Search for Serenity - 010 Menucha of Shabbos

Two Kinds of Responsibilities

Usually, when a person feels obligated to do something, this takes away from his menuchas hanefesh. When a person isn’t responsible, he can relax, but when he is responsible and he must take action over something, he loses his calmness.

There are two terms in Hebrew for the word “obligation”: chayav, and chav. The word chayav is associated with being responsible to pay for damages, such as what we find throughout the Gemara, one is “chayav to pay.” This hints that chayav is a kind of obligation that takes away one’s inner peace. But there is another kind of obligation, chav, which allows one to keep his inner peace; this is what we find by one who must pay with the choicest kind of land in order to pay back someone. Since chav is associated with the “choicest” kind of land, it shows that there is a kind of obligation which causes pleasantness.

A person’s responsibilities either take away or give him an inner peace. A regular kind of obligation, a chiyuv, takes a person out of his menuchah, but when it is chav, it an obligation which is calm, slow and relaxed.

“Choiv” – Chiyuv or Chibbah

The words chav and chayav are both rooted in the root word of “choiv.” Choiv can also mean hidden (“machvoi”). Choiv can also mean chibbah, which means fond. The Maharal (in Avos 3:14) explains that there is a difference between ahava, (love) and chibbah (fondness) – ahavah is in the open, but chibbah is a hidden kind of love. Choiv thus connotes a hidden kind of love.

What this means for us is that on a superficial level, a choiv is just a responsibility placed upon us; but on an inner take, a choiv is really chibbah for us. The Maharal explains with this that the inner chibbah contained in every responsibility can actually provide us with an inner peace.

This inner peace is hinted to in the words of the Gemara (Shabbos 10b): “I have a precious gift in My treasury, and Shabbos is its name; go and inform the nation of Yisrael about it.” Shabbos, the root of menuchah, is hidden in Hashem’s treasury; it is not out in the open.

Simcha (happiness) is a happiness that is revealed out in the open, while oneg (pleasure) and menuchah (calmness) are inner kinds of happiness that are kept hidden. When there is ahavah, there is simcha; and when there is chibbah, there is menuchah.

There are kinds of obligations which are just like a chiyuv to us; we feel chayav to do it, and it takes away our menuchah. But there is a kind of obligation which is a chav to us – it gives us a chibbah in doing it, a calmness.

Talmud Bavli always uses the word chayav, and this is because the scholars in Bavli were more aggressive with each other in their arguments. But Talmud Yerushalmi always uses the word chav, because they argued in a more pleasant manner (Sanhedrin 24a). Yerushalayim is also called “menuchah”.

Either our obligations are causing us chiyuv, which does not involve menuchah – or it is causing us chibbah, which gives us menuchah.

Shabbos Vs. The Six Days Of The Week

The six days of the week represent the six different directions: above, below, in front, behind, right, and left. Six different directions deter one’s menuchah. But Shabbos is rozo d’echad – the “secret of oneness”. It has only “one” plane to it. The evil of the universe disappears on Shabbos and it retreats to the lowest abyss in Creation, and we are left with only one side – the side of good in the universe. Menuchah comes from chibbah, which is a kind of love; love is to be “one” with another. When there is only “one”, there are no two sides.

The depth of chibbah is found in Shabbos. Shabbos is both called chibbah as well as menuchah. Shabbos is a hidden gift, so that is how we see it is chibbah. It is in Shabbos where menuchah and chibbah is found.

During the six days the week, when people work “For six days you shall labor”, there are all kinds of work to be done: plowing, planting, harvesting. But on Shabbos, “When Shabbos comes, menuchah comes to the world.”

When I desist from doing anything, I am equal to everyone else in the world; all people on Shabbos are one in that we all do not do any work. But during the week, each person has his own job with all their various details, and we are all different during the week because of this. Shabbos thus gives the world a unity, a oneness, because we are all equal on this day. There is only one side; everything boils down to “one” on this day. This is the menuchah that Shabbos brings.

Shabbos Pays You Back

Choiv, an obligation, is usually found throughout Gemara in reference to paying back a loan. Chazal discourage us from borrowing money, because we shouldn’t feel enslaved to others. But there is one exception to this rule: Shabbos! Chazal say that one should borrow money from others in order to buy his Shabbos needs.

The depth to this is that during the week, when a person borrows money, it’s a chiyuv upon him to pay it back, but if it’s for Shabbos, it is a chav. Shabbos is chibbah – when a person borrows money for Shabbos needs, it is chibbah.

Normally when a person borrows money, he feels pressure because he knows he has to pay it back. This deters his inner peace. But when it comes to borrowing money for Shabbos, although a person is obligated to pay it back, Chazal say that Hashem will pay him back. The borrower should not feel any pressure in borrowing the money for Shabbos needs, because he can rely on Hashem to pay it back. He has chibbah with Hashem who will take care of him.

Chazal say that “Shabbos itself pays back.” Superficially, this means that Shabbos is a source of blessing (which is true) and this will give a person with what to pay back the money with, and that Shabbos expenses are not included in what was decreed upon a person on Rosh Hashanah. But it is more than this.

It is really because Shabbos is all about chibbah. Just like a husband and wife give to each other out of chibbah for each other, not simply out of obligation, so is money lent for Shabbos expenses done out of chibbah.

The Two Kinds of Menuchah On Shabbos

On Shabbos, the menuchah that a person can have is either from having menuchah in Hashem, or it is coming from the very fact that it is Shabbos.

There is a menuchah which a person can have just in Hashem; “That we recognize and know that from You comes their menuchah (rest).” Then there is another kind of menuchah on Shabbos: the fact that a person rests on Shabbos and does nothing. Shabbos itself is menuchah. These are two kinds of menuchah – menuchah in Hashem, and menuchah in Shabbos itself. The menuchah in Shabbos itself is the bridge that is between Hashem and the Jewish people.

Chazal (Pesikta Rabbasi: 23) state that Shabbos said to Hashem, “All the days of the week have a match, and only I do not have a match.” Hashem responded, “The Jewish people are your match.” This resembles the menuchah between a husband and wife.

The menuchah in Shabbos itself is a menuchah that comes to us from a connection to Hashem. It is menuchah in our ultimate root; it is Hashem’s menuchah being shined upon us.

When I rest on Shabbos and then enter the six days the week, I can then reveal Hashem during the week. When a person connects to Hashem through resting on Shabbos from work, he comes into the week with a whole different perspective – he sees Who is behind everything even during the week. He sees how even the six days of the week are really only one-sided.

This is how Shabbos brings menuchah during the week. What is this menuchah? This is when a person only sees one side in front of him. Through Shabbos, a person sees how the week is also all one side, because they are all Hashem’s handiwork – they are really all one.

Each day of the week we say the yom; “Today is the first day of the week of Shabbos”, and so forth. The depth behind this is that each day of the week, we must reveal how it is a revelation of Hashem – and this is how we can achieve menuchah even during the week.

The other kind of Menuchah on Shabbos we have, which is having Menuchah from Hashem Himself, is a menuchah that is above this. It has nothing to do with any actions of Hashem whatsoever. It is a menuchah because Shabbos is called a “precious gift”. It is all about the connection between the giver of the gift and the recipient of the gift.

Shabbos – Desire Of All Desires

By Shalosh Seudos (the third meal of Shabbos), we describe Shabbos as “Raava d’rayon” – “Desire of all desires.” The climax of Shabbos is during this time; it is during this time that the revelation of Shabbos is at its zenith. This is the apex of the menuchah. All of Shabbos is menucha, but this is the most apparent by Shalosh Seudos.

Action and Above Action

Chazal (Berachos 64a) say that a Torah scholar has no menuchah, not in this world and not in the next. But we also know that a Torah scholar is especially blessed with menuchah; “And he saw menuchah, that is was good.” How are we to answer this contradiction?

The answer to this is that there are two kinds of menuchah – a higher kind of menuchah (which we are about to explain), and a lower kind of menuchah. A Torah scholar is blessed to have the lower kind of menuchah, which is that he can stay where he is. This involves some action; it is a menuchah within the realm of action.

But the higher kind of menuchah is like how one is not allowed to leave the techum (boundaries) of where one lives on Shabbos. “No man shall go out from his place.” This is a menuchah which is above the realm of our actions – it is a very inner place. It is the perfect kind of menuchah, and it is above Creation. Shabbos was created before the world – it came even before the “beginning” of Creation.

In between these two kinds of menuchah is another kind of menuchah: silence. When Hashem created the universe, He first removed Himself from it in order to have space to create it, so to speak. He first had to create an empty space from which to create the universe from. This empty space is the source for another kind of menuchah – a menuchah which comes from inner silence, an “emptiness” in Creation which is also a force in the soul (this was discussed in Chapter Six).

The Three Kinds of Menuchah

To summarize, there are three kinds of menuchah. There is a menuchah which is recognizing how everything is Hashem’s handiwork. There is a second kind of menuchah, which comes from connecting totally to the Ein Sof of Hashem; this is a kind of menuchah that is above all movement and action that we know of. There is a third kind of menuchah, which comes from silence – when a person does nothing. These are three levels of menuchah.

The menuchah that is within the bounds of Creation is when we recognize how everything is all Hashem’s work, and we see how everything is all one side.

Above this is menuchah from the chalal (empty space), which is when a person realizes that everything is empty; this gives a person a total silence, which gives one menuchah.

Above this is a menuchah above all movements – the absolute connection with Hashem.