JustBetweenUs
By Hillel Goldberg
Shabbos Is More Than One Day a Week How to Take Shabbos into the Week t is not my intent to address the issue of Orthodox teens at risk, yet if this article can aid their parents or mentors, so much the better. Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik was wont to say that America has many Sabbath-observant Jews, but no erev-Sabbath-observant Jews. Shabbos is more than one day long, and more than Shabbos-plus-erev Shabbos too. After Sarah died, Isaac brought Rebeccah into the tent of his mother and he married Rebeccah, and thus was consoled. Rashi observes that when Sarah was living, her Shabbos candles burned from one erev Shabbos to the next, but when she died, the light died with her. When Isaac brought Rebeccah into the tent, the light returned. Is this a mere metaphor? I think not. Shabbos may be seen as a one-day-a-week respite—and a glori-
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Rabbi Hillel Goldberg, PhD, executive editor of the Intermountain Jewish News, is a contributing editor of Jewish Action.
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ous one at that—or Shabbos may be seen as the day that both colors the rest of the week and constitutes the week’s yearning and anticipation. If the latter, then we become not merely Sabbath observant, but erev Sabbath observant. We begin to touch, if only a bit, the stature of Sarah and Rebeccah. To be sure, to be erev Sabbath observant also means something concrete. It means that one will not save Sabbath preparations for the last minute and fall prey to the outbursts of anger, frustration or tension that punctuate many homes in the hours or minutes before candle lighting. It means, for example, that one will set the Shabbos table on Thursday night, or will take off work on Friday afternoon an hour earlier than is strictly necessary, or will go shopping for nonperishable Shabbos foods on Sunday, almost as soon as Shabbos is over. I shall return to some of these practical ways in which Shabbos can be made to descend on erev Shabbos, but to be erev Sabbath observant means
more—it is an entire change in mindset. It means feeling the week divided in half, such that with the recitation of the first two verses of Lechu Neranenah after the completion of the Psalm of the Day on Wednesday morning, one feels that the week has turned; it is now moving toward Shabbos. It means internalizing that Shabbos is not just an escape from, but a flight to; not just an end to the difficulties of the week, but a window to the Divine. Over the years, I have revamped my approach to Shabbos. This began eleven years ago when I read that Rav Eliyahu E. Dessler’s father arose at 2 AM each Shabbos morning and studied Torah with his son for seven hours straight. At 9 AM, Rebbetzin Dessler would bring them light refreshments, whereupon they went off to daven. For them, Shabbos was an opportunity to soar into spiritual realms. Inspired by the Desslers, I have not slept through the night on a single Shabbos since. I am not capable of studying Torah for seven hours straight beginning at 2 AM, but I now arise in the middle of the night to study Torah for a few hours. The Shechinah is palpable; the insight is acute. My Torah study the rest of the week fills in the interstices between the building blocks I acquire in the middle of the night on Shabbos. Not to mention, whatever else occurs the rest of Shabbos by way of hosting or being hosted, I am guaranteed that no Shabbos passes without serious Torah study. Even that is the least of it. If Shabbos is so powerful, it should permeate the week. Upon returning from shul on Saturday night, the first thing that my wife and I now do is prepare the Shabbos candles for next week. All week long, while they are not lit, as they were in Sarah and Rebeccah’s tent, they stand there, beckoning. On Wednesday morning, the week turns. As Thursday rolls around, the anticipation of Shabbos builds, and we finish as many Shabbos preparations as