Shabbat – The ultimate Tikun Olam!

R’ Chanina ben Dosa used to say (Avot 3:11):
All whose fear of sin dominate their wisdom,
their wisdom will endure.
But all whose wisdom dominate their fear of sin,
their wisdom will not endure.

Preamble – An Israeli Taxi Driver Story

Almost everyone who has been to Israel seems to have a memorable taxi-driver story to relate. I too now belong to that notable club!

We were speeding along from Ben-Gurion Airport to Ramat Bet Shemesh. My swarthy, bare-headed, middle-aged taxi driver saw in me the opportunity for a challenge. “You’re a rabbi” he began in typical secular-Israeli-taxi-driver style. Then the surprise. “Tell me: when is it allowed for a Jew to wear tefilin on Shabbat?”

I sensed clearly that I was being tested and needed to pass. “That’s easy!” I answered trying not to show my nerves. “When he sees a set of tefilin lying in the mud on Shabbos and he can’t rescue them by carrying them as there’s no eruv, he has to put them on!” “Good!” my interrogator exclaimed. “That’s one case. Now one more!”

I told him I could think of no other example. “Aha!” he cried “you’re the rabbi, but I can teach you something! A Jew needs to have two out of three otiot, signs, right? One is brit mila (circumcision), one is Shabbat and one is tefilin. Now supposing a Jew is halachically unable to have brit mila because, say, his two elder brothers died as a result. Since he needs two signs, he should wear tefilin on Shabbat!”

Now having been travelling over a period of 36 hours, I was woozy and sleep-deprived and could not argue with him. But something about this terets (solution) didn’t sit well with me. When I had recovered sufficiently to research this intriguing case, I realised why. My taxi-driver friend actually had it almost right! Indeed, based on a Talmudic passage (Eruvin 96a), R Moses ben Jacob of Coucy, the Smag (13^th century) does advance the “two out of three” argument (positive commandment 3). But the Terumat haDeshen, R’ Israel Isserlin (1390-1460), while presenting my friend’s argument verbatim, goes on to reject it – because, he says, the Smag drew upon the “two signs” idea as a metaphor only, not to derive from it a halachic conclusion. An uncircumcised Jew does not wear tefilin on Shabbat.

My secular Israeli friend possessed considerable intellectual prowess when it came to rabbinic argument – but he failed to appreciate the refinement of the halakha. His wisdom trumped his grasp of the retson haShem, the will of G­D. The two do not necessarily go hand in hand. Indeed at times they may be in conflict!

That encapsulates the theme of this essay. It should help us to understand the very nature of Adam’s test and also the monumental power of just one Shabbat!

What Was Adam’s Test?

Adam was given just one commandment in Gan Eden – not to eat of the eits da’at, the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

Was this commandment meant to be for all time? Our Sages (see the writings of the Ohr haChaim, the Chatam Sofer, R’ Dessler and the Seventh Lubavitcher Rebbe among others) declare that had Adam and Eve only waited until experiencing that first Shabbat, no concept of death would have existed any longer and they could have eaten of the tree of knowledge with impunity, The ban would have been lifted. The tragedy was that they could not wait even this short span of time!

What is the secret here?

Just One Shabbat

In the previous Shabbat essay, I cited the last verse of the creation chapter. G­D blessed the seventh day and made it holy for on it He rested from all his creative and productive work asher bara Elokim which G­D had created la’asot to make (Gen 2:3).

There I examined the verse from one perspective. Here I plan to explore another.

Most of us, when considering that last subordinate clause “which G­D had created to make” refer it to G­D’s melakha, His work. However, inspired by a remark of the aforementioned Ohr haChaim, Rabbi Chaim ibn Attar (1696-1743), I venture to make a bold suggestion: The clause could refer not to G­D’s work in six days but to His rest on the seventh, Shabbat itself!

This too, the holy Shabbat, G­D created in order that we should bring it to perfection.

This sheds a new light upon a verse a little later in chapter 2. “G­D took the man and placed him in Gan Eden to work it and to guard it.” (2:15).

The author of the tanaitic Midrashic work Pirkei d’Rabi Eliezer is aghast. What work did Adam and Eve have to do in the Garden of Eden? Didn’t the trees grow there of their own accord; didn’t a river flow through to irrigate the garden? Evidently, says the Midrash, the “work” and the “guarding” in Gan Eden was entirely spiritual and refers to Adam’s “toil” in G­D’s deepest and most profound mystical secrets (the ancient book known as Sefer Yetsira is said to have been based on Adam’s kabbalistic teachings.).

It must be that these snippets of esoteric communion with the Divine were all achieved prior to the sin. Had Adam not disobeyed, he would have entered the blessed Shabbat in his innocent and pure state, he would have perfected his “work” in the sacred space of the Garden during the sacred time of that primordial Shabbat and the world would have achieved its ultimate purpose (tikun olam).

Instead, Adam broke the one command he was given. Why was its effect so profoundly devastating?

Service of Self versus Service of G­D

The key to our discovery is Genesis 3:6.
The woman saw that the tree was good for eating and that it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was desirable as a means to enlightenment and she took of the fruit and she ate; and she gave also to her husband with her and he ate.

Up to this point everything that Adam and Eve had done was in the service of G­D and His creation. Now for the first time, they are into fulfilment of personal desires and quest for knowledge independent of G­D. (It is clearly so for the simple reason that is against the stated Will of G­D.) “Good for eating… delight to the eyes… desirable as a means of enlightenment” – all these phrases clearly point to service of self rather than service of G­D.

Adam and Eve sought wisdom as an end in itself rather than as means to grow in attachment to the Divine. They placed quest for wisdom, above fear of sin.

Paradise was lost, never to be regained until the end of days. And tragically that one Shabbat in Gan Eden, key to ultimate fulfilment, could no longer achieve the longed-for purpose.

BUT WAIT …!

Wonder of wonders! The Alm­ghty in His great beneficence has restored to us His gift of Shabbat. At Sinai, when we, Am Yisrael, accepted His Torah, blueprint of Creation – in much more earthly form than in Gan Eden but His Torah nevertheless – the mitsva of Shabbat assumed pride of place at the centre of the Ten Commandments. And Shabbat is me’ein olam haba, a taste of the Gan Eden we had thought we’d lost forever!

And G­D also returned to us our mission “to observe the Shabbat la’asot et ha-Shabbat ledorotam b’rit olam in order to bring it to perfection… as an eternal covenant” (Exodus 31:16). Adam’s sacred task, thought to have been forfeited for all time, has been re-entrusted to Am Yisrael!

If we can keep the ‘one Shabbat’ that Adam should have kept, we shall achieve the ultimate tikun olam and our unredeemed world will become a redeemed one! (Shemot Rabba 25:12).

How are we to attain this? Not by ruminating on what the Shabbat will give me experientially. That is self-serving like the mistake of Adam and Eve. It is the approach of my taxi driver friend who preferred his own understanding to the retson haShem, the Will of G­D.

Rather we shall achieve it by surrendering ourselves and our own self-centred and superficial desires to the Shabbat and its Creator unconditionally.

If we do, it is certain we shall never relinquish the gift of Shabbat ever again. Indeed it will not relinquish us! For we shall, in the words of the grace after meals, “inherit the day which will be Shabbat in its totality!”