Shabbat Preparations – The More We Put In, the More We Take Out
The more we prepare for any mitzvah, the more long-term benefit it gives
us. And Shabbat is no different. The more time, work and effort we invest in
preparing for Shabbat, the greater the benefits that we will reap from the
Shabbat experience.
This concept can be easily
seen in the structure of the week. The
three days leading up to Shabbat – Wednesday, Thursday and Friday – are
intended as the period of preparation for Shabbat, and the three days after
Shabbat – Sunday, Monday and Tuesday – carry the sanctity of Shabbat that
extends into the workweek. Revealingly, the
impact of Shabbat lasts for the same number of days as the number of days spent
preparing. The calculus is simple: the more
we put into Shabbat, the more we get out of Shabbat.
Similarly, the Talmud teaches
that the חסידים
הראשונים – righteous men of the earlier generations – would spend an
entire hour preparing for prayer, and then devoted another hour to reflection
after praying. The amount they invested
in their prayers was the same amount of inspiration they received from the
prayer experience.
The Gemara in Masechet Shabbat (119a) tells that Rav Nahman bar
Yitzhak, one of the great Talmudic Sages, was seen rushing about on Friday
afternoon, making purchases and bringing things into the house. When asked to explain the frenzy, he replied
that if Rabbi Ami and Rabbi Assi, the two leading Sages of the time, would come
to visit him in his home, he would work frantically to get the house ready for
his illustrious guests. Shabbat, Rav
Nahman said, deserves no less respect than Rabbi Ami and Rabbi Assi.
Accordingly, Rabbenu Bahya writes in his Torah commentary (Bereshit 18:6)
that one should prepare for Shabbat the way he would prepare for the arrival of
the greatest Sage of the generation.
Rav Ephraim Wachsman tells that once the Skulener Rebbe fell ill and
wanted to receive a blessing from the Satmar Rebbe. However, as he lived a distance from the
Satmar Rebbe’s home, his students felt that it would be unwise for him to pay
the visit in his frail condition. As it turned
out, through the workings of Hashgahah (Providence), the Skulener Rebbe
had to schedule an appointment with a doctor whose office was near the Satmar
Rebbe’s home. When his car arrived at
the doctor’s building, the driver realized that there was still a whole hour
until the scheduled appointment, and so there was plenty of time to bring the
Skulener Rebbe to the Satmar Rebbe’s home for a blessing. The Skulener Rebbe had fallen asleep in the
car, and woke up when they arrived at the Satmar Rebbe’s home. His driver informed him that they had arrived
at the Satmar Rebbe’s home and he could now receive the blessing he wanted
before his doctor’s appointment.
Much to the driver’s surprise, the Skulener Rebbe refused. He said he could not meet with such a great tzaddik
without proper preparation. He would
have to prepare himself before experiencing the sanctity of such a person, and
he refused to go see the Satmar Rebbe on a minute’s notice.
Beholding kedushah requires preparation. Shabbat, the holiest day of the week, thus
requires a great deal of preparation in order for it to be experienced the
right way.
Similarly, Rav Chaim Shmuelevitz would not go to the Kotel unless he
first spent a half-hour studying mussar. In
order to receive the full impact of this encounter with holiness, he needed to
spend time preparing. And the same is
true of Shabbat. Whether it’s preparing
the food, the house, or the divreh
Torah for the meals, the amount of
preparation invested before Shabbat affects the amount of inspiration we will
receive from the experience of Shabbat.
At the recent Shas-a-thon, where some 300 people assembled to study the
entire Talmud in a single day, Rabbi David Ozeiry spoke and mentioned that he
had been privileged to be introduced to Rabbi Mendel Tessler, a Holocaust
survivor, who had come to study Gemara together with his son and grandson. This man, who on countless occasions during
World War II thought he would not live another day, was given the opportunity
to learn Torah with his grandchildren.
He has also been involved in an organization that helps to bring more
Jewish children into the world – which Rabbi Ozeiry described as the greatest
possible revenge against Hitler y”sh.
After this event, the Yad Yosef Torah Center invited Rabbi Tessler as a
guest speaker, and he shared his remarkable story with the audience for over an
hour. He was taken from his family at
the age of fourteen, and brought to Auschwitz.
He waited on line for the infamous Dr. Mengele to decide which way he
goes – to the labor camp, or to the gas chambers. As he waited, he was informed that if he would
say he was fourteen, he would certainly be killed, and so he should stand up
tall and claim to be sixteen. This is
what he did, and he was sent to the labor camp.
He went into the barracks with some 900 boys, only about twenty of whom
survived. He was then sent on a
transport with about 180 people, and only about forty survived the trip. Rabbi Tessler also survived a death
march.
About a year-and-a-half later, his camp was liberated. The Nazis y”sh had put the inmates in
a barn with haystacks on which to sleep, and locked the door. In the morning, American tanks rolled into
the camp, and Rabbi Tessler walked out of the barn to see what was happening,
and just then a U.S. troop shot at an SS soldier. A stray bullet hit Rabbi Tessler in the leg,
and he ended up being sent to a hospital in Germany, where he underwent ten
surgeries. He recalled thinking at that
time that there were only four Jews left in the world.
When he was finally able to walk out of the hospital on crutches, it
was Shabbat, and he walked out with several other patients whom he had
befriended. They heard that a few miles
away, the Americans and Russians were playing a football game, and the boys
planned to take a train to watch. This
was the first time since the ordeal began that the group felt their spirits
lifted and were interesting in having some fun and enjoying themselves. Rabbi Tessler knew that going to watch a
football game was not in the spirit of Shabbat, but he very much wanted to go
and to finally experience some enjoyment.
As he stood at the train station, he recalled, he suddenly smelled the
smoke of the train, and, miraculously, it smelled like his mother’s Shabbat
food. Recalling the experience of
Shabbat in his home, he could not bring himself to go on the train. All his friends boarded the train, and he was
left alone, on crutches. He returned to
his hospital bed and cried.
If not for that moment, he said, if he had not remembered the special
fragrance of his mother’s Shabbat food, he would have likely joined his friends
and the many other survivors who left the path of Torah observance (and whom,
of course, we cannot possibly judge, considering all the suffering they had
endured). He remained loyal to Torah
because of his mother’s Shabbat cooking.
Just as Yosef was saved from sin by the image of his saintly father,
Rabbi Mendel Tessler was saved by the aroma of his mother’s food. At 87 years old, now a great-grandfather,
Rabbi Tessler told this story with tears rolling down his cheeks.
This is what happens when parents invest great effort into preparing
for Shabbat. This effort leaves a
profound impact that lasts for years. It
is thanks to Mrs. Tessler’s Shabbat preparations that her son remained
observant and now learns Gemara with his children and grandchildren.
Shabbat is especially powerful and can produce miracles. The more we invest in it, the more we will
receive from it.
