Mizmor shir L'yom Ha'Shabbos, a song of poetry to the day of Shabbos. And then he goes on and forgets about Shabbos. In the whole song there is not one word about Shabbos; a good question. This question I asked, it took me many years to ask this question, not one word about Shabbos! When we want to talk about Shabbos, we take the prayer book and find a song, every song talks about Shabbos, all the songs are Shabbos,Shabbos, Shabbos, and here is one song that our pious king Dovid made a song, and the only place you find Shabbos is in the title?
ANSWER:
He understood Shabbos better than we do; I'll give you an example. This example comes from Reb Simcha Zisel zichrono livroho, he doesn't use it in connection with this. A mother sends her daughter to the store to buy something, but she knows her daughter is forgetful, scatter brain, so she ties a string around her finger and she tells her, make sure you don't lose the string. So the whole way the daughter is making sure that the string is tied tightly and she is tightening it the whole time and making sure it's exactly in position. By the time she gets to the store, she's so immersed in the idea of the string, that she doesn't know what the string was for anymore.
Now, we are told Shabbos. We are very busy with Shabbos, there's a big Shulchan Aruch, there's also a Gemara Shabbos, Shabbos is a very important subject and you have to learn it. It's impossible to be a Shabbos observer if you haven't learned the laws of Shabbos, because it's very important and very complex; everybody must know them.
But we're so busy, and rightfully busy thinking about Shabbos that we forget what Shabbos is all about. But Dovid didn't. And he told us what Shabbos is about. You know what Shabbos is about? Shabbos is the celebration that the Creator gave us the greatest gift that could be given: this world. Vayar Elokim es kol asher asa v'henei tov meod, Elokim saw all that He had made. He didn't merely say it was good, He said it was very good, we say it's very very very good sometimes, and maybe it is good but the Almighty when He says good it's already very good, but when He adds very good, then there is no limit to how good it is.
It's a very good world, it's not what I'm telling you, He said, the manufacturer knows His product, and He doesn't get any money for it either. Therefore Dovid starts out, he says tov lhodos La'shem, how good it is to give thanks to Hashem, ulzamer lshimcha elyon, and to sing to Your name You most high. You know what's good...lhagid baboker chasdecha, to relate at morning at length Your kindleness, v'emunascha balielos, and Your steadfastness to relate in the night, that's what's good. If you're looking for a career - you want to be a career man? That's your job in life: speak day and night about the kindliness and steadfastness of Hakadosh Baruch Hu, talk about how good the world is, that's a good career.
Talk about how good the rain is and how good the snow is.
Talk about how good the air is and how good the wind is.
Talk about how good the sun is, how good the day is, how good the night is and how good the moon is.
Ki simachtani Hashem b'fuelecha, You Hashem made me happy with Your handiwork, Bma'asei yodecha aranein, I sing at the deeds of Your hands.
That's what Shabbos is for, Shabbos is the day when we look at the creation because Shabbos commemorates the creation, and we see how good it is, how marvelous it is.
Good Shabbos To All
This is transcribed from questions that were posed to Harav Miller by the audience at the Thursday night lectures.
To listen to the audio of this Q & A please dial: 201-676-3210
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