Article No. 19, Tav-Shin-Mem-Tet, 1988/89
It is written in The Zohar (VaYakhel, Item 180): “What is Shabbat [Sabbath]? Why is it called ‘Shabbat’? Is it because that dot ascended and her light shines? At that time, she is crowned in the fathers, who are HGT de ZA, to be one, and everything is called ‘Shabbat.’ That is, Malchut together with the fathers are called ‘Shabbat.’ Shabbat has the letters Shin-Bat [daughter], since the three Vavs [3 times Vav] in the Shin [ש] imply the three fathers HGT, and she, who is called Bat [daughter], crowns in them.”
It is also written there (Item 181): “The meaning of the matter is that the dot, wherever it is, is the heart of the eye. That is, it contains Hochma, which is called “eyes,” and it is called Bat [daughter], as he said, ‘Keep us like the pupil of the eye.’ Because she is the heart of the whole eye [pupil], she is called Bat. That is, there are three colors in the eye, which are HGT. The fourth color is a black dot, which is Malchut, and only in it is the Hochma—called Ayin [eye]—revealed. This is why it is the heart of all the colors of the eye.” There (Item 177), it says, “All those six days— HGT NHY—unite at a single, holy point, which is Malchut, and all the days unite in her.”
We should interpret this in the work. Baal HaSulam asked according to the above said, that the six days of work imply ZA, which are HGT NHY of ZA, and Shabbat implies Malchut. If this is so, then the six weekdays should have been more important than Shabbat, since ZA is a higher degree than Malchut.
He said, “It is true that the six weekdays imply ZA, but the whole world is under the governance of Malchut, since Malchut is called ‘the assembly of Israel,’ which means that she contains all the souls of Israel, and anything that is not in Malchut is not revealed in this world. However, as long as there is no unification between ZA and Malchut and the abundance of ZA does not extend to Malchut, it is called ‘weekday.’”
Shabbat is regarded as unification, meaning that ZA unites with Malchut, which means that all six Sefirot of ZA illuminate in Malchut. This is why she is called “a Shabbat of holiness,” since the Kedusha [holiness] of ZA extends to Malchut. “Weekday” means that they separated from each other because Malchut, who is the Kli [vessel] that receives the abundance for the lower ones, “the receiving Malchut,” is in disparity of form from the Giver, who is ZA. The lower ones must be fit to receive the abundance that Malchut wants to bestow upon them, meaning (to be) in equivalence of form, to work in order to bestow.
This is why we were given the six workdays to correct ourselves through work in Torah and Mitzvot [commandments/good deeds]. To the extent that we engage in bestowal, to that extent each one corrects the root of his soul above, in Malchut, into working in order to bestow. It follows that through the six workdays, Malchut is corrected by the lower ones, and then Malchut is in equivalence of form with ZA, and the abundance of ZA extends to Malchut.
For this reason, Shabbat is regarded as Malchut and is more important than the six weekdays, although the six days imply ZA, which is a higher degree than Malchut. However, all the degrees are measured by the extent to which they bestow upon the lower ones. Since on the six workdays they are in the midst of the work of correcting Malchut into working in order to bestow, ZA still cannot bestow. Only on Shabbat, when the work of bestowal of Malchut is completed, Shabbat is considered more important because then the degree of ZA shines to the lower ones through the correction of Malchut. This is why Shabbat is called “the secret of the One,” which is the unification of ZA and Malchut through equivalence of form. This is why she is called “Shabbat of peace,” meaning that it is considered that on Shabbat there is already peace between ZA, regarded as the giver, and Malchut, regarded as the receiver.
On Shabbat, Malchut is already corrected into working in order to bestow and there is no separation between them whatsoever. For this reason, it is called “a blessed Shabbat of peace,” for then the blessings extend to Malchut and to the lower ones. For this reason, Shabbat is more important than the six workdays.
Our sages said (Avoda Zara 3), “The Creator said to them: ‘Fools, he who toiled on the eve of Shabbat will eat on Shabbat. He who did not toil on the eve of Shabbat, from where will he eat on Shabbat?’” This means that the Shabbat meal is regarded as a reward for the work. If a person did not work, from where will he be rewarded? Without work, it is possible to receive almsgiving or a gift, but not a reward [Sachar means both “reward” and “salary”], as there is reward specifically in return for work. This is why the Creator said to them, “He who did not toil on the eve of Shabbat, from where will he eat on Shabbat?”
Yet, this is truly perplexing. Why did the Creator say, “He who did not toil on the eve of Shabbat, from where will he eat on Shabbat”? After all, the Creator can give them as almsgiving or as a gift.
The answer is that without work it is impossible to enjoy the meal due to the known reason that in order not to have the bread of shame upon the reception of the pleasure, a correction was made, called “Tzimtzum [restriction] and concealment on the upper light,” and the delight and pleasure that the Creator wishes to impart upon the creatures is not revealed.
Instead, through labor in the Segula [remedy/virtue] of Torah and Mitzvot, we obtain the vessels of bestowal, and to that extent the concealment is removed and it is possible to receive the delight and pleasure. But before we obtain the vessels of bestowal, it is impossible to enjoy the purpose of creation, which is the delight and pleasure. This is why there is no point saying that the Creator should give him as a gift or as almsgiving, since there will certainly be shame there, and this shame spoils the taste of the pleasure.
As we see in corporeality, a person is ashamed to eat the bread of shame [receive handout], but specifically through labor. Here, the labor is to turn the vessels of reception, with which man was born, and to provide for himself vessels of bestowal, which are against nature, and anything that is against nature is hard to do and requires great efforts to obtain the vessels of bestowal. It was said about this, “He who comes to purify is aided.” That is, without His help, a person has no chance of being able to obtain them.
Now we can understand that the six workdays constitute the matter of making the vessels of bestowal, which pertains to ZA, for the degree of ZA is to bestow upon Malchut. In order for Malchut, who receives the abundance from ZA, (to be able to) give to the lower ones, we must correct Malchut into being a giver like ZA. This is called “unification,” meaning equivalence of form.
For this reason, the six workdays are called “days without holiness,” due to this work of emerging from the will to receive for oneself and admitting it into Kedusha, meaning that it will serve the Kedusha. That is, the work is to make the secular holy. Although a person corrects one quality each day, where the first day [Sunday] corresponds to the quality of Hesed, the second day [Monday] to the quality of Gevura, etc., each correction does not become apparent right away.
Instead, when all six days have been corrected, the Shabbat becomes apparent. In other words, as long as the procession of the work of seven days has not been completed, the state of Shabbat does not become apparent in a person. This causes man not to be able to see or feel if he is advancing in the work or standing still in the same state as when he began the work.
Sometimes, a person sees the opposite—that he has regressed. That is, before he began the work of bestowal, he had more passion for Torah and work, and now he sees that his motivation for the work has weakened. This is so because each week is considered one degree. In the middle of the degree, it is impossible to see the situation as it truly is, for it is like a turning wheel, where that which was below before, ascends upward, and that which was above, descends, and as a result of all this, the machine moves forward.
Only at the end of the work, when Shabbat arrives, it means he has completed the six workdays that pertain to this Shabbat. Then it is considered that ZA, which are vessels of bestowal, have entered Malchut. This is called Shabbat.
For this reason, although the six workdays belong to ZA, they still do not shine in Malchut because the heart of our work is in Malchut, as it is written, “to correct the world in the kingdom [Malchut] of Shadai [the Lord].”
It follows that the work of the Kelim is to eject the will to receive for oneself and install instead the desire to bestow. This is called the work of the weekdays, which is the correction of the Kelim. This work is forbidden on Shabbat because Shabbat is called “the time of dining,” when the light can shine inside the Kelim. This is why it is written, “He who did not toil on the eve of Shabbat,” meaning did not prepare the vessels of bestowal, “from where will he eat on Shabbat?” since he has no Kelim where the meal, which is the delight and pleasure, can clothe.
By this we will understand what we asked, Why can He not give them the meal as a gift or almsgiving? since with a gift or almsgiving, there are no vessels of bestowal there, where the delight and pleasure can enter, due to the Tzimtzum.
Yet, we find that Shabbat is called “a gift,” as our sages said (Beitza 16), “‘To know that I the Lord sanctify you.’ The Creator said to Moses: ‘Moses, I have a good gift in My treasury, whose name is Shabbat, and I wish to give it to Israel, go and let them know.’”
This is perplexing. Why did He say, “He who did not toil on the eve of Shabbat, from where will he eat on Shabbat”? In the work, we should also ask, But He could have given them the Shabbat meal as a gift, since Shabbat is called “a gift,” which means that it is possible to give the Shabbat even without work?
However, we should ask about what our sages said, that the Creator said to Moses, “Go and let them know.” We should ask, For what purpose did He have to give them a fore notice about the gift? We understand that if we want something in return for the gift, then they should be notified so they will meet the conditions required for the giving of the gift. Therefore, it means that here, too, when He said, “Go and let them know,” He must be demanding something in return for the gift.
Yet, we must understand how one can ask something in return for a gift, since if the receiver of the gift gives something, it is no longer considered a gift? We should interpret that when He said, “Go and let them know,” He gave them awareness that since He wants to give them a gift, there was fear that it would be stolen from them. Therefore, the Giver of the gift required that they would make a safe place for the gift where no one would be able to take this important gift away from them. Otherwise, the Giver of the gift would not even be able to notify them of the importance of the gift, since those who should not hear would probably hear that it is important and would be able to take the gift away from them.
Therefore, in order for Him to give them the gift, He first needed to let them know that He wants to give them a gift, as it is written, “Go and let them know,” “and I will notify them of the importance of the gift so they will be able to enjoy the gift.” Then he let them know that they should do much preparation for the gift, so it is kept from the external ones, to prepare a place for the gift. It follows that the condition He had set in order to give them the gift was that they would prepare a safe place for the gift. This is not regarded as giving a present in return for the preparation.
What is the keeping from the external ones? It is that if they prepare vessels of bestowal, in these vessels they will receive the Shabbat, which is called “a gift.” This is called “keeping from the external ones,” whose whole grip is on the vessels of reception. This is not so with vessels of bestowal; from these they run away. This work of preparing the Kelim is called “weekdays,” where on each day we must admit the implied Kelim into the Sefirot of ZA, which are called HGT NHY.
When the work of bestowal is through, the light of Shabbat arrives, which is called “a meal,” and dresses in the Kelim that were acquired during the six workdays. It follows that the whole of the revealing of the work is apparent on Shabbat, which is called “the meaning of the One,” when Malchut, called “vessels of reception,” has been turned into bestowal during the work of the six workdays.
That is, the work of the vessels of bestowal that they acquired during the weekdays enter the Shabbat. This means that the fact that Shabbat is called “Malchut that shines in Gadlut [greatness/adulthood]” is due to the preparatory work prior to the reception of the gift. At that time the light of Shabbat, which is called “a gift,” can clothe in these vessels of bestowal. Then, the external ones have no control because the vessels of reception, to which the external ones grip, are absent. Hence, Shabbat is called “And all the judgments pass away from her.”
This is why a gift is called Shabbat, since the Creator did not give the Shabbat in return for labor, but gave the Shabbat as a gift. And the reason why we need to work during the six workdays is in order to make a place for her, meaning a safe place where the external ones cannot hold her, since on Shabbat, the vessels of bestowal have already been corrected and they flee from a place where they see that the vessels of bestowal govern.
For this reason, Shabbat is called “holy,” for the external ones run from the Kedusha of the Shabbat, when everything shines in vessels of bestowal because of the preparation during the six workdays.
According to the above, we should interpret what is written, “Moses will rejoice with the gift of his share.” We should understand why it is written, “He who hates gifts shall live” (Proverbs 15:27). If so, then what is the meaning of “Moses will rejoice with the gift of his share,” if “He who hates gifts shall live”?
The answer is, “For You have called him a faithful servant.” What is “a faithful servant”? It is as our sages said, “Be as slaves serving the rav [great teacher] not in order to receive reward,” meaning that all of one’s work is only to bestow and not to receive anything.
It follows that the fact that he does receive is because the Creator wants to give him. Thus, his reception is called “receiving in order to bestow.” It follows that the gift he is receiving is not because he wants to receive for himself, but because he wants to bestow. Since it is the will of the Creator to do good, he therefore accepts the delight and pleasure, to satisfy His wish, since he wants to delight the Creator.
But what does the Creator need? Certainly, it is for the purpose of creation to be carried out in full. Therefore, he accepts the King’s gift in order to please the King. This is the meaning of the words, “For you have called him a faithful servant.”
Now we can interpret the words of The Zohar, which asks, “What is the Shabbat?” and replies, “Shin-Bat, since the three Vavs in the Shin imply the three fathers, HGT, and Malchut, called Bat [daughter], crowns in them,” since in her is the majority of the Hochma, as it is written, “Keep us like the pupil of the eye,” which is the heart of the eye. There are three colors in the eye, which are HGT, and the fourth color is a black dot, which is Malchut.
In the three Vavs, each Vav implies the six workdays, which is the time of work, when a person must provide for himself vessels of bestowal. Indeed, each and every day, a person must walk on three lines, implied by the three Vavs in the Shin.
In other words, by walking on the right and left each day, we come to the middle line, which consists of both. In other words, we begin to walk on the right, called “the state of wholeness,” and then shift to counting, when he begins to count the profit he has gained through the labor. Afterward, he returns to the right.
Through this turn of left and right, we arrive at the middle line, born out of the two lines. Then, through the work of the three Vavs, we come to the state of Shabbat, where Shabbat is called “the dot of Malchut,” which is black, and is called “a black dot [or point],” since the Tzimtzum was on Malchut, which is called “the receiving Kli.” For this reason, the light does not shine on her own self. However, through the correction of the three Vavs, which is the work on the six workdays in their three lines, she can receive the light that belongs to her essence, which is the light of Hochma. She is called Bat-Ayin [“pupil” but also “daughter of the eye”], where Ayin [eye] is called Hochma, and in the black dot, the light of Hochma is revealed. This is the Shabbat, where through the workdays, the Shabbat appears.