Vayakhel

Moshe summons the people to charge them with the building of the Mishkan. He prefaces those instructions with the command to keep the Shabbos, to teach us that the Mishkan could not be built on Shabbos. However, instead of just telling us not to work on Shabbos, the posuk states instead,   ששת ימים תעשה מלאכה , on six days work may be done. First, why does it say תעשה ,tay-ah-se, in the passive: work will be done. It should have said ,תעשה , tah-uh-se,you shall do? Also, why the need to preface that one needs to work for six days to tell us we can't work on the seventh? 

Reb Shlomo ‎Ganzfried  says that this posuk informs us that only one who believes wholeheartedly that sustenance is allotted to each person from heaven & is not determined ‎on one's effort is able to rest peacefully on Shabbos. Contrast that to one who believes that his sustenance is determined by the amount of work he puts in, he will certainly be troubled all day by the thought that he has to stop working for the day which is hindering him from earning a living.  

A person like that will have a very hard time keeping the Shabbos. Therefore, the posuk tells us, six days work will be done; don't think it's you that's doing the work & making it happen; rather all the blessing in your work comes from Hashem. It's like work done by itself, that's why it says that the work will be done, for it’s really Hashem who's doing the work for you. When a person will internalize this, then & only then will one be able to really keep the next part of the posuk, that the seventh day will be holy for you. 

‎There was a talmid chacham who recounted a story that proves this point. When he was young, his father was a builder who was building the first twenty houses in a new settlement in Eretz Yisroel. The biggest expense he had in the building was the cement, for they had to import it at great expense from outside the land. The delivery came one Friday afternoon in the summer, hundreds of open barrels of cement. 

After they had taken the delivery it was already late in the afternoon so all the workers went back home to their town of Yaffo. Suddenly, the sky went dark & it looked like any moment the heavens would open up & there would be a storm. The workers came running over to the builder & said we have to go back; since all the barrels are open, if it rains, the cement will get wet, harden & be ruined, a tremendous loss. We have to go back & cover the barrels. However, with the time left until Shabbos it would be impossible to do the job without desecrating the Shabbos. The builder said, no! I will not sell Shabbos for all the money in the world. No one should go back and desecrate the Shabbos for me. 

As expected, that Friday night it poured & poured. It was obvious that this man had lost a fortune; however, he acted as if nothing had happened. He still had a smile on his face; he sang zemiros; he talked divrei torah at the meals and acted like he would on any other Shabbos, truly personifying that on Shabbos one should feel as though all his work is done. 

After Shabbos, he started to think about his great loss & how all his cement that he paid so much for, all went to waste. He took his wagon & went to see the damage for himself. As he got closer to his building, he couldn't believe his eyes. All his barrels of cement were totally covered & sealed, nothing was lost. He couldn't believe it & wanted to touch the miracle with his own hands. He went over to one of the barrels, took off the cover, ran his fingers through the cement and, yes, it was still dry & good to use, a miracle. 

Afterwards, he found out that the street pavers had sent people to go cover their barrels of cement. In the confusion of the darkness & the impending storm, they‎ had covered the wrong barrels saving this man’s fortune. This man, whose dedication to Shabbos was unwavering, who acted like he didn't have a care in the world on Shabbos, had Hashem’s protection.  Hashem made sure he was taken care of. So, too, if we could recognize that success happens through the hand of Hashem, then we, too, will be able to really make the Shabbos holy!