Three times this year, beginning with Rosh Hashana and through the last days of Succos, we observed three consecutive holy days, with two days of Yom Tov that led into Shabbos.
This certainly presented a great challenge to our amazing wives and mothers who generally bear the brunt of the cooking, baking and preparations of six delicious meals for family and guests. Just amazing!
This past Shabbos we had five guests at our table; each one of them had made amazing spiritual strides and changes in their adult lives.
During the lunch meal, I reflected that we were on the final day of a whirlwind of 24 days where we spiritually basked in G-d’s intimate presence. I asked if everyone could share what they felt was their most elevated or memorable experience during this time.
The answers were amazing! Such as: Remembering deceased parents during the holiday. Feeling a closeness to G-d by being cleansed from sin on Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. The joy and spirit of dancing with the Torah on Simchas Torah. For one who struggles with reading Hebrew, it was connecting to G-d through the tunes and singing during the services. Sitting and basking in the spiritual aura of the Succah. By not engaging in any other speech aside from reciting prayers on Yom Kippur. Listening to the crescendo of the prayers of “Hashem is our G-d,” seven times, as the sun was setting at the Neila service. In fact, this person said that, rather than traveling out of town on Sunday after Yom Kippur, she traveled on Monday, because she still felt the aura of Yom Kippur on Sunday!
I share this, because every person is unique, and every one of us has our own feelings and distinct personality, thus different experiences touch us differently. I’m sure if you ask yourself this question, you’ll come up with something special that touched you intimately.
Speaking about being unique… The following question is posed. Why are we, the Jews, commanded to observe the Holy day of Shabbos to the exclusion of the non-Jews? After all, if we celebrate it because G-d created the world in six days and He ceased from creation on the Seventh day, weren’t all people affected and influenced by G-d’s resting on the Seventh day of creation of the world?
I quote Rabbi Zalman Sorotzkin o.b.m. who gives the following background: At first, G-d did not feel the necessity to have the Shabbos as a day highlighted to recognize that He created the world because during the 930 years that Adam was alive everyone recognized this through Adam, who was formed and created by G-d Himself. It was sufficient for Adam to testify that the world was created by G-d.
The world went on a decline which prompted G-d to destroy it with the flood. He preserved Noach and his family on the Ark along with all species of animals.
After the flood, the world was in a state of a new beginning and Noach and his children represented the recreation of the initial world that they lived through. As long as they lived, there was no necessity to have Shabbos to remind society that G-d created the world.
The first time the Torah alludes to Shabbos is after Shem, the righteous son of Noach, passed away. This was during the lifetime of our forefather Yaacov, where we find that Yaacov set up boundaries around his property for the purpose of observing Shabbos.
Our Sages tell us that indeed, Avraham was able to figure out through his deep spiritual view, many of the laws of the Torah and he passed them on to his son Yitzchok and then to Yaacov. But in terms of the Torah drawing our attention to the Shabbos observance, it was only in Yaacov’s lifetime to compensate for what Shem represented.
Thus as long as there is a representative that proclaims that G-d created the world, a formal Shabbos was not necessary.
Shabbos was upheld as a family tradition by Yaacov and his descendants, not as a mandatory obligation. The Talmud and Medrash are replete with references and accounts of the 12 tribes and their descendants keeping and upholding Shabbos as their tradition to connect with and display to others that G-d created the world and rested on the seventh day, even while they were in servitude in Egypt.
G-d performed the many miracles for us in Egypt and then extracted us from the mightiest nation in the world. He did this because He had a broad mission for us, to become representatives of G-d’s presence in the world. G-d was going to give us the Torah and we were the ones who were going to accept it as our law.
The holy day of Shabbos and its observances not only remind us that He rested from creation but that He took us out of Egypt to become G-d’s nation, as specified in the second set of the Ten Commandments.
In fact, some of the actual laws of the observance of Shabbos were introduced to the Jews as a nation in a place called Marah after their miraculous exodus from Egypt as they were traveling in the desert towards Mount Sinai. This was in order to activate and prepare the Jews for G-d’s proclamation of the Ten Commandments which included the full extent of the laws of Shabbos.
It was at Mount Sinai when G-d officially entrusted us as the sole Nation designated to personally testify and to display to all through their observances of ceasing from the 39 categories of creative activities on Shabbos, the semblance of G-d resting on the Seventh day of creation!
