| Week of Shabbat 24 Tishrei 5765 | B"H |
…. And it was evening and it was morning, one day.Very subtle in the scriptures, the concept of time was one of the infrastructures of Creation. There was no such concept in Heaven. There was need for such delineation. Yet in the physical world, Hashem saw the necessity. Time would be a benchmark. Time would be sacred, for He would later make certain commandments hinge on time. He would set the sun, the moon, and the stars to mark its passage. And He would command the Jewish People to sanctify it through ceremony. In this setting Hashem created an island in time.
--Genesis 1:5
And with the seventh day Elohim completed His work that He had made and with the seventh day He ceased from all His (creating) work that He had made. Elohim blessed the seventh day and made it holy….The first observer of Shabbat was the Creator, Elohim, Himself. When Hashem blessed this day and honored it, He descended from His abode to ours. He honored this day and the Creation itself with His presence. Thus, not only was there a descent on His part, but an ascent on the part of the new physical world. Shabbat was the completion, the kiss after the marriage—the Shabbat Bridal Queen.
—Gensis 2:2-3
For Shabbat, the last thing Hashem created was rest; in this instance, the Hebrew word for rest is "nefesh", which is also the word for "soul". He refreshed His nefesh. In the image of his Creator, Man also "nefeshed" on Shabbat. Psalm 92, credited to Adam, begins: "A Psalm, a song for the Shabbat day." Like his Creator, Adam celebrated this day when, in this earthly dimension of time, Heaven and Earth merged. When Adam began singing to the Shabbat, the Shabbat said to him, "No, let us together praise our Creator." So the psalm proceeds as a joint song of praise. It reminds us of the Prophets’ foreseeing all of nature—mountains and trees and waters—singing praises to Hashem in the Redemption, a time when the nefesh of the whole world will be refreshed in the ultimate Shabbat.
We can be sure that if Adam observed Shabbat, it was something that was passed on to Noach and his children. However, it was not a command until Sinai, and then exclusively to Israel. Even so, Shabbat is still connected to remembrance of Creation:
It is a sign between Me and the children of Israel forever:
for in six days the Eternal made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day He left off and was refreshed.
--Exodus 31:17
Sanctification of time became one of the responsibilities of the people of Israel, crucial in the observance of many Torah laws. Like the kohenim represent Israel in the Temple, Israel represents the world in the Temple of Heaven. The sanctification of time is necessary on earth, where it exists, in order for it to be sanctified in Heaven, where it does not. This applies to the New Moons, as well as the commanded festivals.
Blow the trumpet at the new moon, at the full moon, on our feast-day. For it is a statute for Israel, an ordinance of the Gd of Yaakov.
Israel thus preserved Shabbat on behalf of the world that had, by then, lost touch with this primordial festival.
--Psalm 81:3-4
We pray for Redemption, a return to the perfect Creation state that Hashem willed. With this thought, the Prophet Yishiyahu (Isaiah) foretold:
And the foreigners who join with the Lrd to serve Him and to love the name of the Lord, to be His servants—everyone who observes the Shabbat from profaning it and who holds fast to My covenant—I will bring them to My holy mount, and I will cause them to rejoice in My house of prayer; their burnt offerings and their sacrifices shall be acceptable upon My altar, for My house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.
In this chapter describing the era of Redemption, the celebration of Shabbat by "foreigners" (B’nai Noach) is a vividly important part. Like the return of the earth to the state of Creation, Mankind returns to our earliest forefathers’ observance and worship of Hashem.
--Yishiyahu 56:6-7
At this time, we look forward to Redemption. Things in our world are, of course, far from that perfect state. The people of Israel were commanded to observe Shabbat. The penalty for violation of this is death by stoning, which is the most severe of the corporal punishments. B’nai Noach are not commanded to observe Shabbat. Indeed, it has been stated by certain sages that they may NOT do so. However, with the thought of the first Shabbat, in addition to the view of the Prophet that in the Redemption we will all do so, there is opinion that B’nai Noach’s Shabbat celebration is very positive.
When we look at the Torah as a manual for life in the Redemption, we can see what a wondrous task Hashem set for Israel, on behalf of the world—to structure the ideal society. And at its heart is Shabbat--an island in time, first observed by the Creator, given as Creation’s crowning gift to Adam, then kept as a safeguarded treasure through the centuries by Israel for the sake of all Mankind.
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