The Unfulfilled Shabbos
Now, if we’re going to utilize the Shabbos as it was intended to be utilized it’s necessary to have beforehand a picture, an idea, of what we intend to get out of the Shabbos. As we walk through the Sanctuary of Shabbos we should understand that we’re trying to accomplish something here; we came into the Shabbos for a reason, not just to look around and eat some chulent and take a nap.
It’s a pity that one Shabbos after another should pass by – lechah dodi, havdalah, lechah dodi, havdalah, we walk into the Mishkan of Shabbos and we walk out – but we don’t use the opportunities of the day. And that means that to some extent, maybe to a large extent, our lives pass by unfulfilled.
And so, it’s an important question that we need to answer: What is the number one program to think about as we go into the Shabbos? We go into the Sanctuary of Shabbos with mora Mikdash on tip-toe, and with special clothing and song, but we have to know, what for? What are we expected to do once inside?
Making Something From Nothing
And the answer is, there’s no question that more than anything else the lesson that Shabbos is trying to teach us is Bereishis bara Elokim; that in six days Hashem made this universe and everything in it, from nothing. Creation ex-nihilo, they call it. Nihilo is Latin for ‘nothing’; ex-nihilo, ‘from nothing’. We have to think about how it began, that in the beginning Hashem created yesh me’ayin, everything out of nothing.
That's what Shabbos comes to tell us and we’ll never hear anything more startling than this statement, that in the beginning Hashem created. Those three words are so revolutionary that they have no equal in all the statements and writings since the beginning of time and never again will a statement be made that has the same impact.
Old News is Good News
Now, I say it’s a startling idea but most people when they hear that, they’re not so interested. Briyas haolam?! What’s there to think about? That’s old news already; they know all about it. If I would tell you that Shabbos is for thinking sisrei Torah, secret things, mystical ideas, that would be something; but Bereishis bara Elokim? That’s the point?!
Yes, that’s it. There are other things too but this is the number one achievement of Shabbos, to look at the world as what it actually is – the imagination of Hashem; the word of Hashem that created existence from nothing.
A Different Type of Building
You know, it’s possible to make skyscrapers out of dust. It's possible. If you take the dust and you mix chemicals, you can amalgamate it in such a way that it becomes bricks and building blocks. You can make almost anything out of anything else. Today we know it's even possible to transform one element into another. It's being done today in laboratories with some of the elements. You can even change matter into energy or energy can possibly be changed into matter. In principle yes, it’s possible because we’re working with yesh and to make yesh into yesh, something into something, it’s possible.
And yet, whatever miracles of chemistry will ever be achieved, it's only a matter of changing one thing into another. Before Bereishis, nothing existed. There were no building blocks. There was no Big Bang, and there was no Little Bang. There were no black holes and no explosions of stars. There was nothing to explode. There was zero. Nothing at all existed except for the ruach Elokim, the spirit of Hashem which pervaded all ‘space’ – I don’t want to say space because there was no space yet – but Hashem pervaded All. There was only Hashem and nothing else.
And then, from absolutely nothing, Hashem said, and it came into being (Tehillim 33:9). Hashem created everything; He Willed space into existence. And then He Willed that the space should be filled with heavenly bodies; and that there should be one planet that should have an atmosphere and a hydrosphere, that’s water, and a lithosphere, that’s soil, and that it should have all living things. He Willed that everything should come into existence including Man.
Angelic Thoughts
Yes, the achievement of thinking about Maaseh Bereishis, that’s it. There are other things too but this is the number one achievement of Shabbos. And it’s so important that the Gemara (Shabbos 119b) says as follows: Tomorrow night, Friday night, when you stand up in Shemoneh Esrei for Vayechulu and you proclaim that Hashem made this world from nothing, two angels come, and they put their hands on your head, and they say to you, “Your iniquity will depart and your sins are being forgiven.”
Now we must pay attention to that statement. At the time when you make that declaration of Vayechulu, something very important is happening. Not the fact that malachim are coming; that's interesting but it’s not the most important thing. And not the fact that the malachim are telling you that your sins are being forgiven. That's certainly good news but that’s not it. The angels are only a result of something else, of something much more important than angels.
There’s something that’s happening, something very important happening in you; and it’s happening in the place where the biggest changes can take place – in the mind. When you think these thoughts, that there was once nothing and now there’s something, and that it all came about through the Will of the Creator, your mind is transformed!
You Are What You Think
Now, I know what you’re thinking. That it’s an exaggeration, it’s over the top. Because what will I gain from thinking more about it? If I know, I know. I have to think about it more? What am I learning now that I didn’t know before? How could thinking these thoughts be so valuable that it becomes like Yom Kippur, when all your sins are forgiven? A little bit of daas should be so valuable?
Absolutely! Because you are what you think; to a great extent, that’s what makes a man, his thoughts. And therefore each time you think about Maaseh Bereishis you’re becoming a new person. Because when we’re talking about daas, about a Torah mind, then even what appears small is actually very big.
Good Things In Small Packages
I'll give you a little mashal to understand this point. Let's say there's a capsule of radium, pure radium, and it's worth imagine $100,000. And it was lost in a hospital. A nurse who was handling the radium machine had taken out the capsule and put it on the table for a moment and when she reminded herself and came back it wasn't there.
So they made an alarm: What happened to the radium capsule?! $100,000! They called all the orderlies and they said maybe it was swept off into the waste baskets. So they took all the waste baskets and they examined them thoroughly, each one. Nothing.
But then somebody said maybe in the meantime the waste baskets were taken down to the basement and dumped into the big garbage bin. So they raced down to the basement and they started combing through the garbage.
Then somebody said the garbage truck has been here in the meantime and it carted it off to the dump. And so they got in their cars and they raced to the dump. It's a true story I’m telling you now; a true story. And they divided the dump into piles and they went through each pile separately. It was worth all the trouble and all the expense because when something is precious, even the smallest amount of it is extremely valuable.
The Bereishis Capsule
And now we come to this great gem, this great capsule of daas that we call briyas haolam yesh me’ayin. How precious it is to understand this principle that there's nothing in the universe except devar Hashem. It’s much more valuable than a radium capsule worth $100,000. There's nothing better for a Jew than to see the world as it really is, as nothing more than the Word of Hashem.
But not only if a Jew never knew it before. Like many people I'm sure here didn't think about it before and now they possess it. They're going home tonight millionaires. If you didn't know it before, you weren't aware and now when you're going home with the idea that you are only the word of Hashem and your street is only imagination and everything in this world is nothing but d’var Hashem concretized into something physical because He imagined it, then you’re leaving here a million dollars wealthier than when you came in!
The Imaginary Reality
You’ll leave this place tonight and walk outside and you’ll see a different street than when you walked in. It’s not a sidewalk; it’s the devar Hashem concretized into what we see as a street. He imagined a sky so there’s a sky. He imagined a sun so there’s a big ball of fire, a nuclear fire. But it’s all His imagination. Intrinsically nothing has any existence; everything is nothing but the imagination of Hashem.
So if you gained that awareness tonight then you became wealthy. You're rich! And it's a Yom Kippur and malachim are putting their hands on your heads and saying your sins are being forgiven. Because that’s the highest form of teshuvah; to understand that
