This week flew by. I am having a wonderful time here in Israel and am learning a lot. This Shabbat was the first in-Shabbat since I came back to the Yeshiva. All the students stayed in the dorms and we all spent Shabbat learning, eating, and singing together. We got to hear two interesting speeches over this Shabbat that I want to share with you so you can get a taste of the things we are learning about. The first was by Rabbi Shuster and the second was by another Rabbi in the Yeshiva.
Rabbi Shuster posed a question. He asked, "Why do we keep Shabbat? One of the answer's I always here is that God rested on Shabbat, so we also rest. But did God really rest on Shabbat?! We say that every second God is sustaining creation, so how can he rest on Shabbat?! The Vilna Gaon answered this question by saying that God created everything for Shabbat on the sixth day. But this statement needs explanation. Am I supposed to think that God lets every Shabbat run by itself?!"
He said that on Shabbat there is a difference between things that are primary and secondary. He used an example from the laws of carrying. He said that if a person walks out of his house into a public domain with a huge pot with just a drop of food in it, he has not transgressed the law of carrying on a Biblical level. This is because there was not enough food in the pot. So, the obvious question is, What about the pot?! Wasn't that big enough! The answer is that even though the pot is big, you didn't transgress the law of carrying because the pot is secondary to the food. The only reason you were carrying the pot was for the food inside it.
Rabbi Shuster said that another thing used to bother him. It was the concept that every Jew should enter Shabbat feeling like he completed all of his work. He painted the following picture for us. You are working on a huge project. It's Friday and you have to leave work early. As you are about to leave your boss comes over to you and says, "Where are you going? We need you to do your part on this project! If we don't finish it will cost us millions! And you are behind, we need you to stay. If you don't finish by Monday you will be fired!" You answer back, "You know boss, it's Friday and I have to go because Shabbat is coming." You rush out the door, drive home as fast as possible, jump in the shower with 10 minutes left. You run out the door to try to make it to shul on time and you say to yourself, "Thank God Shabbat is here, my project is finished. I still have my job. Everything is wonderful!" This obviously sounds ridiculous.
He then proceeded to paint another picture. Same scenario. You need to work extra hard to get this project done so you can keep your job. You get a phone call on Tuesday. It's about your son. He was in a terrible accident and they are rushing him to the hospital. They don't know if he will survive. You start to head for the door and your boss says the same thing, "Where are you going? We need you to do your part on this project! If we don't finish it will cost us millions! And you are behind, we need you to stay. If you don't finish by Monday you will be fired!" But this time you answer back, "You are going to fire me! My son just got into an accident and he is in the hospital! I'm going to see him! You want to fire me! I'll fire myself! And I'll fire you too!" With that you rush out to see your son not worrying about the project at all. This story is believable because the only reason you work is to support your family. Your son is primary and your work is secondary. Obviously you are going to see your son.
This is the answer to the original question of isn't God also working on Shabbat? A wedding is hard to plan. You have to get the right hall, the band, the food, and everything else. Even though all of those things are very important parts of the wedding, if the future father-in-law gets up and says, "Um... sorry but the groom got cold feet and ran away. But I don't want to waste all of this planning so please stay. Eat all the food, dance, have a wonderful time." Most people would leave because even though the hall is perfect and the food looks great you are there for the bride and groom. If they don't show up, all of the planning is unnecessary. When the Vilna Gaon said that God created everything for Shabbat on the sixth day it means that on the sixth day God created human beings. The whole purpose for the world is so humans can keep God's commandments. If we don't show up for Shabbat, the whole world is unnecessary. Therefore, we are primary and the world is secondary. So even though God is sustaining the world on Shabbat, it's not considered like He is working, because it's only secondary to us.
This also explains the statement, "Every Jew should enter Shabbat feeling like he completed all of his work." It doesn't mean that your job miraculously disappears, but rather it is a day where you get to focus on the primary. There is a famous story where a Queen marries a common man. Every day he tries to please her. He brings her fresh milk in the morning, just squeezed from the cow, but she finds it repulsive. He brings her fresh eggs, just hatched, but she doesn't appreciate it. This is because she lives in a different world. Common things cannot please her.
This is a metaphor for each one of us. We all have a body and a soul. When you try to please your soul with bodily pleasures, it doesn't work. This is because our soul is in a different world. If you are always looking for the next best physical pleasure you will never be satisfied, because physical pleasures are incapable of satisfying your soul. On Shabbat we get a chance to focus on spiritual pleasures.
The second speech was about last week's Torah portion, which was Vayeitzei. This is the portion where Jacob goes to his uncle Lavan to look for a wife. On the surface it seems like a very happy portion with two weddings, (Jacob marries Lavan's two daghters, Leah and Rachel) and many births, (Jacob has 12 children, who are destined to be the 12 tribes of Israel).
Every year on Passover we say in the Haggadah, "Go and learn what Lavan the Aramean attempted to do to our father Jacob! For Pharaoh decreed only against the males, Lavan attempted to uproot everything." Over Shabbat one of the Rabbis here posed a question. First of all, what did Lavan do to the Jews to be worse than Pharoah! Pharoah killed us, threw our children into the Nile, and used our bodies to build the pyramids! Secondly, there is a Gemara that says when you are looking for a wife, you should look at her brothers to see what her characterictics will be like. If Lavan was so evil, why would Abraham send Isaac to marry Rebecca, Lavan's sister! And why would Rebecca herself send her son Jacob to marry Lavan's daughters!
He answered the question by asking another. He asked, "Why does it say in Isaiah that "in the future both the lost and the pushed aside of the Jewish people will return?" (not exact quote) Who are the lost and who are the pushed aside?"
The answer is Pharoah tried to destroy us through genocide in Egypt and Lavan tried to destroy us by being nice. The Jews in Egypt got pushed aside while Lavan was trying to make Jacob a lost Jew. A lost jew is much worse than a pushed aside Jew. The pushed aside Jew might be in dire straits, but he still knows he is Jewish and sees the value in it. The lost Jew doesn't know who he is or where he comes from.
The Jews living in Nazi Germany were pushed aside. There is no reason to go into detail about the horrible atrocity that was the Holocaust. Suffice it to say that Nazi Germany was just like Egypt. We were being killed for being Jewish. But In America, we are becoming lost.
Rabbi Kaniyevski was once asked a question about Shabbat. The question was, can one play basketball on Shabbat? He asked, "What is basketball?" The Jew explained to him, "Well, it's this game. There are five people on a team. There are two teams. One team tries to get the ball into the basket while the other team tries to stop them." The Rabbi answered back, "Just tell them to put the ball into the basket before Shabbat starts." The Rabbi giving the speech over Shabbat said, "Rabbi Kaniyevski didn't understand what basketball was because he grew up in a small town in Europe. I grew up in Memphis, I know what basketball is. It's not just a game. It's beautiful. I used to love watching someone dribble the ball behind his back, going from hand-to-hand."
He said that America is more dangerous than Nazi Germany because in America people are nice. They love us Jews in America, and a Jew is a sucker for someone who loves them. We have been through so much hardship in our history that when someone says, "You are welcome here, we love you," we love them back. Basketball might be an amazing sport which takes skill and beauty, but when a Jew watches a great move and gets a tingling feeling throughout his body because he cannot believe what he just saw, he is becoming lost. We are losing more Jews through assimilation in Amerca than we did in Nazi Germany!
I just heard an interesting story about the Reform movement. When they hit their 200-year anniversary they decided they were going to have a huge celebration and honor the children of the movement's founders. The celebration never took place because when they went to contact the children of the movement's founders there was NOT ONE JEW LEFT!!!
I am not trying to say that America is evil. America has done wonderful things for the Jewish people and continues to do so. There is a reason that Abraham wanted Isaac to marry Lavan's sister and Rebecca wanted Jacob to marry Lavan's daughters. He had good character traits. He was nice to the Jews. America is the same way. Extremely nice to the Jewish people. However, we need to be on guard for ourselves and our children, knowing that even though America is nice to us, they are killing our people with that kindness. Ironically, they didn't even bother to change the name!!! Lavan's house just moved. It is now in Washington D.C.
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