For many years, Princeton University invited those high school seniors who had been accepted to Princeton to spend a weekend there in the spring as part of an effort to encourage them to accept the admissions offer. The Jewish community took this opportunity very seriously and each year a large and festive Shabbat dinner was planned and the “prefrosh” were courted by older students and Hillel staff. We wanted to show them how vibrant and embracing the Jewish community was and encourage them to come to school with us.
And then…the university, for unknown reasons, switched its dates for this program and instead invited the admitted high school students to come to campus for weekdays. They could spend the night in a dorm, eat in a university cafeteria, attend classes, and then go home. The Jewish community greeted this news with alarm. How could we convince Jewish students to come to Princeton if we couldn’t show them a large and festive Shabbat dinner? What could be done? After some thinking and discussions, a solution was found. The students came up with the idea of having a Shabbat dinner on a Tuesday night. They set the kosher dining room with tablecloths and decorated with flowers. They arranged for the dining hall to serve a special Shabbat dinner. And they invited the admitted high school students to attend “faux-bot”.
Could this work? Did this work? I don’t know because I moved to Lakeview three months later and haven’t thought much about it since then. But, I recently discovered that there is a very old history to celebrating “faux bot” and it even has a lot to teach us.
The Torah portion this morning interrupts the description of the construction of the mishkan with the command to observe Shabbat:
שֵ֣שֶת יָמִים֮ תֵעָשֶ֣ה מְלָאכָה֒ ובַי֣ום הַשְבִיעִ֗י יִהְיֶ֨ה לָכֶ֥ם ק֛דש שַבַ֥ת שַבָת֖ון לַה‘ כָל־הָעֹשֶ֥ה ב֛ו מְלָאכָ֖ה יומָֽת׃
“Six days you shall do melakhah, creative and intentional labor, and the seventh day shall be a holy Shabbat day to God…”
This command, introduced as the mishkan is about to be built, reminds us that building the mishkan cannot override Shabbat. That isn’t obvious. After all, the operation of the mishkan and beit hamikdash included slaughtering animals for sacrifice which is otherwise a violation of Shabbat. We had to be taught that Shabbat takes precedence over the construction of the mishkan. That is why Shabbat is the only mitzvah that interrupts verse after verse and chapter after chapter devoted to the mishkan. Indeed, the Talmudic rabbis saw the 39 categories of labor that are forbidden on Shabbat as having been defined by the tasks needed to create the mishkan. But the verse speaks to something else about how Shabbat functions in our life.
The Talmud tells the story of someone lost in the wilderness who does not know which day of the week it is. The Jewish Robinson Crusoe wakes up on a desert island, or on Giligan’s Island if you prefer and does not remember the day of the week. Rav Huna says he should count six days from when he wakes up and observe the seventh as Shabbat. Hiya bar Rav teaches he should observe that first day as Shabbat and then count six more days before observing the next Shabbat. The Talmud suggests that their dispute hinges on whether this lost traveler should see himself or herself as though they are akin to God who “worked” and created for six days and then rested or whether the lost individual should model himself or herself on the first humans who were created on Friday afternoon and encountered Shabbat as their first day.
Let’s investigate a bit deeper. Rav Huna’s position is that when we observe Shabbat we are reenacting God’s own experience of creating and building for six days, stopping to recognize that what we have made is “tov me’od” and then enjoying a day of rest. According to Hiya bar Rav, when we observe Shabbat we are reenacting the first humans who were created on Friday afternoon and came into the world that was already made for them so that they could observe their first day as Shabbat.
Rava then suggests that each day is safek Shabbat, a potential Shabbat based on lack of knowledge, and this lost traveler, the Jewish Robinson Crusoe should only do whatever work is needed to sustain his or her life but should otherwise treat the day as Shabbat. So they can collect coconuts or whatever it is they need to do, but once they have enough food for the day, they must observe the remainder of the day as Shabbat. The Talmud clarifies that treating the day as Shabbat means reciting kiddush and havdalah. (Yes, the Jewish Robinson Crusoe has the shul that he goes to, the shul the the doesn’t go to, and wine for kiddush and havdalah). Indeed, sometimes compromises need to be made to our observance of Shabbat, especially by first responders or doctors, but when possible they should pause for kiddush and havdalah. There are moving stories of Israeli army patrols pausing for kiddush when they need to be out in the field on Friday night.
The Hassidic philosopher, Rabbi Tsadok HaKohen of Lublin wrote that for those of us blessed with an accurate calendar, we need Shabbat to follow six days of work, as the Torah tells us in this week’s parashah: come to Shabbat need also we and שֵ֣שֶת יָמִים֮ תֵעָשֶ֣ה מְלָאכָה֒ ובַי֣ום הַשְבִיעִ֗י יִהְיֶ֨ה לָכֶ֥ם ק֛דש שַבַ֥ת שַבָת֖ון first so that it can imbue the week that follows with enough sanctity to give our lives holiness. Shabbat follows one week and is prior to the next week in a cycle that cannot be broken.
The “faux-bot” experiment was not the first time Jews have tried to make Shabbat on a weekday. I recently learned from the Israeli scholar and educator Rabbanit Michal Tikochiwnksy that several centuries ago, the Hassidic rabbi, Rav Zushia of Hanipol was intrigued by whether or not he could determine the sanctity of Shabbat or if he was confusing the special clothing and food and melodies that he sang for the intrinsic sanctity of Shabbat. So, he and a colleague created their own “faux-bot.” They dressed in Shabbat clothing, they prepared special Shabbat food, they sang special Shabbat melodies and…they felt the sanctity of Shabbat.
They were horrified to feel the same special feeling they experienced only on Shabbat. Perhaps, they worried, they had been deluding themselves for years. They had not been experiencing Shabbat, they had been experiencing gefilte fish and chulent.
They went to the Maggid of Mezritch who reassured them. A proper Shabbat plants seeds in the world. A well-celebrated Shabbat leaves behind kernels of holiness long after havdalah. When you dressed in your Shabbat clothing and ate Shabbat food and sang Shabbat songs, you awakened those kernels of holiness. The special feeling that you perceived was indeed the sanctity of Shabbat.
There is a yeshiva high school in Israel, Mekor Chayim in Gush Etzion, which takes their students each year to do this experiment on a field trip. Rav Dov Zinger, whom I’ve quoted on several occasions, wants to train his students to perceive the sanctity of Shabbat that can be coaxed out of hiding even during the week. That sensitivity can then be invested the next Shabbat, and the week that follows, and the Shabbat after that, and the week that comes next.
Don’t try this at home folks. Or….maybe you should try this at home and see if it works for you! But the lessons of Shabbat that comes at the end of one week, and at the beginning of another, are there for us all the same.
If we wish to attend a warm and vibrant tefilah on Shabbat morning. We can’t waltz into shul at 9:30 or 10:30 or 11:00, and sit passively while others around us create that warmth and vibrancy. Reach out during the week and invite someone you don’t know well to a Shabbat meal at your home, or ask the hospitality committee to send you a guest. That act of hospitality will infuse your week as you shop for food and cook and prepare the meal and that warmth will embrace your guest from the moment she is invited to the moment she enters your home. If everyone sits passively and reads the bulletin or chats with a neighbor, who will create a vibrant environment of tefilah. Everybody is entitled to sing! If you sing off key, somebody else will match your voice in the other direction and balance out your voice in a beautiful harmony.
Shabbat has to infuse the week. If you come here every Shabbat morning but feel no interest in coming occasionally to tefilah on Shabbat afternoon or during the week, that is a sign that our tefilah failed to inspire and energize as much as it should or could. If you listen to me and other speakers deliver drashot each week but don’t feel curious about the Torah and seek out other opportunities to study, then I haven’t succeeded as a speaker and teacher.
There is no such thing as kedushah, holiness, without preparation. Everything worthwhile is worth investing time and energy in learning how to do it well. But the converse is also true. If we invest time in preparing for Shabbat and then bringing the spirit of Shabbat into the week, we can bask in the sanctity that we helped create. The more we invest in lives devoted to Torah and mitzvot, and the more we engage in that process in a conscientious and meticulous way, the greater payoff we will reap in lives of meaning and beauty and ethical excellence.
Tonight as we gather in shul for havdalah or as you recite havdalah at home, consider how you want Shabbat to endow the coming week with kernels of holiness. And, as you go about the week, think of the moment when you will be able to say with pride that something you created was indeed “tov me’od” as you transition once again into Shabbat rest.
Rabbi David Wolkenfeld 