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Parshat Yitro: The Dibra of Shabbat

By: SFW Students & Alumna
Jaimie Fogel, SFW ’04-05

The Dibra of Shabbat, as compared to the other nine, is quite long.  Hashem gives over the pithy statement of “Zachor et yom hashabbat l’kodsho,” and then continues for three more pesukim about the nature of the day, what we are commemorating, and who should participate in the commemoration.  The Chizkuni comments that the reason Hashem offers so much detail on the subject is because all of the previous commandments could be concluded from instinctual knowledge and common sense.  But Shabbat, he argues, is a concept that would not occur to the human mind independently.  Meaning, that a person who lives in this world and sees the wonders that Hashem does could come to the knowledge of a singular God on his own, as did Avraham.  And if one is already in that system, then obviously he would not choose to worship any other meaningless gods, make images of Him, or forsake His holy name.  But Shabbat is something that came into the world externally.  When Hashem created the world in six days and then stopped on the seventh, He then introduced to the world the concept of cessation from mundane activities.  The Ramban comes to explain the reason for the sequence of commandments. We are first commanded to believe in Hashem; that He is the singular source of everything, and not to speak His name in vain which thereby gives kavod to Him.  Now we are asked to act upon that philosophical, passive honor through this active sanctification of Shabbat to commemorate the ma’aseh breishit. 

What does all of this tell us?  As much as Shabbat is a day of menucha, it is also a day of action.  Shabbat and the idea it represents is not something that comes naturally to us—we need to work to create that mindset.  It is not as easily derived as the other, more “common sense- based” dibrot. And how do we create the Shabbat mindset? Rashi tells us. Commenting on the words, “V’asitah kol melachtecha,” he says this refers to the fact that you have completed all of your work. What does it mean that all of our work is has been completed?  What if in fact we rushed home on Friday afternoon, fleeing from a desk piled high with papers calling for our attention?  We still have to act as if all of our work is complete. Is Rashi telling us to lie to ourselves, or (even worse) to Hashem, who clearly cannot be fooled?  Chas v’shalom. Rashi is giving us the key to the mindset!  It is not natural for man, who is involved in work all week long, to instantaneously forget the mundane matters which consume his week.  But Rashi is telling us to try.  The whole nature of Shabbat is in any ways unnatural, the prohibitions of the day are not about work in the physical way that man envisions. Shabbat is the day to focus on our relationship with Hashem and take a rest from the everyday creative activities.  But that does not mean that Shabbat is a day do to nothing. Rather, this is a day where we can focus on spiritual matters stress-free.  Our relationship with Hashem should not be stressful, and we are being taught that if we take away all of the externalities that cloud our weekdays, our lives can be this blissful.

But when it comes down to it, how do we really act as if our work is done?  How do we train ourselves to have such an unnatural mindset?  One possible answer is offered by many mefarshim.  The word “zachor” connotes an ongoing remembrance, as also used with zechirat amalek.  Every day we must remember what Shabbat represents in terms of God’s relationship to the world and our relationship with Him.  We do this by including Shirat Hayom in our tefilah, where we count the days in terms of their relation to the seventh day of the week.  By remembering Shabbat every day, it makes it less difficult to switch gears on Friday afternoon, because, in essence, we have almost been ready the entire week.  Beginning to prepare for shabbat before Friday, for example, shopping for the food and cooking it beforehand, also helps to ease into the mindset. 

In Shabbat Malkitah, Rav Pinkus relates the following mashal.  When people rush into shabbat, making all of the preparations last minute, maybe even running into the eighteen minutes, it is similar to the situation when someone who is close to a family calls up much in advance to let them know that they plan on sleeping over, and then expects that when they show up at the door, they will find the family eager and ready to greet them. But upon arrival, instead of finding a clean home with a tidy bed awaiting their belongings, the hostess slaps her hand over her mouth in realization that the family completely forgot. And she then says “Don’t worry!  It’s totally ok.  We can make your bed in no time and I’m sure there will be enough food for one extra person.  I mean, my children don’t eat so much anyways.”  Yes, the person could stay because there is an empty room available and there would be food for them to eat, but how would they feel when they had so looked forward to the visit yet their friends had completely forgotten about them?  Hashem lets us know when we need to be ready.  But if we leave all of our preparations to the last minute, ultimately only doing a haphazard job of preparing for the Shechinah, it projects a certain message about our awareness of Hashem’s “arrival.”

Perhaps we could tell ourselves that shabbat starts five minutes before the refrigerator magnet calculates. This mindset is a very difficult one to acquire and only continues to become more complex as time progresses and responsibilities begin to accumulate.  But all we are asked to do is gently remind ourselves every day that shabbat is coming.  Ultimately, when this becomes as instinctive to our routine as going to work, we will be able to remind ourselves that “shabbat is coming!” with a hint of excitement at being completely ready to be m’kabel ha’Shechinah even when all of our work is not physically complete.