Shabbos: The Seal of Truth That Sustains Creation

1In Bereishis Rabbah (10:9), on “God completed on the seventh day” [Bereishis 2:2], Geniva and the Rabbanan offer two parables. Geniva said: It is like a king who made himself a bridal chamber, plastered it and painted it. What did it lack? A bride to enter it. So too, what did the world lack? Shabbos. The Rabbanan said: It is like a king who made himself a ring. What did it lack? The seal. So too, what did the world lack? Shabbos.

2aThe Midrash suggests that both agree Shabbos sustains the world and keeps it standing. The day of Shabbos draws down and bestows a power and spirit that sustain all the worlds. Just as the bride brings light and joy into the seven days of feasting after the wedding, the holiness of Shabbos gives life to the six workdays that follow it. The holy Ohr HaChaim writes this on “For in six days Hashem made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day He rested and was refreshed (vayinafash)” [Shemos 31:17]. Through the seventh day the world was sustained for another six days. Hashem revealed that at Creation He put into the world only enough power to stand for six days; at their end it would revert to chaos and void. But through Shabbos He bestows on all the worlds a spirit that sustains them for another six days. When those pass, another Shabbos comes and gives the world life for six more. This is “in six days Hashem made the heavens and the earth”: Creation was only for six days. And on the seventh day, through the seventh day, Hashem made another six days.

2b“He rested, vayinafash” comes from nefesh, the soul. Just as the soul gives life to the body, holy Shabbos gives the world a soul, enough to sustain it for another six days. Rashi brings this Midrash in his commentary on our verse [Bereishis 2:2] but changes its wording: “What did the world lack? Rest. Shabbos came, rest came.” Apparently he reads the Midrash's “What did the world lack? Shabbos” as meaning rest. This too fits what we have said. The rest comes through the sustaining spirit given to the world, so that it endures in its place and does not revert to chaos and void.

3aThe Rabbanan said: “It is like a ring. What did it lack? The seal. So too, what did the world lack? Shabbos.” Chazal teach (Shabbos 55a) that “the seal of the Holy One, blessed be He, is truth,” and they say (Shabbos 104a), “Truth stands.” Whoever wants to build something that lasts forever must lay its foundation in truth, for truth endures forever. It is one of the foundations and pillars of the world, one of the three on which He set it, as Chazal say (Avos 1:18): “The world stands on three things: on justice, on truth and on peace.”

3bBut during the six workdays a person is busy with his weekday labor and sunk in the World of Asiyah, the lowest, physical world, which is called “the world of falsehood.” He drifts away from the truth and imagines that everything he achieves, in material or spiritual matters, comes from his own strength and might. In truth he must know that without the Creator's power, life-force and providence we could not make a single movement. As the verse says, “Everything is from You, and from Your hand we have given You” (Divrei HaYamim I 29:14). All comes only from the power of the Divine portion from above that Hashem breathed into him. “He gives you counsel to acquire possessions,” as the Targum renders the Torah's words in Parshas Eikev: “Remember that it is He Who gives you strength to make wealth” (Devarim 8:18), and “Do not say in your heart, ‘My strength and the might of my hand made me this wealth’” (Devarim 8:17). It is the same in spiritual matters. Even one engaged in holy service must know that it is only by the Creator's power and help, as Chazal say (Sukkah 52b): “Were it not that the Holy One, blessed be He, helps him, he could not overcome it.”

3cBut when the precious light of holy Shabbos, a light of truth, shines on him, he understands. As the Yerushalmi says (Demai 4:1), even an unlearned man is afraid to lie on Shabbos, for the awe of Shabbos is upon him. He sees that all his own work is nothing and emptiness, and that all the power in it belongs “to Hashem your God,” Who gives life to everything. This is the meaning of “Six days work shall be done, and the seventh day shall be holy to you, a Shabbos of complete rest to Hashem” (Shemos 35:2). On Shabbos work is forbidden and no human being acts, yet it is the source of blessing, “from which all six days are blessed” [cf. Zohar II:63b], in ever greater abundance. On that day Hashem's power alone is recognized, for He gives the world its bounty with no human action at all. From this we learn that even human actions come only from the Creator's power and life-force. That is why the verse says “Six days work shall be done,” read te'aseh, in the passive: the work is done by itself.

3dThis is what Chazal say, cited here by Rashi [Bereishis 2:3]: “He blessed it and sanctified it”: He blessed it with the manna, for a double portion fell on the sixth day, and He sanctified it with the manna, for none fell on Shabbos at all. The Generation of Knowledge, the generation of the wilderness, could not imagine that the manna came from their own efforts, for “He gave them the grain of heaven” [Tehillim 78:24]. Still, they imagined that at least their gathering was what did it. As the holy Zohar says (II:62b) on “The people went about (shatu) and gathered it” [Bamidbar 11:8]: “What is shatu? Shtusa, foolishness.” The foolish ones imagined that their gathering was what gave them food. So “He sanctified it,” in that none fell at all, so that they would not err in this. Instead they would come to the true recognition: on the seventh day none fell and they did nothing, yet the Creator had already given them their bounty, a double portion on the sixth day for the seventh. When a person knows this truth, he brings lasting existence into the world. (See below, Parshas Chayei Sarah, maamar 3, and in many other places, where this is discussed at length. It is like the words of the Saba in the Ra'aya Mehemna, Parshas Mishpatim: “She adorned herself with adornments that were not hers¹.”)

4aThis is the meaning of the additional soul that Hashem gives Israel on Erev Shabbos, as Chazal say (Beitzah 16a). Nefesh, soul, means will, as in “If it is your will (nafshechem)” [Bereishis 23:8]. Through the holiness of Shabbos a person merits a good will, a longing and yearning to serve Hashem, the living and enduring One. What the Creator wants most from “those who dwell in houses of clay” [Iyov 4:19], human beings in physical bodies, is that they raise low and lowly things to the level of heaven and bring true existence² into them. As it says in our parshah, “and there was no man to work the ground” [Bereishis 2:5]. Man was created to lift earthly things to the very top, to bring existence into them and to draw life into them from the true Source of life. As it says, “The heavens are Hashem's heavens, but the earth He gave to mankind” (Tehillim 115:16), so that they would raise it to the level of heaven.

4bThis is what the holy Arizal composed in the zemer for Friday night: “Draw near, groomsmen, make the preparations, to multiply kinds.” The groomsmen are Moshe and Aharon, as is known. Moshe Rabbeinu was the King's groomsman. He made Hashem, as it were, beloved to the community of Israel, as Chazal say (Yoma 86a), “that the Name of Heaven become beloved through you.” Aharon was the Bride's groomsman. He would praise Israel before Hashem, as groomsmen do, and in this way he drew every single Jew close to the service of the Creator.

4cThis is what Chazal say (Bamidbar Rabbah, Parshas Beha'aloscha): “By your life, you stand and kindle the lamps,” in the sense of “The lamp of Hashem is the soul of man” (Mishlei 20:27). By the power of his holiness, and the holiness of kindling the Menorah, which alludes to the Menorah above, the Kohen made light shine in the darkness of the hearts of the holy people. He kindled in their hearts “a flame of God” [Shir HaShirim 8:6]. He prepared the souls of Israel as one prepares the lamps, though until then they had been like the dead, cut off from the root of true life. And he raised them up to the service of Hashem. This is “make the preparations to multiply kinds”: to multiply many different kinds and raise them to the very top, to their source and root. This is also what Rashi writes there in Beitzah: “An additional soul: breadth of heart for rest and for joy… and he eats and drinks.” Through the additional soul, which is will and complete understanding, a person merits “to set the table like one who eats before the King” (Zohar III:245), and to bring existence and permanence into the world. (See below, Parshas Chayei Sarah, maamar 3.)

5From the holy light of da'as, of understanding, on Shabbos, a person must take to heart why he was created, what he has done and repaired in this world in the days of his life, and the holy obligation still upon him, for the mitzvos were placed “as a yoke on their necks.” From this reflection he will yearn from the depths of his being. He will see and understand that he has not yet begun at all, not even the slightest edge of the service of Hashem, and that he is like a child born today. This is why every Shabbos is called “Shabbos Bereishis,” as Rashi writes (Vayikra 25:2): “A Shabbos to Hashem, as it is said of the Shabbos of Bereishis.” Through the holiness of Shabbos a person knows that he is still at the start, at Bereishis. And “the beginning of wisdom is the fear of Hashem” [Tehillim 111:10]. This is “In the beginning God created es hashamayim v'es ha'aretz” [Bereishis 1:1], whose initials form the Name of Da'as³, “the King's signet with which heaven and earth are sealed.” Through humility and “humble righteousness” [Tehillim 45:5], always keeping an honest accounting of his soul and knowing that he is still at the beginning of the service of Hashem, he merits true da'as. He merits to join the earth to the level of heaven, for da'as means connection, as in “Adam knew Chavah” [Bereishis 4:1], and to bring existence and permanence into it, as the Creator wills.

6aA person must always remember this holy obligation and fulfill the Creator's will. Even if he is not on such a great level, he should at least know that the obligation rests on him, and want and long to fulfill the Creator's will. Let him include himself in klal Yisrael, the community of Israel as a whole, and he will merit that all his desires are raised up through the community. Time works this way: the six workdays are raised up through holy Shabbos. As it says, “for on it He rested from all His work which God created to make (la'asos)” [Bereishis 2:3]. Hashem, as it were, rested on the seventh day so that His children would rest too. Through that rest the work was completed, and He breathed a soul, a spirit of life, into the workdays. La'asos, “to make,” here means to finish and perfect, as in “and she shall attend to (ve'asesah) her nails” (Devarim 21:12).

6bSo too with the soul. Sefer Yetzirah speaks of three dimensions, known by the acronym ashan: olam, shanah and nefesh, place, time and soul. The holy times, the dimension of time, have passed. “The light of my eyes, they too are not with me” [Tehillim 38:11]: the tzaddikim, the soul of the community, who lit our way and were our eyes, are no longer with us either. Even so, klal Yisrael is itself called nefesh, as in “All the nefesh of the house of Yaakov who came to Egypt were seventy” [cf. Bereishis 46:27]. If a person is willing to set himself aside and join the community of Israel, which is called nefesh, by staying within the congregation of Israel, he merits that his soul and his will are raised up through the community. So too with place. Because of our many sins we are on impure soil, in exile. Yet by facing Jerusalem in prayer, with that intention and desire, a person merits to raise up his place and draw the holiness of Jerusalem into it. As Chazal say (Berachos 8a): “Hashem loves the gates of Zion [Tehillim 87:2], the gates distinguished in halachah, more than the synagogues and study halls.”

7This explains the words of the zemer⁴: “Extend Your kindness to those who know You” [Tehillim 36:11]. Knowing means connection, as explained above. The prayer is for those who want to connect with You and with klal Yisrael, and who set themselves aside within the community so that their will may be raised up and fulfilled through it. This knowledge comes from Zachor and Shamor, “Remember” and “Keep,” which, as is known, are the weekdays together with Shabbos. Just as Shabbos, the dimension of time, raises up the workdays, “in its light they see light” [cf. Tehillim 36:10]. And we ask on their behalf, “Extend Your kindness,” that their good will be raised up and that they never be cast out of the camp of Israel. “With the light of Your countenance make them shine”: may the light of the holy Torah shine into their eyes and hearts, so that they are not darkened from its light, and “Hashem will be an everlasting light for them” [cf. Yeshayahu 60:19]. “The light of Your countenance” is Yaakov, as the holy Zohar says (cf. II:59)⁵: “Your right hand, Your arm and the light of Your countenance [Tehillim 44:4]: these are Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov.” Yaakov, as is known, is the middle bar, with Avraham and Yitzchak on either side. His trait is mercy, a blend of kindness and judgment. Master of the World! Have mercy on them and shine the light of Your mercy on them, that they never be separated from the bundles of the vineyard of Israel, in the merit of Yaakov Avinu. Amen.