Parashat Yisro

Six days you shall labor, and you shall do all your work, and the seventh day will be a Shabbos for Hashem your G-d, don’t do any work… [F]or Hashem made the heavens and earth and all that is in them in six days, and He rested on the seventh; therefore, Hashem blessed the day Shabbos, and He sanctified it.

Shemos, 20:9-11

Although each of the Aseres HaDibros are intended to affirm and establish our everlasting relationship with HaKadosh Baruch Hu, none accomplish the task quite like Shabbos. Unlike the rest, the mitzvah of Shmiras Shabbos requires the emulation of our Master; just as He rested, so do we. In Tehilim, we are told that Bnei Noach are Yom VaLila Lo Yishbosu, that Goyim are required to never rest; if a non-Jew chooses to observe the halachos of Shabbos and rest, even on a Monday, he incurs a Chiuv Misah Bi’Yidei Shamayim! But we, as Jews, are privileged to elevate our nature from that of G-d’s other creations; we are instead obligated to mirror Hashem’s behavior.

But what does it mean to rest as Hashem rested. Do we really believe that Hashem needed to take a nap after six long days of work? Rashi elaborates:

VaYanach BaYom HaShivi’i: [what does it mean that G-d “rested”?]

KiBiYachol, as if it were possible, [Hashem] writes of rest regarding Himself. [This is done] in order for us to learn a Kal ViChomer from Him to man, for [while Hashem works and never tires, and nonetheless rested on Shabbos, man, whose] work [is performed] in toil and [leaves him] in weariness, [all the more so] he should be at rest on Shabbos.

Rashi, Shemos 20:11

According to Rashi, Hashem is incapable of resting; however, the pasuk anthropomorphically attributes the characteristic of exhaustion to G-d in order to obligate us to rest as well. But there is a fundamental problem with Rashi’s Kal ViChomer; it overlooks the very nature of obligation. If we learn our obligation to rest on Shabbos from Hashem, then we are implying that Hashem obligated Himself to rest on Shabbos. Such a notion is perfectly sensible, for as we stated earlier, Hashem would never rest out of necessity; therefore, He would only do so out of obligation. But if Hashem’s obligation is created out of a lack of necessity, how can it possibly carry over to beings which naturally tire?

In other words, the very nature of Hashem’s rest was that He wouldn’t have rested had it not been for His obligation. Logically, one should only expect the Chiuv to pertain to beings that otherwise would not rest, but man, who rests when he is tired and works when he is replenished, should have no such obligation placed on his shoulders, for his need to rest is already governed by nature. Granted, one could imagine man being obligated to rest because it emulates Hashem’s actions, but such a Chiuv has nothing to do with the logic of Kal ViChomer.

Just as there is a flaw in our understanding of Rashi’s Kal ViChomer, so too, we are grossly misunderstanding the implications of the term KiBiYachol. When Rashi says Hashem cannot actually rest, he means that Hashem did not actually rest for it was impossible for Him to. Eventually, we will have to consider whether our actions of Menucha actually emulate G-d’s or not, but for now, there are more immediate questions to address. For starters, why is Rashi so convinced that the term VaYanach refers to something Hashem is incapable of performing? If the word refers to physical sleep, then we would certainly be forced to attribute anthropomorphism. But who’s to say VaYanach doesn’t refer to, say, the cessation of interaction with our world in a specific sense? The pasuk contiues Al Kain Bayruch Hashem Es Yom Hashabbos VaYikadisheihu, that Hashem blessed and sanctified the day. Here, Rashi’s comments suggest anything but an interaction of KiBiYachol measure:

Bayruch VaYikadishaihu: [what does each term respectively refer to?]

He blessed it through the Man, which he doubled on Fridays, and He sanctified [Shabbos] through the Man, for it did not fall that day.

Rashi, Shemos 20:11

There are many things Hashem can do that constitute resting without actually pulling up an ottoman to His Kisai HaKavod. Rashi says in Parashat Beraishis that Hashem doubled His quota on Friday so that He could finish creation a day early, leaving Shabbos as a day of rest. There, rest is meant in a much more passive sense, implying that everything that Hashem intended to create had already been created. Why then must Rashi insist that the term VaYanach is KiBiYachol?

Perhaps there is a direct contrast between the term Shavas written in Beraishis where Hashem passively rests, and the term Nach in our parasha where Hashem actively rests. More to the point, Rashi insists that our pasuk’s term is KiBiYachol in order to emphasize that Hashem went out of His way to write such a term about Himself in the Torah. In other words, Hashem did not go out of His way to rest; rather, He went out of His way to say that He rested, although we all know that such an action is impossible for Hashem.

Therefore, the Kal ViChomer we learn from Hashem has nothing to do with a comparison between obligations, for Hashem could never obligate Himself to do something He simply was incapable of doing! Rather, the Kal ViChomer is simply a comparison of how much one goes out of his way to rest on Shabbos. In Hashem’s case, the very notion of resting is altogether absurd; yet not only did Hashem go out of His way to attribute the characteristic of Menucha to Himself, but He chose to write that He rested on Shabbos. Therefore man, who naturally tires and doesn’t need to go out of his way to motivate his Menuchah, all the more so should he go out of his way to rest on Shabbos as opposed to on another day of the week. Whereas Hashem doubly diverts from His natural tendencies, we must only alter our nature to a single degree, choosing to rest on Shabbos instead of on another day of the week when we eventually exhaust. Therefore, we are Kal ViChomer obligated to divert from our nature.

But if Hashem cannot actually rest, then can we still emulate His actions? From where does this obligation to rest actually stem? If Hashem simply wanted us to rest on shabbos, there are much more straightforward ways of creating the obligation than through a Kal ViChomer learned out from an anthropomorphism. He could have commanded “Rest,” and we would have been obligated the same. (Note this would entail a different obligation than the one already specified in pasuk 10, for the lashon of Tishbos is passive while our pasuk, according to Rashi, obligates us to actually replenish our bodies.)

Looking back at the Sheishes Yemei Beraishis, we find a rather peculiar description of Hashem’s sanctification of the seventh day. The pasuk there says VaYiVareich Elokim Es Yom HaShivi’I VaYiKadeish Oso, that Hashem both blessed it and sanctified it, not very different from the description in the Aseres HaDibros. Of course in our parasha, Rashi describes this “blessing” and “sanctification” as the distribution of Man, so it comes as no surprise that Rashi attributes this very same event to the account of “blessing” and “sanctification” in the Sheises Yimei Beraishis!

A cut and dry case of Ein Mukdam U’Mi’Uchar BaTorah, perhaps Rashi is trying to teach us something very fundamental about not only our observance of Shabbos, but also its very existence. According to Rashi, it is somehow necessary that the Torah acknowledge – all the way from the time of creation – the Man that will fall in the desert, millennia in advance! In other words, HaKadosh Baruch Hu’s very decision to rest on Shabbos (not KiBiYachol) revolves around the desire to involve mankind in a similar behavior. Without dropping a double portion of Man on Friday, and without withholding Man on Shabbos, Hashem would have no incentive to rest on the seventh day of creation.

So the existence of Shabbos is only for mankind’s benefit, but clearly not as a day of forced rejuvenation, for then Hashem would simply command us to rest when the need arises. “Thou shalt sleep eight hours a night,” and the rest would be history. Rather, the benefit we derive from Shabbos is the ability to recognize Hashem’s creation of the world. The Man’s abundance and subsequent absence creates a contrast and instills a feeling of importance upon a day on which nothing occurs. We observe this day through Shvisa, a lack of production, and prepare for the week to come through Menucha, relaxation, all the while achieving a true closeness to – if not an emulation of – our Maker.