Community Torah Corner, October 13, 2023

And so we begin again.  The fall Jewish holiday period has ended, and we the recall the sounds of the shofar Rosh HaShanah and our proclaiming “Today is the birthday of the world.” Now, standing at the threshold of 5784 as we renew the weekly Torah reading cycle with Parshat Bereshit our thoughts turn towards creation. We have just completed the season of teshuva, repentance.  In his work Halakhic Man, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik writes that there is a halachic aspect to creation - “self-creation" as he writes. Through the act of teshuva, a person is “created” into a new being, possessing “a new heart and spirit… compounded of regret for the past and resolve for the future.”

Along with that thought, we look to the parsha itself.  The narrative of Parshat Bereshit is obviously well-known, from the separation of light and dark, to the creation of humanity.  There is a passage that is especially familiar and significant:

This is the introductory paragraph to kiddush recited every Friday night to usher in Shabbat. In it the Torah tells us that God finished creating the world. However, creation did not end with the formation of humanity on the sixth day.  Shabbat is as much a part of creation as the previous six days.  We attest to this idea in the kiddush blessing itself where we say that Shabbat is  “...זכרון למעשה בראשית…” “... a remembrance of creation …”  We acknowledge creation through Shabbat.

The word Shabbat comes from the root ש-ב-ת which means “stop”.  In the Torah, on the seventh day, God stops doing melacha, the physical, creative activities associated with the building and maintenance of the mishkan, the portable sanctuary the Israelites carried with them on their journey through the desert.  It is the cessation of melacha, the creative act, that in fact “creates” Shabbat.

The laws that govern Shabbat are indeed numerous; studying them reveals how minutely detailed they can be. The Talmudic rabbis themselves recognized this fact when they said, “The laws of Shabbat… are like a mountain hanging by a hair, its scriptural (basis) is little, but the laws are many.” (Haggigah 10a).  But there is a purpose to these laws. My former teacher from many years ago, Rabbi Art Green, writes in his book Seek My Face, Speak My Name, “The rules for Shabbat exist in order to create the sacred time in which the transformation of consciousness that is Shabbat’s real meaning may take place… Avoidance of travel, of commerce, and all forms of schedule watching and weekday obligations … lie at the core of the Shabbat experience.” 

There are restrictions to be sure; however, the laws of Shabbat are not meant to be restrictive but rather to allow us to experience a type of spiritual freedom that can only be achieved through Shabbat observance, while simultaneously acknowledging and appreciating the wonders of creation.