Parshas Behaaloscha (5778)
Kol Mekadesh, a zemer (Jewish song) of ancient origin, is traditionally sung on Friday night at many Shabbos tables around the world.
One of the stanzas of this beautiful zemer praises those who love G-d and who rejoice with the Shabbos that He gave us:
“Seekers of G-d, seed of Abraham His beloved, who delay departing from the Sabbath and rush to enter …This is the day that G-d has made, let us rejoice and be glad with it.â€
The commentators ask that the order should be reversed – one enters the day of Shabbos before he departs from it.
The Ziv HaShabbos explains that the Torah, with its commandment to observe the seventh day as holy, was only first given to the Jewish people at Mount Sinai on a Shabbos; therefore, it was already too late to rush to enter that Shabbos and all they could do was to delay its departure and to wait to bring in early the next Shabbos.
This answer is a bit weak, since the stanzas of this zemer seem to be referring to those who are alive presently and not to our ancestors who stood at Mount Sinai. Furthermore, our Sages teach that the Jewish people were already taught about the mitzvah of Shabbos with all its obligations prior to Mount Sinai at a place called Marah (see Exodus 15:25 and Rashi’s commentary ibid).
Rabbi Nachum Eisenstein, in his commentary on the Zemiros (Jewish songs) of Shabbos titled Rinas Yaakov, offers a different approach that I would like to share with you:
To answer this question, we first need to familiarize ourselves with the concept of Tosefes Shabbos.
According to many Poskim (Halachic authorities), there is a Torah commandment to add time to Shabbos, both at its commencement and at its conclusion. This is referred to as the mitzvah of Tosefes Shabbos (lit. “Adding to Shabbosâ€). [Shabbos begins at sunset on Friday evening and ends with the emergence of three stars on Saturday night.]
At a minimum, one is required to add at least two minutes before and after Shabbos in order to fulfill the mitzvah. After sunset, one can no longer fulfill the mitzvah of Tosefes Shabbos, because the Shabbos has already begun, and it is already too late to add on to it.
There is a dispute among the Poskim how best for men to fulfill this mitzvah. [Women traditionally accept the Shabbos upon themselves when they recite the blessing over the Shabbos candles on Friday afternoon, eighteen minutes before sunset.] Some say that Tosefes Shabbos goes into effect automatically as soon as one stops doing Halachically forbidden work on Friday afternoon from at least two minutes before sunset.
Others hold that one must verbally accept the Shabbos in order to fulfill the mitzvah. One way this can be accomplished is simply by saying at least two minutes before sunset, “I accept upon myself the holiness of the Shabbosâ€. As a result of this verbal declaration, the duration of one’s personal Shabbos observance is lengthened.
While the weekly addition of two minutes to the beginning and end of Shabbos is obligatory for each and every Jew, there are many individuals who choose to accept the holiness of Shabbos and its obligations upon themselves much earlier than two minutes before sunset on Friday afternoon.
This is especially common during the summer months when sunset and the actual start of the Shabbos is so late in the evening. [For example, this Shabbos in Toronto, sunset is at 8:52pm!] Accepting Shabbos earlier on Friday allows one to eat the Friday night Shabbos meal earlier (and to put the tired and unruly kids to sleep earlier as well). This earlier acceptance of Shabbos is colloquially referred to as “making early Shabbosâ€.
Now while many of us will bring Shabbos in earlier on Friday afternoon, there aren’t as many people delaying the departure of Shabbos at its conclusion (especially in the summer months when Shabbos is officially over as late as 10:00pm!). In fact, I would say that many Jews are running out of synagogue at the conclusion of Shabbos and actually hastening its departure …and this is even during the winter months when Shabbos ends early and there is plenty of time after that for other activities!
We find a precedent for this errant behavior in this week’s Torah portion, Parshas Beha’alosecha, when our ancestors departed from Mount Sinai after having received the Torah (see Numbers 10:33). Nachmanides quotes a Midrash which teaches that the Jewish people fled from the mountain of G-d after receiving the Torah “like a child running away from schoolâ€, happy to leave that holy place because they were afraid that G-d might give them more and more commandments.
Returning to our original question, Rabbi Eisenstein explains that “rushing to enter†the Shabbos on Friday afternoon is not necessarily proof that one is a “Seeker of G-d†who loves Shabbos and wants to rejoice with it. After all, it could very well be that he is making early Shabbos purely for convenience sake so that his kids shouldn’t be too tired at the Shabbos meal.
But if we see that a Jew delays the departure of Shabbos on Saturday night, eating and drinking and singing Zemiros at Shalosh Seudos (the “Third Mealâ€) in honor of G-d and His beautiful Shabbos, way into the night, then we can know for sure that the following week when he rushes to enter the Shabbos by making early Shabbos, he is not doing so merely for convenience sake, but is rather a true “seeker of G-d†who loves the Shabbos and wants to enjoy it for as long as he can.
The mitzvah of Tosefes Shabbos is thus a sort of ‘litmus test†of our Jewish observance. How much we love Judaism is reflected in how we bring in - and especially how we take out - the Shabbos each week. Do we rush out of Shabbos like a kid running away from school? Or do we delay its departure in appreciation of the gift that Shabbos truly is?
How much do we truly love being Jewish and observing the mitzvos that G-d gave us? Are we rushing to do the mitzvos and delaying their departure? Or are we running away from them as fast as we can?
My blessing to all of us is that we always cherish the beautiful mitzvah of Shabbos – and all our other Jewish observances – all the days of our lives. Amen!
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