Shabbos: Being and Doing
Shabbos is the return to your true essence. Shabbos allows you to taste the pleasure of being at peace with yourself. “It’s on Shabbos that we receive the gift to experience being.”
During the six days of the week, we are primarily occupied with doing. There are many levels of why people are so occupied with doing and why they do what they do. As the pasuk says: “al yeitzei ish mim’komo — On Shabbos do not leave your place.”
Not leaving your place takes having a place. Your “place” in the world has multiple levels — at home, in shul, your status in the community, your image. On a deeper level, there’s also your place in Hashem’s world and the chain of the heritage of the Jewish people. It’s on Shabbos you can return to the place that’s uniquely yours.
Im tashiv mishabbos raglecha asos chafatzecha — if you take a rest from doing, then az tisaneg al Hashem — you will experience the pleasure of being with Hashem. When you are aligned in your makom, your place, then you can experience being. As the world returns to its original state of perfection on Shabbos — with no change required — the existence of the world enters a state of being.
This physical reality of the being of the world serves as the backdrop for our internal experience of the “being” reality. On Shabbos, we merit the privilege to spend time in the state of being and experience the peace that arises within. We reflect on our essence and the eternal life we have been chosen to live by Hashem. We then bring this experience of being into the six days of the week of doing.
The weekday reality tries to conceal our essence of “being” that we receive on Shabbos and replace it with doing. On Shabbos, you get the opportunity to experience your fineness and power of being a cheilek eloka mi’maal, chosen to “be you, as you.”
It’s this clarity we will receive when the yom shekulo shabbos arrives. Hence, Shabbos now is a m’ein of olam haba, as you get a glimpse at what it will look like to know life from a place of “u’mal’a ha’aretz dei’a es Hashem k’mayim layam mechasim — and the land will be fi lled with G-dly intelligence like the water covers the ocean-bed.” With perfect clarity and insight into the world to come, we can see how Hashem has guided our every step, through our ups and downs, successes and failures.
During the six days of the week, one can get caught up identifying himself as his “doing.” In the human experience of doing, one can lose a sense of his inner being. There are two questions people ask when trying to get to know you: “Who are you?” and “What do you do?” The way it’s asked is often indicative of how the questioner views himself. What you do is not who you are. The six days of the week is what you do, but don’t get that confused as “you.” Shabbos is who we are. It’s the inside, the core essence of your being.
