Appreciating the Gift of Shabbat
The Hagahot Ashri (Bava Metzia, chapter 2) tells the story of a man who purchased a bucket of lead from a store in order to seal his roof. He then decided not to seal his roof, and so he sold the bucket to somebody else. When the buyer began removing the contents, he noticed that the bucket was actually filled with silver, and had just a little lead on top to conceal the treasure. It appears that the bucket’s original owner had used it to hide his silver. The first man claimed that the bucket was his property, as the sale was made on false pretenses. Since he was unaware of what was actually contained in the bucket, the sale was void, and the bucket still belonged to him. The buyer, however, countered that once the transaction was made, it was final, and the seller could not renege upon learning of what the bucket contained.
The case came before Rabbi Eliezer of Metz, who ruled in favor of the buyer, saying that he could keep the bucket. The seller, the Rabbi explained, never truly owned the bucket. When he first purchased it, he thought he was receiving lead, when in truth he was receiving silver. A person who does not know the value of what he acquires does not legally acquire it. As such, he never truly owned the bucket, and so the person who currently has possession over the bucket is legally entitled to keep it.
Later Rabbis applied this concept to spirituality. Unless we recognize the true value of what we have, then we do not really have it.
Shabbat is laden with immense spiritual power, but we cannot “own” this power unless we acknowledge its value. It behooves us, then, to remind ourselves of just how special, significant and sacred this day is, and once we have this appreciation, we will reap the incalculable benefits that Shabbat has to offer.
The Midrash (Pesikta Rabbati 14) tells the story of a Jew who came upon hard times and was forced to sell his hard-working cow. The animal was purchased by a non-Jewish man, who immediately began using the cow to plow his fields, and he was very pleased. However, when Shabbat came, the cow refused to work. Even after the new owner beat it multiple times, the cow would not move. The gentile rushed back to the previous owner to demand that the sale be annulled. The Jew went over to the cow and whispered something in its ear. It immediately began plowing.
The new owner demanded that the Jew explain to him what he told the cow.
The Jew said, “I explained that although it was not able to work on Shabbat while I owned it, now it is owned by somebody who is not Jewish, and so it is allowed to plow on Shabbat.”
The non-Jew thought to himself, “If this animal was influenced by its Jewish owner and realized it couldn’t work on Shabbat, then certainly I, who was created in the Divine Image, and who is capable of thinking and understanding, is capable of recognizing my Creator and connecting to Him.” He converted to Judaism, studied Torah, and became one of the Sages of Israel. He was called Rabbi Yohanan ben Torta, as the word תורתא means “cow.”
The fourth of the Ten Commandments, which is the command about Shabbat, instructs that it is forbidden to allow the members of one’s household or his animals to work on Shabbat:
לא תעשה כל מלאכה אתה ובנך ובתך ועבדך ואמתך ובהמתך...
Rav Tzadok Ha’kohen, in his work Tzidkat Ha’tzaddik, explains that a person’s holiness extends to his acquisitions. The man in the story had reached such a high level of piety and kedushah that his animal intuitively understood that it could not work on Shabbat. Specifically, he had such a keen understanding of the spiritual nature of Shabbat that his animal sensed this quality and could not perform work. Everything in our lives, including our material possessions, is connected to our souls, and so our spiritual awareness directly affects it. This is certainly true – and all the more so – of one’s spouse and children. The more we develop our spiritual sensitivity, the more of an impact we have upon our family. If the quality of one’s Shabbat observance can affect his animals, we can only imagine the impact it could have upon his family members. The man’s cow was affected not because it attended classes and lectures, but rather as a natural result of its owner’s deep spiritual awareness, which influences his entire household and all his belongings. By being sensitive to the kedushah of Shabbat, we naturally influence our families, without even having to say anything.
This concept is alluded to by the prophet Yeshayahu, in a famous pasuk towards the very beginning of Sefer Yeshayahu:
ידע שור קונהו וחמור אבוס בעליו, ישראל לא ידע, עמי לא התבונן.
“An ox knows its master, and a donkey, its owner’s trough; Israel has not known, My nation has not understood.”
The Hid”a and the Maharam Shif explain this pasuk to mean that righteous people have an impact upon their animals, such as cows and donkeys (the Midrash tells that Rav Pinhas Ben Yair’s donkey refused to eat produce that hadn’t been tithed), yet Beneh Yisrael were disloyal to Hashem and were not impacted by the kedushah around them. The reason, Yeshayahu says, is because עמי לא התבונן – the people did not contemplate and reflect upon the inestimable value of mitzvot. Since they did not recognize the value of mitzvot, they were not impacted by them.
We read in the beginning of Sefer Melachim I that when David Ha’melech aged, clothing did not keep him warm. The Sages explain that this was a result of an incident that occurred many years earlier, when David tore a piece of material from Shaul’s garment. Since David failed to show proper respect to clothing, his clothing did not affect him the way it normally would. When we fail to properly appreciate something, it cannot affect us.
The same is true of Shabbat. We need to understand, appreciate and respect the special value of Shabbat, its unparalleled spiritual power and the impact it can have. As Hashem told Moshe about Shabbat, מתנה טובה יש לי בבית גנזי – Shabbat is a special gift that He had stored in His treasury, a gift which He sends to our doorstep each and every Friday afternoon. If we recognize the inestimable value of this special gift, then it will have a profound impact upon us and our families.