Yisro
זכור את יום השבת לקדשו (שמות כ, ח).
Remember the day of Shabbos to sanctify it.
The Sages explain that this is a positive command to remember Shabbos throughout the week. What is the function of this practice? Let us begin with an exposition of a passage from the previous sidra:
ויסע משה את ישראל מים סוף… וילכו שלשת ימים במדבר ולא מצאו מים. ויבאו מרתה ולא יכלו לשתות מים ממרה כי מרים הם על כן קרא שמה מרה. וילונו... ויורהו ה עץ וישלך אל המים וימתקו המים
Moshe drove Israel from the Sea of Reeds… and they travelled for three days in the wilderness without finding water. They arrived at Marah, yet they were unable to drink Marah’s waters, for they were bitter; Therefore is its name called Marah. And the people complained… And Hashem showed him a tree, and he cast it into the water and the waters turned sweet. *
One observation that one can make about this passage is the relevance of the lack of water for three days, which the Sages** take to refer to the nation’s refrain from Torah study for this amount of time.
Another question to ponder is the shift from the plural (כי מרים הם) to the singular (על כן קרא שמה מרה) in its description of the waters.
The key to answering these questions lies in the Rambam’s teaching *** that just as there are illnesses which deprive a person of the ability to taste properly – making the bitter seem sweet and the sweet, bitter – so too there are spiritual maladies which confuse one’s sense for right and wrong. One such example would be after deprivation of nourishment: lack of food causes one’s stomach to shrink, minimizing one’s appetite for healthy intake. Similarly, lack of Torah study for an extended period will condition one to not appreciate its natural goodness.
This is what the Jews experienced after the Splitting of the Sea. The Sages, **** commenting on ויסע משה, tell us that the people became so involved in the despoiling of the Egyptian riches that washed ashore that Moshe practically needed to force them along to the next step of their journey. This encounter with free and easy wealth triggered within them a lust for the material, which – in keeping with the principle that one’s desire for materialism and spirituality are inverse proportions – drained them of any interest in Torah study. Thus, they travelled for three days without any Torah or mussar.
Having starved themselves of spirituality, they lost their receptivity to it. They arrived at Marah, a place of water, “yet they were unable to drink Marah’s waters.” Why? כי מרים הם, “for they,” i.e., the Jewish People, “were bitter,” that is, they had lost their taste for Torah, confusing its natural sweetness for bitterness. As such, they misattributed the problem to the water itself, על כן קרא שמה מרה, declaring the water unfit to drink.
Upon Moshe’s crying out to Hashem for a solution, He instructed Moshe to cast a piece of bitter wood into the water. The term עץ, the Zohar ***** tells us in another context, refers to the Torah’s power to provide עצות, direction, as to how to pull oneself out of a spiritual mire. ****** Through engaging the nation in the trying, almost bitter experience of repentance, their acquired disenchantment with Torah was remedied, וימתקו המים, and they regained their appreciation for its natural sweetness.
Now, the Yerushalmi ******* tells us that Shabbos serves two, opposite functions for two classes of people. For the scholars who spend their week toiling in Torah study, it serves as a day of physical rest and relaxation, recharging them for the week ahead. For those otherwise preoccupied with earning a living, however, Shabbos is their weekly opportunity for serious Torah study. Being that, as we have learned, extended disconnect from Torah engenders a lack of appreciation for it, the challenge is how to create chemistry between the laity and their learning when they connect on Shabbos. It is to address this that we are instructed, as per the Sages, זכור את יום השבת, remember and prepare for the Shabbos throughout the week, לקדשו, as a means of being receptive to its holiness when it arrives. For our purposes, this would mean engaging in learning during the week, so as to maintain one’s interest in it, which would allow one’s Shabbos learning to be the holy delight that it ought to be.
This idea is the key to understanding the cryptic midrash ******** in which Shabbos complains before the Creator that while the other six days of the week are mated, it is left without a בן זוג, a partner. Hashem responds that כנסת ישראל יהיה בן זוגך, Israel will serve as the Shabbos’ mate, as it says, זכור את יום השבת לקדשו.
To have a בן זוג is to have a partner with whom one shares a strong and intimate relationship. The workweek has as such with the Torah scholars who fill its days and nights with passionate application to their study. Shabbos, though, lacks such dedication: the said scholars are on leave, while the laity expected to fill their places in the study hall are too intellectually deadened from six days of earning a living to give it their energies, rendering their learning a drudgery. Without anyone to delight in the spiritual sweetness of its Torah, Shabbos is left bereft of a mate.
The solution, says God, is through כנסת ישראל, the “Gathering” of Israel. The Midrash picked this particular title of the Jewish People to allude to yet another midrash, ********* in which the scholars are adjured to convene large assemblies on Shabbos for the education of the public in the practical side of Torah. By enjoining the Torah scholar, who has a natural inclination for his discipline, to teach the laity on Shabbos, the day of rest is provided with harmonious companionship.
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* Shemos 15:22-25.
** Bava Kamma 82a.
*** Dei’os 2:1.
**** Mechilta, Vayasa 1.
***** Balak 202a.
****** This is reflected in the numerical value of עץ (together with its כולל, the value of one for its totality), 161, being equivalent to the מילוי, the expanded version, of אהי"ה (אל"ף ה"י יו"ד ה"י), the Divine Name associated with Repentance.
******* Shabbos 15:3, cited in Beis Yosef, O.C. 288.
******** Bereishis Rabbah 11:8.
********* Yalkut Shimoni 808.