At a recent Shabbaton of the Nefesh Yehudi organization which does kiruv work on major campuses all over Israel I attended a presentation on the meaning of Shabbos given by Rabbi Yaakov Estreicher a dynamic young speaker. I was interested to see how he would describe Shabbos to secular students. But I had no expectation that I would personally go away with a new derher (approach) to Shabbos. I was wrong.
Rabbi Estreicher presented Shabbos as the key to experiencing life with joy of rejoicing in one’s portion. He noted how rare it is to meet someone overflowing with joy. If we asked someone how he was and he responded enthusiastically by enumerating at great length everything there is to be grateful for we would likely suspect him of having a screw loose or partaking of illicit stimulants.
But that is precisely what Shabbos allows us to do. On Shabbos we refrain from all melachah — which as Rabbi Estreicher explained at length refers not to the expenditure of energy but to creative activity — and are therefore forced to view the world as complete and not in need of any further improvement. We learn to appreciate what we have.
Rav Hutner (Pachad Yitzchak Shabbos 5) emphasizes this point. He writes that in the verse “And Elokim saw es kol [all] that He had made and behold it was very good ” kol does not refer to all the many things He had created but is rather the language of completion klilah. Elokim saw how the entire Creation fit together in one seamless whole and that was the tov me’od.
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