Preparing All Week to Make the Shabbos

1“Six days work shall be done, and on the seventh day is a Shabbos …”¹ The commentators ask about the words “Six days work shall be done.” Is there really a duty to work on all six days of the week? Surely the mitzvah is to refrain from work on the Shabbos day! See also how the Mechilta, the early Midrash on Shemos, expounds these words.

2The next verse raises a question too: “And Bnei Yisrael shall keep the Shabbos, to make the Shabbos …”² The holy Ohr HaChaim asks: the main mitzvah of Shabbos is a passive one, kept by sitting still and refraining from work. Why, then, does the verse say “to make the Shabbos,” words that imply an active deed?

3Let us also first cite a teaching of the Gemara: “It was taught: They said of Shammai the Elder that all his days he ate in honor of Shabbos. If he found a fine animal, he would say, ‘This one is for Shabbos.’ If he then found one finer than it, he would set aside the second for Shabbos and eat the first.”³ This implies that only for the honor of Shabbos, and not for other mitzvos, did Shammai buy again each time he came across something finer. This is puzzling. It would seem that with every other mitzvah, too, there is good reason to buy the finest and choicest, because of “This is my God and I will beautify Him.”⁴ Why, then, did Shammai the Elder go to such lengths for the honor of Shabbos in particular?

4We can explain this through what the holy Ohr HaChaim writes on the verse “On the seventh day God completed His work that He had done.”⁵ Chazal, he notes, remarked on the verse's wording, which implies that the work was completed on the seventh day itself. Yet surely it was completed on the sixth day! He explains it through another teaching of Chazal: all through the six days the world was unsteady and trembling, until Shabbos came and the world stood firm and was established.⁶ This is the inner meaning of the words “and on the seventh day He ceased and vayinafash,” a word usually rendered “was refreshed” and related to nefesh, soul.⁷ It means that a life-giving flow poured into all created things, for before Shabbos no created thing had a soul. And this is the meaning of “On the seventh day God completed His work that He had done”: the work that had been made lacked what would keep it standing, and through the seventh day it was completed. Those are his holy words. From them we see that the holy Shabbos is like a soul, and that from it a spiritual flow of vitality pours into all of creation. As we sing in the zemiros, the Shabbos table songs, “A foretaste of the World to Come is the day of Shabbos.”⁸

5Since Shabbos is something spiritual, it has to be prepared for in advance. The things of the weekdays are physical and need no preparation; a person does them at once, on the spot. Spiritual things, though, need a great deal of preparation. That is why Shammai the Elder made a practice all his days of beautifying the honor of Shabbos in particular, buying again whenever he found something finer: Shabbos needs preparation. Through this practice he remembered the Shabbos day all the time, and so he prepared himself for Shabbos all through the week.⁹ In this light we can explain the custom of my holy great-grandfather, the author of Divrei Binah, zy"a. Whenever, during the week, he did one of the thirty-nine kinds of work forbidden on Shabbos, he would say aloud that this work is forbidden on Shabbos. In this way he meant to prepare himself for Shabbos while it was still a weekday.

6We can read the words “Six days work shall be done” as teaching us that we must prepare for the Shabbos day, in speech and in deed, all through the six days. The words “to make the Shabbos” teach the same: during the weekdays we must prepare and “make” the Shabbos, in thought, speech and deed. This answers both our questions.

7May Hashem, blessed be He, grant that we receive each Shabbos with great preparation, and through this be privileged to reach the Shabbos of the time to come. Amen, may it be His will.