Holy Work in a Material World

“Six days you shall work and do all your labor.” To Begin Picture a young married man walking around his home. He looks at his bank account. Deep in his heart, he feels that he is failing spiritually. “Here I am again, thinking about making a living. Once again the material world is ruling me.” He envies the man who can “sit and learn Torah.” He sees his own hard work as a fall, as second-best, as something he has to apologize for. He is mistaken, but not in the way he thinks. A Question: Six Days Is a Command, Not a Punishment There is a verse we read every week, and most of the time we pass right over it without stopping: “Six days you shall work and do all your labor.” This verse is not just background before the Sabbath. It is a command in its own right. In the Hebrew, “you shall work” is written in the future tense, but here it is used as a command. The Torah commands us to work, to build, to earn, and to tire out our hands in this world. If so, what is this withdrawal from the world that people wear like a cloak of Hasidic piety? What is this avoidance of earning a living that sounds like the highest spiritual goal? The Foundation: The Hammer Is Not Evil Let us make one simple point clear. Money is a vessel, a tool. It is like a hammer. A hammer is neither good nor bad. It can build houses, and it can smash them. It all depends on the hand that holds it. The same is true of the whole material world. Maimonides, the great medieval sage, writes in his laws of character traits that everything a person does should be for Hashem’s sake: his eating, his drinking, his business. This is not a command to run away from the world. It is a command to make it holy. The Tanya, the classic book of Hasidic thought, explains that most of the physical world belongs to a neutral realm. It is not truly evil. It is neutral, and the soul has the power to turn it into holiness. At its core, the material world is not the enemy. It is the battlefield, and on a battlefield you do not run away. You fight. The New Insight: Laziness with a Beard And here is the sting. A person says: “I am staying away from the material world because I am devout, because I am seeking closeness to Hashem, because I don’t want to be materialistic.” Sometimes he is telling the truth. But sometimes, only sometimes, and each person must check this honestly between himself and Hashem, he is saying something completely different. He is saying: I am afraid of the effort. I am afraid of failing. I am afraid of the hard work. And he dresses that fear in the clothing of Hasidic piety. This is what is called “laziness with a beard.” It is laziness dressed up to look holy. It is a false withdrawal from the world. It is not holiness. It is escape. As King Solomon wrote: “Go to the ant, you lazy one. Watch her ways and grow wise.” Not to the angel, but to the ant. And not because the ant is the great one of the generation, but because she works. She simply works. Our Sages teach in the Ethics of the Fathers: “Love work.” Not “put up with work.” Not “go out to work and come back to your learning.” Love it. They also teach: “Torah study is beautiful together with earning a living.” Not Torah instead of earning a living, but together with it. The two go side by side, as partners. Going Deeper: A Home for Hashem Down Here Now we come to the deepest point. What is the purpose of creation? The Tanya brings a great teaching: “Hashem desired to have a home in this lower world.” Specifically in this lower world. Not in the higher spiritual worlds, not in some hidden lofty level, but down here, in the material world, the world of invoices, mortgages and working hours. The goal is not to run away from this lower world. The goal is to turn it into a “home,” a place where Hashem can dwell. And this happens precisely through work in the material world: through honest business dealings, through earning a living for Hashem’s sake. It is no accident that even before the first sin, the Torah says of the first man: “He placed him in the Garden of Eden to work it and to guard it.” To work it. Work came before the sin. It is not the result of the sin. It has been man’s calling from the six days of creation.