Prohibition of Commerce on Shabbat

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1. The Oath

   Rabbi Tzvi Sinensky

   Nechemia chapter 10, perhaps the climax of the nation’s renewed commitment to Torah, summarizes the binding oath accepted by the community.

   In many instances, the oath seems to supersede the obligations that are set forth explicitly in the Torah. The commentators struggle with a fundamental question: to what extent was the oath a renewed commitment to the ancient laws of the Torah, albeit with some novel interpretations, and to what extent are these new, proto-Rabbinic laws? As we have seen, it is most likely that our chapter presents a mix of the two views. On any view, our chapter – and, indeed, the entire period of Shivat Tzion – exemplifies a careful balance between commitment to tradition and an understanding that specific commandments require additional emphasis or even innovation at particular moments in history.

2. The End of Nehemya

   Rabbi Tzvi Sinensky

   Chapter 11 reports that a tenth of the Jewish population of Judea was selected by lottery to live in Jerusalem, with an eye toward ensuring the city’s ongoing security. The Jerusalem lottery was a random, rather than Divine, mechanism for determining who was to live in the holy city, consistent with the tenor of desacralization running throughout the period of Shivat Tzion.

   The celebratory dedication of Jerusalem’s walls closely resembles the celebration in the third chapter of Ezra. Buried among the many similarities, however, is a basic difference. In Nehemya, the joy is unmitigated. In Ezra it is muted by the sobbing of those who had witnessed the First Temple’s grandeur. Thus, Nehemya is to be viewed as having brought Ezra’s work to a point of greater completion.

   Nehemya’s final chapter neatly summarizes many of his major concerns throughout his tenure in Judea, and it brings his story full circle. The differences between the events of Nehemya chapter 1 and chapter 13 neatly capture the enormity of the governor’s achievements. At the book’s opening, there is an existential crisis. The walls of Jerusalem are burnt to the ground, and the community’s survival is far from assured. By the end, the wall has been completed and the community’s safety secured. Nehemya has turned his attention to matters of ethics, the Temple, and religious practice. However, for all his accomplishments and efforts, Nehemya concludes his sefer with his work incomplete. The battle for the hearts and minds of the people was destined to continue in Sefer Malakhi, a work written some years following Ezra and Nehemya’s careers.