only on the eighth day did it begin to function.
This seems to be a major difference between the Creation and the construction of the Mishkan, until we understand that the Creation did actually last seven days. It might appear that on that first Shabbat, G-d did not create anything, because Creation was already complete – but this is an error:
“On the seventh day He ceased from labour and was infused with spirituality”, because the usual translation “He rested and was refreshed” is hopelessly inadequate and misleading. The verb שבת, the root of “Shabbat”, most emphatically does not mean “to rest”. It is a far more active verb than simply “resting”: it connotes actively ceasing from work.
(In modern Hebrew it means “to go on strike” – not taking a vacation, not resting, but actively ceasing from work.)
Likewise the verb וַיִּנָּפַֽשׁ does not mean “was refreshed”. From the root נפש, meaning “soul”, it connotes being infused with spirituality. There is no English word that adequately translates it.
So on the sixth day G-d completed the physical Creation. What was still missing was the spiritual component – and that was what G-d created on the seventh day.
So the Creation with both aspects, the physical and the spiritual together, was completed on the seventh day, the first Shabbat.
And then, on the eighth day, the first day of the week, the first Sunday, Adam and Eve could start working the world that G-d had created for them.
Just as on the eighth day, the Children of Israel could start serving G-d in the Mishkan.
Ever since the yearly cycle of Torah readings was standardised towards the end of the Second Temple era, and the fixed calendar as calculated by Hillel II (Hillel ben Yehudah, Nasi or head of the Sanhedrin) was adopted in 4119 (359 C.E.), in non-leap years (as this year 5785 is) we invariably read Parashat Sh’mini on the Shabbat immediately after Pesach.
And the postscript to Pesach brings us to the power of the eighth day:
The three angels in the guise of men appeared to Abraham and Sarah (Genesis 18) on the 15th of Nissan. One of the angels announced to them that Sarah would give birth one year later, meaning that Yitzchak was born on the 15th of Nissan.
G-d had informed Abram, before he was yet Abraham, that his descendants would be “strangers in a land not theirs…for 400 years” (Genesis 15:13); and the Exodus from Egypt happened 400 years to the day after Yitzchak was born.
So the day that Yitzchak was born, the 15th of Nissan, was the day that was destined to become the first day of Pesach.
The Exodus from Egypt happened on the 1st day of Pesach, and the Splitting of the Red Sea happened on the seventh day, the 21st of Nissan: the Torah does not tell us explicitly when the Splitting of the Sea happened, but our Tradition records it (vide Seder Olam Rabbah 5).
This means that the Children of Israel’s first complete day free from even the threat of the Egyptians was the eighth day after the Exodus, the 22nd of Nissan (in Israel Isru Chag, outside of Israel the extra Festival day).
This was the eighth day of Yitzchak’s life – the day on which his father Abraham circumcised him (Genesis 21:4), the day he entered into the Covenant with G-d and became complete.
This is the power of the eighth day:
The eighth day of Creation, the day when the world is complete both physically and spiritually.
The eighth day of life, the day when the Jewish baby boy is complete both physically and spiritually.
The eighth day after the Exodus, when the Nation of Israel became completely liberated from Egypt.
The eighth day of consecrating the Mishkan, when the Nation of Israel began serving G-d with sacrifices.