After leaving Egypt at the time of the Exodus, the Jewish People lived in the wilderness for forty years.  There the people of Israel found Shabbat, and the Shabbat found the Jewish People.  It was a perfect match, and the two sealed a pact of faithfulness to each other which remains intact to this day.

In the wilderness, we were nourished by the manna.  Every grain of the manna was evidence that testified to G-d’s sovereignty over the universe.  The laws of nature were suspended, and G-d’s providence was clearly evident to one and all.

Consequently, it was not difficult to observe the laws of Shabbat while in the wilderness.

However, the forty years spent there were but a training school to prepare the nation for life in its own homeland, the Land of Israel.  Forty years of revealed miracles provided the nation with food, water, shelter, and protected them from the harsh elements in the desert.  As a result, the people developed a profound faith in G-d’s Providence.

Later, when they established themselves in their own land, tilled the land, grew crops and harvested them, it was more difficult to acknowledge G-d’s sovereignty.

This was just how G-d had planned the course of our national history.  It was to be the mission of the Jewish People to cultivate the land and live within the laws of nature, rather than through revealed miracles, and yet continue to serve as an example of profound faith and trust in the Creator.  They were to establish a government that was just and righteous, and embodied the principles and values which G-d had taught them through His Torah.

Indeed, when the nation crossed over the Jordan River and entered their own land, the protective clouds which had sheltered them in the wilderness disappeared.  The manna no longer fell.  Now they must plow their fields, plant their seed, and harvest their crops.  They must build cities and engage in commerce and crafts.

Their new mode of living was fraught with spiritual dangers. Would they stand up to the test?

How easy it is to forget the Source, and to attribute a successful crop or a profitable sale of merchandise to one’s own prowess and talents!

Would they persevere in their deep faith?  Or would they falter, as the verse describes, and declare:

“My power and the might of my hand has begotten me this wealth.”                                                     (Deuteronomy 8:17)

Over the ages, as they established themselves as an independent sovereign nation, the people of Israel would be continually tested.  Would they always remember that it is “the L-rd, your G-d, … who gives you power to gain wealth, so that He may establish His covenant which He swore unto your fathers, as it is this day”? (Deuteronomy 8:18)

Living under “normal” conditions, rather than the experiencing the miracles of the wilderness, it was far easier to fall prey to the illusion that man is his own master.  Here it was more likely that their loyalty to the Shabbat would fade.  The covenant so earnestly established in the desert, between the People of Israel and the Sabbath bride, might easily be forgotten.  No longer would their Shabbat observance testify each week to their acknowledgement that G-d was the Creator of all and the Master of the universe.

The abandonment of the Shabbat covenant was the first step along the road to attributing their accomplishments to their own sweat and toil:  “My power and the might of my hand has begotten me this wealth.”

Some bow to idols of wood and stone; others to the work of their own hand.  In both cases, man denies the Supreme Ruler of the universe.  When he ceases to submit to the authority of the Creator; when he denies the very existence of a Supreme Power, man must start to invent his own code of law.

Who can ensure that justice, and not brute power, will determine the laws of the land?

What becomes of man’s religion, his belief in the Divine?  This is now assigned an insignificant corner of his life, where lip service is paid to the concept of a religion which rules man’s life only an hour or so a week, leaving ample time for him to indulge his self-centered whims and advance his own ego-centric interests.

The dangers inherent in such a life are many, but the Jewish People must be equal to them.  The mission of Israel is to overcome this risk.  Not for nothing did G-d take them out of Egypt, and redeem them from the house of bondage.  It was not without reason that, in Egypt, the Creator let them taste the curse of life under a ruling power that accepted only the laws of Nature and denied His very existence.

There, under Pharaoh, the King of the Heavens and the Earth toppled the gods of the heathen Egyptians.  He subdued those who had worshiped them by slaying their firstborn.  The tyrant who had asked Moses “Who is this G-d, Elokim, that I should obey Him?” now pressed the leader of the Jews to leave the country with his followers with the greatest possible haste.

Pharaoh was humbled and brought to his knees in order that the Jewish people witness the infinite power and might of their G-d.  They saw their former iron-fisted, merciless taskmasters tremble like so many fir trees in a storm.  At last the Egyptians were forced to acknowledge that the G-d of the Heavens also ruled the earth below and all within it.

From this point in history onward, the concept of the Master of the Universe was no longer a tradition handed down from father to son, but an indelible, incontrovertible national event jointly experienced by over a million adult members of the Jewish People.

After they had left Egypt, G-d continued to train the nation He had chosen to favor above all others by sustaining them for forty years in a desolate wilderness.

The years of revealed miracles were a continuation of Am Israel’s education for the later stage, when they took up life as an independent, sovereign nation not in the wilderness, with revealed miracles, but in their own homeland.

This awareness of G-d’s might and dominion was to serve as the basic foundation for the establishment of the nation in its own land.  Here the people would not be infected by the idol worship of Egypt.  In their new home, the mission of the Jewish people was to establish a nation of justice, a nation where aliens were not subject to enslavement merely because they were foreigners.  They were to establish a nation fully cognizant of the might and awe of the Creator, a people who sought to live in keeping with His instructions, as transmitted to them by the Torah.

G-d is not only the Master of the world of Nature; He is also the Master of History, the King of kings, who controls the heart of the flesh-and-blood, seated on the highest of thrones.  Nonetheless, He is close to the lowliest servant or slave in the kingdom who sincerely calls upon Him.  There is none so elevated of rank, and none too humble beyond the realm of His jurisdiction.

G-d took our nation and brought us into the Land of Israel for a well-defined purpose: to become His nation, and not a “nation like all the nations.”

To be understood, the history of the Jewish People in their homeland must be viewed in light of this mission.  They are enjoined to be ever on guard lest their involvement in government, commerce, and defense come to blind them to the basic truths of their mission.

Let not profits become an idol of silver, nor the interests of the crown, a manmade idol of gold, to which they show deference and bow because they have forgotten the true Ruler, Who crowns all monarchs and Who makes man prosper.

Let us constantly keep in mind that we are the privileged servants of the King of Kings.  We shall form a united band to honor His Name.  The nation’s entire resources shall be fully dedicated to this end, from the king’s majestic palace, to artisans’ workshops, workers’ sheds, and the farmers’ most humble cottages.

Each man will wield his scythe or his needle, his hammer and saw or his pen and ink, with one goal in mind: to increase man’s tribute to his Maker.  In the palace and in the streets, in the marketplaces and in the city gates, in the fields and the vineyards, just as in the halls of study and prayer, G-d’s word shall reign supreme.  The only source of prestige shall be the degree to which we succeed in bringing honor to G-d’s Name.

It was to achieve this end that G-d revealed Himself to us on Mount Sinai, among the flames of fire, and declared:

“Remember the Sabbath day to sanctify it!” (Exodus 20)

Take precautions, lest political considerations encroach upon your service of your Maker.  Guard yourself, lest your heart begin to murmur within you and say: “In the wilderness, G-d nourished us with manna from Heaven, but here, in our homeland, we must look after our own interests and those of our dependants.  Now it is we who provide our sustenance, not G-d.”

Heaven forbid that such thoughts enter our head, or our heart.  “Remember the Sabbath day, to sanctify it!”  Establish the Shabbat as a monument to the acknowledgement that your Creator is still with you, no less than in the wilderness, and His spirit permeates your marketplaces and workshops and fields and homes no less than it did the Holy Tabernacle in the wilderness.

“Six days you shall work, and do all your labor, and on the seventh day, Shabbat for the L-rd, your G-d.”

Six days you shall cultivate the soil, you shall engage in crafts, and process the fruits of the earth to the best of your abilities.  Six days a week, conduct all your affairs of state and promote the goals of the nation.

But the seventh day is a Sabbath unto G-d; you shall do no manner of work on that day.  On the seventh day, the farmer leaves his plow, the harvester his scythe, the miller his grindstones and the baker, his ovens.  All remember Who it is who gives them life, who provides them with the strength to plow and to harvest, to grind grain into wheat, and to bake flour into bread. 

Who brings forth the stalks of wheat from the soil, who created the river whose waters turn the wheels of the mill?

Who gave their minds the intelligence to sow and to reap, to knead the right amount of water with the flour, and to bake it to aromatic perfection?

Who endowed man with the power to move his limbs and to form words, to communicate with others, and to sell his wares?

Let one and all humbly remember, and observe the Sabbath day in testimony to his acknowledgement that it is not the “…power and the might of my hand (that) has begotten me this wealth.”

Rather, let us recite the Kiddush and cease from all creative labor on this day, in order to testify that it is “the L-rd … who gives you power to gain wealth, so that He may establish His covenant which He swore unto your fathers, as it is this day” (Deuteronomy 8:18).

In our modern day and age, can we possibly forgo the eternal message of the Shabbat?  Today, when man’s knowledge encompasses distant galaxies, not for the sake of knowledge alone, but in order to advance man’s own prestige, wealth, or power?  Today, when man has advanced by leaps and bounds in learning to harness the forces of nature, so that science has grown akin to a modernized form of idol worship?

Can we now, in our times, do without the lessons of the Shabbat?

What better way to protect ourselves from the tendency to deny the Prime Source of the Universe.  What more effective method is there to avoid joining those who pay homage to the work of man’s hand, as though this were the source of their life-breath and happiness?

Our generation needs the Shabbat even more than those which preceded us.  Were the Shabbat to be observed universally, every new invention would add to the honor of Heaven.  Every natural wonder, and every discovery made by mankind would proclaim the wisdom of the Creator of the Universe.  Every new invention would thus be not only of intrinsic value, for its own sake, but also bring in its wake an increased appreciation of G-d’s handiwork which it brought about.

This in turn brings increased blessing upon man from his Creator.

Who can calculate the potential for blessings and the benefits which the Shabbat represents?

How different the world would be if, each seventh day, man would climb down from the driver’s seat and hand over the keys to his Maker.  By placing himself and his world in G-d’s hands for twenty-four hours, man gains a more accurate perspective of his own role in the universe.

As a result, he is better equipped to complete his mission in this world, and thus renders himself more worthy of G-d’s gifts of blessing and peace.