sholem aleichem,

Shabbos is almost here, thank gd.

And yet. I am finding, these days, that I often feel the same after lighting the Shabbos candles as I did before. Where is the calm and quiet rest, the menucha of the holy day?

The work of my week is complete. But people dear to me are still suffering, I am still suffering, my country continues its killing across the world, and Jewish settlers — my beloved people! my family! — are spending their Shabbos attacking Palestinians.

?זו שבת וזו מנוחתה

Is this really Shabbos? Is this really her menucha?

In Mishnah Shabbos, chazal teach that there are “40 less 1” categories of melacha, acts of creative labor that are forbidden on Shabbos.

The Mishnah is generally assumed to be a minimalist text, saying no more than it needs to. And yet, as Tosafos Yom Tov points out, the Mishnah uses three words (40 less 1) to count the melachos, when two words would suffice (thirty nine).

Tosafos Yom Tov and his son bring three potential reasons: (1) the count “40 less 1” appears in another (related) context in the Talmud; (2) the word melacha appears 40 times in the Torah; and (3) if you try to do all 39 melachos in order, you will be forced to repeat one of them, creating a total of 40 melachos.

The Pardes Yosef, an early 1900s Ger Hasid, brings another possibility (which I first learned from this dvar), based on the second verse of our parsha:

שֵׁ֣שֶׁת יָמִים֮ תֵּעָשֶׂ֣ה מְלָאכָה֒ וּבַיּ֣וֹם הַשְּׁבִיעִ֗י יִהְיֶ֨ה לָכֶ֥ם קֹ֛דֶשׁ שַׁבַּ֥ת שַׁבָּת֖וֹן לַיהֹוָ֑ה כׇּל־הָעֹשֶׂ֥ה ב֛וֹ מְלָאכָ֖ה יוּמָֽת

Six days you will do melacha, and on the seventh day it will be holy for you, a Shabbos Shabbason for haShem, anyone who does melacha on it will die

Citing the Yerushalmi (though I haven’t found the specific text yet), the Pardes Yosef asks us to read the first six words of this verse together, on their own:

Six days you will do melacha and on the seventh day.

The implication, he says, is a tremendous marvel, for “these words imply that also on the seventh day you shall do melacha.”

And this is his explanation of our Mishnah: there are 40 categories of melacha in total, all but one of which are forbidden on Shabbos. Thus, there are “40 less 1” melachos that are forbidden on Shabbos.

So what is this 40th melacha that we do on Shabbos?

Quoting Rashi (himself referencing Bereishis Rabbah), The Pardes Yosef teaches that the 40th melacha is menucha itself:

[When Genesis 2:3 says] And haShem completed [his melacha that he did], Rashi [comments]: Shabbos arrived, menucha arrived [and the melacha was completed and finished]. And according to this, also menucha is called a melacha. But one is not considered guilty for doing this melacha [on Shabbos]. On the contrary, it is a mitzvah [to do it].

To the Pardes Yosef, menucha is not an experience that arrives with Shabbos. Rather, what arrives with Shabbos is the obligation to do the creative labor of menucha.

Shabbos arrives no matter our circumstances. And with it arrives the obligation to do menucha. This is, perhaps, the essence of this obligation: that we must learn to create menucha despite our circumstances.

And so the creative labor of menucha is not done during the week, as we (for example) prepare our meals so that we can rest from cooking on Shabbos. It is not even done (only) by doing menuchadik things on Shabbos, like taking a nap or enjoying a novel or davening with friends.

All of the above may create menucha, but only by altering our circumstances to ones in which menucha is more likely to naturally arise. This is not wrong or bad: on the contrary, it is commanded of us! It is beautiful and holy. But I do not think it is the essence of the melacha of menucha itself, which is, I think, to find within our selves a source of menucha that requires no special conditions.

“Return, o my soul, to your menucha.” Dovid sings of this ever-present place of menucha as the home for our souls. A place of menucha beyond all circumstances, a place of menucha within all circumstances. A place we can always return to.

So whenever Shabbos finds us, however Shabbos finds us: the 40th melacha is to connect to this ever-present place of menucha within. To return to it again and again. To draw it forth like water from a deep well, so that all who are thirsty may come to drink.

good shabbos,

ada

p.s. Are there other possibilities for the “40th melacha”? One I’m thinking about is pikuach nefesh — much more on this bli neder after I finish my year on pikuach nefesh in SVARA Kollel.

p.p.s “זו שבת וזו מנוחתה” is a reference to Menachot 29b (“This is Torah, and this its reward??”). “Return, o my soul, to your menucha” is from Tehillim 116. “So that all who are thirsty may come to drink” is an oblique reference to Isaiah 55:1.