from the Rebbe on this week's parsha, the sedra of Vayakhel Pekudei. The parsha starts with the words ויקהל משה את כל עדת בני ישראל, Moshe gathered all the Yidden. And then it continues, he said to them, ששת ימים תעשה מלאכה, six days melacha, work, shall be done, וביום השביעי יהיה לכם קודש שבת שבתון לה׳, and the seventh day should be holy to you, should be a שבת שבתון. And then he continued later on to tell them about the building of the Mishkan, and he was trying to tell them that Shabbos is so important that you're not allowed to even build the Mishkan on Shabbos. But the question that the Rebbe asks: if Moshe Rabbeinu wanted to tell them about Shabbos, why did he have to start off by saying, \"Six days you shall do work\" or \"work shall be done\"? He should have said, וביום השביעי יהיה לכם קודש שבת שבתון לה׳, he should have started right away, you should know that the seventh day, which is Shabbos, is holy and you can't work. Why did he start off by saying six days melacha should be done? Why is that important? And the

Rebbe says here בדרך חסידות, בדרך a remez, that these words, ששת ימים תעשה מלאכה, that six days work shall be done, is a continuation to the beginning of the pasuk. The beginning of the pasuk is ויקהל משה את כל עדת בני ישראל, Moshe gathered all the Yidden. Well, Moshe gathered all the Yidden, besides what he had to tell them, this itself is a remez that Yidden have to be gathered together. Yidden have to have achdus. That's the first thing he did: he gathered them together and showed them that you have to be all together, there has to be achdus. But a person might think that the achdus that has to be amongst Yidden should express itself mainly on Shabbos, because Shabbos is a day that you're involved in spiritual matters, in learning and davenen. You don't get involved in gashmiyusdike things, in work. So there is no real reason there that there should be what we call פירוד הלבבות, there should be a separation between Yidden. So then the achdus is real. But when it comes to the six days of the week when people work, you're involved in making a parnassah, livelihood, and all other gashmiyusdike things, there it's not so important, one might think, that you also have to have achdus. It's very possible, chas v'shalom, that when you work, you have השגת גבול, you don't care about somebody else and you take away somebody else's parnasah, or other types of thing when it comes to gashmiyus, it's much easier not to have achdus. So one might think that during those days it's not so important to have achdus. A person doesn't really have to care so much about achdus. In order to show that that's not true, what Moshe Rabbeinu did here was, ויקהל משה את כל עדת בני ישראל, Moshe gathered all the Yidden, and the first thing he said is ששת ימים תעשה מלאכה, six days you shall work, meaning, this that I'm doing now, I'm gathering you together to bring out the concept of achdus, applies also for the six days of the week, not only to Shabbos, the six days of the week. And

what is the result if you have achdus all the time, the six days of the week and Shabbos? The result is the next thing that he said to them about making the Mishkan: that the Yidden have achdus, then the Shechinah rests amongst them. Like we say, ברכנו אבינו כולנו כאחד. We say in Shemoneh Esrei, \"Bless us, our Father, all together.\" But the Alter Rebbe טייטשט, \"Bless us, our Father,\" when will He bless us? When we are all together. And that's what it says here: when you have ויקהל משה את כל עדת בני ישראל, even during the ששת ימים תעשה מלאכה, the six days of the week that you work, the result will be Yidden will become a Mishkan to the Eibershter, the Eibershter will say, ושכנתי בתוכם, \"I rest amongst them, amongst the Yidden,\" because if you have achdus, this is mamshich the Shechinah amongst them.