The Power of Preparation
We just celebrated the holiday called “Shavuot,” which means “weeks.” Surprisingly, the holiday is named not after the event it commemorates – Matan Torah – but rather after the period that preceded it, the seven weeks of the omer period during which we prepare for this experience. The reason, as many commentators explain, is because the quality and impact of our kabbalat ha’Torah, our acceptance of the Torah on Shavuot, depends on the level of preparation beforehand.
This message is conveyed through the Torah’s account of Matan Torah. The Torah tells, ויסעו מרפידים ויבאו מדבר סיני – “They journeyed from Refidim and arrived in the wilderness of Sinai” (Shemot 19:2). Rashi comments that the Torah here compares the nation’s departure from Refidim with their arrival at Mount Sinai, to indicate to us that both were accompanied by teshuvah. The Netziv, in his Ha’amek Davar, explains that teshuvah was vitally important as advanced preparation for the experience of Matan Torah, and this is the message the Torah seeks to convey in this pasuk. In order for the experience to have an impact, it must be preceded by a significant and focused process of preparation.
This message underlies a famous story told in Maseches Bava Metzia (85b) of Rabbi Hiyya, who described how he worked to ensure that Torah would not be forgotten from Israel. He brought flax, planted it, and used the produce to prepare nets, which he then used to catch deer. He fed the meat to the poor, and then used the skins to prepare parchment scrolls, upon which he wrote the Torah and Mishnah. He brought these scrolls to places where there were no teachers, and he taught children, thereby ensuring the continuity of Torah knowledge. The commentators raised the question of why Rabbi Hiyya went through this long process to prepare the scrolls. If Torah was on the verge of being forgotten, then, seemingly, it would have made more sense to expedite the process as much as possible, and to try to obtain scrolls that had already been prepared. The answer is that preparation has an impact. Rabbi Hiyya’s pure, sacred intentions during the preliminary stages of planting the flax, catching the deer and preparing the parchment directly affected the quality of the Torah learning this process facilitated. If he had just obtained readymade parchment, the learning would not have had the same impact. He injected sanctity into the scrolls through his intentions over the course of the process of preparing them.
The Vilna Gaon remarked (as cited by his brother) that if, when a synagogue is built, each and every nail is banged into place with the proper intentions, then one will not be able to pray in that synagogue without concentrating. The kedushah generated by the intentions with which it is built will have such an impact that people who pray in the building will automatically feel uplifted and inspired.
This applies to Shabbat preparation, as well. The purer our intentions when we prepare for Shabbat, the more of an impact Shabbat will have upon us. Whether it’s the woman’s preparation of food, or the work done by the husband to earn money with which to purchase food for Shabbat, if the preparations are done with sincere and pure thoughts, these thoughts will affect the spiritual impact of the Shabbat experience. Of course, Shabbat is inherently sacred and will thus have some impact regardless of the preparations, but the quality and force of that impact depends upon the preparation.
We read in Sefer Shemot (24:16) that at the time of Matan Torah, Hashem’s special cloud covered Mount Sinai for six days, and on the seventh, He summoned Moshe to the top of the mountain so He could teach him the Torah. The Tiferet Shlomo explains that Moshe needed six days of preparation before entering the מחנה שכינה – the Almighty’s domain. Correspondingly, the Tiferet Shlomo adds, we need six days of preparation before we can enter G-d’s domain on Shabbat. And the way we prepare during those six days directly affects the quality and effect of the experience.
A striking expression of this concept appears in Rav Tzadok Ha’kohen’s Peri Tzadik (Parashat Beshalah). Rav Tzadok writes that the manna which Beneh Yisrael ate in the wilderness had the effect of infusing them with holiness, and this enabled them to receive the Torah the right way. Since manna was sacred food, which originated from the heavens, it had the effect of generating holiness within those who ate this food. Rav Tzadok noted that this is true also of any food that revolves around a mitzvah, and he explains on this basis the custom that many parents have to support their children for several years after the children get married. Since the money is given to the children to enable them to learn Torah, the children are facilitating their parents’ mitzvah of supporting Torah study when they eat this food. As such, this eating is a holy act, and this elevates the children to higher spiritual plane.
Rav Tzadok’s comments apply to Shabbat food, as well. When a family and the guests partake of the food especially prepared in honor of Shabbat, they facilitate the mother’s mitzvah. This eating is something sacred, as it is through this eating that the mother’s mitzvah of preparing food for Shabbat is fulfilled. This eating then becomes something sacred, and it elevates everybody at the table.
Whenever we enable somebody to do a mitzvah, we become holier. When we attend a Torah class and enable the Rabbi to fulfill the mitzvah of teaching, then we absorb kedushah not only from the Torah we learn, but also from our facilitating the Rabbi’s mitzvah. And so when we prepare for Shabbat with the proper intentions, for the sake of the mitzvah, then the Shabbat experience will uplift the entire household and elevate the family to higher levels of kedushah.
A number of Rabbis have warned that one should not learn from a sefer that was printed with improper intentions, because these intentions undermine the spiritual impact of the learning. Thus, for example, Rav Yaakov Hillel warned that several editions of the Zohar were printed by people with insincere motives, and so these volumes should not be used for study. The intention one has in preparing for a mitzvah affects the quality and impact of the mitzvah.
Rav Yerucham Levovitz once commented that if a person is already praying, he might as well pray with kavanah (concentration). We might say the same about Shabbat preparation. Since we’re in any event preparing for Shabbat, we might as well do so with the right intentions and mindset, which will raise the Shabbat experience to an entirely different plane of sanctity and spirituality. If we prepare with the right intentions, our children’s eating of the Shabbat food will assume the status of an אכילת מצוה – eating for a mitzvah, a lofty act of holiness. And the holier our intentions, the higher the level of holiness we will attain through the Shabbat experience.