Bringing Blessing Through the Study of Hilchot Shabbat
The Torah in Sefer Devarim commands us to remember the miracle of the manna, the food which fell from the heavens each day during Beneh Yisrael’s forty-year sojourn through the wilderness. The reason given for the command to remember this miracle is:
למען הודיעך כי לא על הלחם לבדו יחיה האדם כי על כל מוצא פי ה' יחיה האדם
“…in order for you to know that a person does not live on bread alone; rather, a person lives on anything that leaves G-d’s mouth.”
The manna teaches us that we do not require ordinary food to live. Hashem is the source of all life, and thus He sustains us, in whichever way He chooses. And this is why the Torah commands us to remember this miracle – so we always remember that Hashem has an infinite number of ways to sustain us.
This lesson remains relevant and vitally important even today. Rashi (in Parashat Beshalah) tells that the people in the time of Yirmiyahu Ha’navi felt they could not allocate time for Torah study due to the challenges they faced earning a living. To demonstrate the fallacy of this belief, Yirmiyahu showed them the jar of manna that had been kept in the aron (ark) since the times of Moshe Rabbenu. The miracle of the manna proves that Hashem can sustain us in countless different ways. Our livelihood is entirely in His hands, and so we should never feel that we cannot afford the time to learn Torah because of the pressures of earning a living. Indeed, I knew a man named Mr. David Mizrahi (the father of Rav Yosef Mizrahi, of the Mishna Daily project) who kept a jar of cotton balls on his desk as a symbolic reminder of the manna. Whenever business was not going well, he would look at the jar, think about the manna, and feel reassured that his livelihood depends solely on Hashem, who has an infinite number of means of providing his sustenance.
The Gemara tells in Masechet Berachot that a Heavenly voice proclaims each and every day that the entire world is fed through the merit of Rav Hanina ben Dosa. This voice is sounded even today; all mankind is sustained through the merit of Torah and mitzvot. Even though we make an effort and go to work for a living, the source of our sustenance is Hashem, who brings blessing to the world in the merit of the study of Torah and performance of mitzvot.
The Torah describes Beneh Yisrael’s daily collection of manna by saying, ויצא העם ולקטו דבר יום ביומו – “The people would go out and collect each and every day.” The Hatam Sofer noted the unusual use of the word דבר – “matter” or “word” – in this pasuk. Why does the Torah speak of Beneh Yisrael collecting a דבר each day? The Hatam Sofer answered based on the Gemara’s comment in Masechet Avodah Zarah (3b) that Hashem studies Torah, as it were, during the first three hours of every day, and later, during the last three hours, He gives the world’s inhabitants their sustenance. The Hatam Sofer explained that the angels, which are purely spiritual beings, need sustenance just as we human beings do, and this is why Hashem studies Torah for the first three hours of the day. Whereas we are sustained by food, angels are sustained by Torah, the spiritual blueprint of the world. During the forty years Beneh Yisrael spent in the wilderness, they resembled angels. The Gemara in Masechet Yoma (75b) says that the manna was “angelic food,” and it was fed to Beneh Yisrael because they lived an angelic existence during that period. It turns out, then, that the manna was “produced” through the דבר ה', through the words of Torah which Hashem “studies,” so-to-speak, each day. Beneh Yisrael’s daily ration of manna is thus referred to as דבר יום ביומו, because it was created by the words of Hashem’s Torah, the source of spiritual sustenance.
The Hatam Sofer adds that this approach to the manna sheds light on the double portion that fell every Friday in the wilderness. While the manna on other days was produced by Hashem’s study of Torah, the double portion on Friday was produced by the specific study of hilchot Shabbat – the laws of Shabbat observance. This particular field of study is especially powerful, and yields more blessing than the study of other areas of Torah. And thus by engaging on Friday in the laws relevant to Shabbat, Hashem produced an extra portion of manna which descended that day. Whereas ordinary Torah study provides sustenance for that day, learning the laws of Shabbat provides sustenance for two days. Shabbat is the source of all blessing, and so by studying the laws of Shabbat, we tap into this source and bring upon ourselves abundant blessings.
Similarly, the Rebbe of Sochatchov writes in his introduction to Igleh Tal that just as Shabbat observance is equivalent to the observance of all other mitzvot combined, the study of the laws of Shabbat is equivalent to the study of all other areas of Torah.
There is a wonderful program to encourage and enable people to study the laws of Shabbat via email. One can send an email to shabbathalachot@gmail.com to receive each week a page of halachot relevant to Shabbat according to Sephardic tradition, or to shabboshalachos@gmail.com to receive material in accordance with Ashkenazic practice. This is an easy way to ensure to access the priceless blessings made available through the study of hilchot Shabbat each week.
By involving ourselves in this unique field of study, we tap into the מקור הברכה, the source of all blessings, whereby we gain the spiritual nourishment that we need each and every day of our lives.