Vayakhel

[4] Then Moses told them to collect gifts of materials from those whose heart so moved them—gifts of gold, silver, copper, colored yarns, fine linen, goats hair, tanned ram skins, acacia wood, olive oil, spices, lapis lazuli, and other stones.

[7] In the third reading (עליה‎, aliyah), Moses announced that God had singled out Bezalel and Oholiab to endow them with the skills needed to construct the Tabernacle.

[16] The parashah has parallels in these ancient sources: Noting that Sargon of Akkad was the first to use a seven-day week, Professor Gregory S. Aldrete of the University of Wisconsin–Green Bay speculated that the Israelites may have adopted the idea from the Akkadian Empire.

Numbers 15:32–33 reports that when the Israelites came upon a man gathering wood on Shabbat, apparently with the intent to fuel a fire, they brought him before Moses, Aaron, and the community and placed him in custody, "because it had not been declared what should be done to him.

"[19] Clearing up any uncertainty about whether the man had violated the law and what punishment should be given, God told Moses that the whole community was to pelt him with stones outside the camp, which they did.

Exodus 38:8 reports that Bezalel made the bronze laver and its base from "the mirrors of the serving women who did service at the door of the tent of meeting."

The parashah has parallels or is discussed in these early nonrabbinic sources:[22] 1 Maccabees tells a story related to the Sabbath.

Verses 2:27–38 told how in the 2nd century BCE, many followers of the pious Jewish priest Mattathias rebelled against the Seleucid emperor Antiochus IV Epiphanes.

[23] Josephus wrote that when the Israelites brought together the materials with great diligence, Moses set architects over the works by the command of God.

Rav Huna argued that since Exodus 35:3 says only "throughout your habitations," the priests could kindle the pile in the Temple chamber of the hearth (even on the Sabbath).

Rather, Rav Ḥisda taught that Exodus 35:3 permits only the burning of the limbs and the fat (of animals sacrificed on Friday before nightfall).

But an elder told her that one may kindle when one chooses, provided that one does not light too early (as it would not evidently honor the Sabbath) or too late (later than just before nightfall).

Rabbi Levi taught that the Israelites cut the trees down in Magdala of the Dyers near Tiberias and brought them with them to Egypt, and no knot or crack was found in them.

And Exodus 31:1–2 shows that God proclaims a good leader, when it says: "And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ‘See I have called by name Bezalel, the son of Uri.'"

Samuel ben Nahman said in the name of Johanan that Bezalel (בְּצַלְאֵל‎, whose name can be read בְּצֵל אֶל‎, betzel El, "in the shadow of God") was so called because of his wisdom.

And then Bezalel came and healed the wound (and the construction of the Tabernacle made atonement for the sins of the people in making the Golden Calf).

"[47] Exodus 35:30 identifies Bezalel's grandfather as Hur, whom either Abba Arikha or Samuel deduced was the son of Miriam and Caleb.

Deducting two years for the three pregnancies needed to create the three intervening generations, the Gemara concluded that each of Caleb, Hur, and Uri must have conceived his son at the age of eight.

The Midrash told that when the Israelites were suffering hard labor in Egypt, Pharaoh decreed that they should not sleep at home or have sexual relations with their wives.

The Israelite women would sell some of the fish, cook some of them, buy wine with the proceeds, and go out to the work fields to feed their husbands.

[55] The parashah is discussed in these medieval Jewish sources:[56] In the Zohar, Rabbi Jose expounded on Exodus 35:10: "And let every wise-hearted man among you come and make all that the Lord has commanded."

[58] But the mid-20th-century Italian-Israeli scholar Umberto Cassuto, formerly of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, argued that this conjecture was ignorant of ancient Eastern literary style.

[59] Professor James Kugel of Bar Ilan University wrote that the detailed account must have held a fascination for ancient Israelites who viewed the Tabernacle as highly significant, as the structure that allowed God to reside in the midst of humankind for the first time since the Garden of Eden.

[60] And Gunther Plaut cautioned not to approach Exodus 35–39 with modern stylistic prejudices, arguing that a person of the ancient Near East—who was primarily a listener, not a reader—found repetition a welcome way of supporting familiarity with the text, giving assurance that the tradition had been faithfully transmitted.

[61] Plaut noted that this important chapter in Israel's wilderness story—the order to construct the Tabernacle—begins in Exodus 35:1 with the words "Moses then convoked" (וַיַּקְהֵל מֹשֶׁה‎, vayakheil Mosheh), heralding the conclusion of the cycle of apostasy and reconciliation that started in Exodus 32:1 with a word with the same spelling and root, "the people gathered themselves" (וַיִּקָּהֵל הָעָם‎, vayikheil ha-am).

Sarna wrote that it was probably to demonstrate opposition to the early Karaite view that the Rabbis mandated lighting candles on Friday nights, and to that end, the Geonim (the post-Talmudic heads of the Babylonian academies) instituted the recital of a blessing over them.

[63] Plaut argued that Exodus 35:3 includes the words "throughout your settlements" to make clear that the injunction not to kindle fire on the Sabbath applied not only to the primary prohibition during the building of the Tabernacle, but also in general.

[64] In 1950, the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards of Conservative Judaism ruled: “Refraining from the use of a motor vehicle is an important aid in the maintenance of the Sabbath spirit of repose.

[66] Jeffrey Tigay, Professor Emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania, argued that the word עֲבֹדָה‎, avodah, in Exodus 35:21, translated as "service" in the New Jewish Publication Society translation (as well as in Exodus 27:19; 30:16; 35:24; 36:1, 3, 5; and 39:40) is better rendered "labor" (referring to construction), as the materials contributed were for the construction of the Tabernacle, not for the worship that would be conducted there afterwards.

This table translates units of weight used in the Bible into their modern equivalents:[68] According to Maimonides and Sefer ha-Chinuch, there is one negative commandment in the parashah:[69] Following the Kabbalat Shabbat prayer service and prior to the Friday evening (Ma'ariv) service, Jews traditionally read rabbinic sources on the observance of the Sabbath, starting with Mishnah Shabbat 2:5.