Rabbi Daniel Siegel – Head of Jewish Life

Being

As we begin this week’s parashah, BeHar, we find that the root word שבת/Shabbat occurs ten times in the first ten verses. Ironically, “Shabbat” is, perhaps, the most widely known and yet most mistranslated, word in Judaism.

Shabbat, as indicated when first mentioned in the Bible, does not mean rest:

“And God finished on the seventh day the work that He had done
And he ceased (VaYishbot/וישבות) on the seventh day from all the work that He had done
And God blessed the seventh day, and set it apart (from the workdays of the week)
For on it He ceased (Shavat/שבת) from the work of creation that He had done.”

Shabbat means cessation (of work).

Both the Sabbatical year (shemittah), occurring every seventh year, and the Jubilee (yovel), at the conclusion of seven consecutive sabbatical years, are called Shabbat Shabbaton, for they mark the cessation of working the land for an entire year.

Maimonides notes that “cessation from work” (shevitah/שביתה) on the seventh day is a positive commandment (as the Torah states: “On the seventh day you shall cease”, tishbot/תשבות) as well as a negative commandment (for the Torah states: “And the seventh day…you shall not do any work”).

Significantly, both of these biblical proof texts, upon which Maimonides argues that Shabbat constitutes cessation of work, speak to what this shevitah is intended to promote – “in order that” you and your household “may rest” (yanuach/ינוח).

While cessation from work separates Shabbat from the other weekdays, it is rest (meunchah/מנוחה) that brings us into a realm of being beyond doing. Our Jewish tradition teaches that only on Shabbat can we cultivate a breadth and depth of life beyond that of a work day. The Rabbis termed this enhanced experience and dimension of life “neshamah yeteirah” – The enhanced life breath.

Remarkably, Yom Kippur, like the Sabbatical and Jubilee years, is also called Shabbat Shabbaton. On an increasingly greater scale, from once a year to every seventh year to the culminating period of fort-nine years we seek to ensoul anew ourselves and the world in which we live. But, this would not be possible were we not called upon every seventh day, every Shabbat, to effect a changed way of being. Thus, we find that Shabbat itself, at times, is called Shabbat Shabbaton.

Shabbat is described by the Rabbis as a “foretaste of the world to come”. As we say in Birkat HaMazon, on Shabbat: “May we be afforded a day that is fully a cessation (shabbat/שבת) of limited living and an experiencing of holistic rest (menuchah/מנוחה) within the dimension of eternal life”.

God said to Israel: “If you receive and observe the Torah you shall be greatly rewarded”.
“What is the reward”? they asked. “It is the world to come God responded”.
Israel said: “Provide us a foretaste of this world to come”.
God replied, “This is Shabbat.”
Otiot d’Rabbi Akiva