Parashat Vaetchanan contains the first paragraph of the Shema: “You shall love the L-rd, your G-d, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your resources” (Devarim 6:5).
Rabbi Yitzchak Zilber explains that “with all your resources” means that money cannot determine whether a Jew follows the Torah. People often speak as though anything can be obtained for the right price. The Torah teaches otherwise: If something is forbidden, it remains forbidden regardless of the possible profit or loss.
Rabbi Zilber knew hundreds of Jews who made serious sacrifices to observe Shabbat under Soviet rule. One talented engineer from Bobruisk became a chimney sweep because it allowed him to arrange his schedule around Shabbat. A tailor worked through the nights, spent part of his earnings obtaining medical notes excusing him from Saturday work, and sometimes risked imprisonment by selling goods privately so that his family would not starve.
Rabbi Zilber’s own experience was even more difficult.
When he arrived at a Soviet labor camp in 1951, his first concern was how to avoid working on Shabbat. During his first week, he was assigned to carry heavy logs. A prisoner who enjoyed tormenting newcomers deliberately shook the narrow plank on which Rabbi Zilber was walking. Rabbi Zilber fell, narrowly escaped death, and badly injured his hand.
He spent three weeks in the camp hospital.
“I do not know if I would have been as happy to earn a million dollars,” Rabbi Zilber later wrote, “as I was then to be relieved of work on Shabbat.”
When he was released from the hospital just before another Shabbat, the foreman ordered him back to work. Rabbi Zilber protested that his hand still hurt, but the foreman beat him. He escaped and hid among boats along the riverbank.
When guards began searching the area, a Jewish prisoner named Semyon Lukatsky distracted them by loudly offering to read an article by Stalin. In the middle of his political lecture, he inserted a sentence in Yiddish telling Rabbi Zilber to hide elsewhere. Rabbi Zilber crawled farther along the river and remained hidden until evening.
That night Selichot began. Rabbi Zilber prayed with all his strength. He had escaped work for one Shabbat, but what would happen the following week? What would he do on Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and Sukkot?
An answer soon appeared.
Rabbi Zilber arranged to become the camp’s water carrier, hauling buckets from the river for nearly 3,000 prisoners. It was punishing work, lasting from early morning until evening, but he could work independently. On Fridays, he carried enough water to last through part of Shabbat and paid other prisoners to complete the task afterward.
Years later in Tashkent, fifteen Jewish workers surrendered half their salaries to a former KGB officer who managed their workshop. Their one condition was that on Saturdays they would report to the shop but perform no work. Rabbi Zilber remained there for seven years.
The Shema does not ask what faith costs when life is easy. It asks what we are prepared to protect when observance carries a price.
Rabbi Zilber paid that price through hunger, exhaustion, beatings, and lost income. Yet he never considered Shabbat the burden.
To him, keeping Shabbat was the reward.
Parashat Vaetchanan is sponsored by Julian Ilyayev & Rachel Sadykov
Rabbi Yitzchok Zilber, zt”l, dedicated his life to teaching Torah, and his impactful writings continue to inspire Jews worldwide. Copyright 2023 by The LaMaalot Foundation. Conversations on the Torah is catalogued at The Library of Congress. All rights reserved. www.LaMaalot.org
Parashat Vaetchanan: What One Shabbat Was Worth
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