Vayakhel: Begin with Shabbat: In Memory of Ted Comet, z”l
(click here for videos from the recent celebration of Ted’s 100th birthday: https://tinyurl.com/TedComet100 )
This week, we turn to Parashat Vayakhel, a portion filled with details of the Mishkan’s construction, its sacred furnishings, and the garments of the priests. These instructions follow the devastating episode of the Golden Calf, reminding us that even after our gravest mistakes, we can rebuild, we can rededicate, we can return. But before we return to work, we begin with Shabbat.
This placement of Shabbat is striking. In the earlier instructions about the Mishkan (Parashat Terumah and Tetzaveh), the laws of Shabbat come at the end. But in Vayakhel, after the rupture of the Golden Calf, Shabbat comes first. Why the shift?
Both Rabbi Tali Adler and Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, z”l, teach that this order is no accident. In Terumah, the message is clear: first, build, then rest. Six days of work, then Shabbat. But in Vayakhel, post-calamity, post-heartbreak, we begin with Shabbat. We reorient by remembering who we are. Before we lift a single tool, we pause. Before we rebuild, we remind ourselves why we build in the first place.
The Talmud (Shabbat 69b) debates a fundamental question: if a person loses track of time, how do they find Shabbat? One view says to count six days and then rest. The other says: start with Shabbat, then count. One reflects the world’s creation — work comes first, then the gift of rest. The other reflects the human experience — Adam and Eve were born on the sixth day and immediately entered Shabbat. From the human perspective, our very existence begins with sacred pause.
Ted Comet, z”l, a legend of Jewish communal life, understood this deeply. As the creator of New York City’s Israel Parade, a passionate advocate for Soviet Jewry in the 1960s, as a force of love and resilience in the Jewish world, he showed us how to build. But his work was never just about the structures, the events, or the projects — even the stunning five tapestries created in the late 1960s by his beloved wife Shoshana z”l that he constantly and passionately shared with countless visitors to his home — it was always about the soul of our people. Like Shabbat before the Mishkan, Ted taught us that before we build, we must connect, we must dream, we must love. May his memory be forever blessed and his life’s model our ongoing aspiration.
This lesson is more urgent than ever. Some of the freed hostages from October 7 have shared how they kept Shabbat in captivity, how even in the depths of darkness, they held on to the light. Shabbat was not a distant hope; it was a present anchor. They began with Shabbat because they knew they were lost and that ritual could hold them and guide them, even in the tunnels.
And so, we begin with Shabbat, even on a Wednesday like today. Even when the world is fractured. Even when grief lingers in our bones. We hold onto Shabbat as the dream of the world that could be, as the promise that we are not lost. We take in the air, feel the sunlight on our faces, and walk forward — toward a world that is whole, toward a future worthy of our People’s legacy — and of Ted z”l’s memory.
It’s Wednesday. Good Shabbos, friends. Let’s keep building.
