DAY 1161: God’s Goodly Gift of a Shabbat of Peace

September 4, 2015
By bethmordecai
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DAY 1161: God’s Goodly Gift of a Shabbat of Peace

(9/4/15),

אמר לו הקדוש ברוך הוא למשה: מתנה טובה יש לי בבית גנזי ושבת שמה, ואני מבקש ליתנה לישראל – לך והודיעם (תלמוד בבלי מסכת שבת דף י עמוד ב)

The Holy One, blessed be He, said to Moses, “I have a precious gift in My treasure house, called the Sabbath, and desire to give it to Israel; go and inform them” (Babylonian Talmud Tractate Shabbat 10b)

Dear Hevreh,

Last week was a beautiful Shabbat. Kids dancing, food sharing, prayer singing. Every moment was more precious than the next and as the sun turned into a beautiful full moon, you couldn’t help but think that God had truly blessed this moment as “good.”

Click here for some pictures from the event taken before Shabbat officially started!

Yet the most memorable moment for me came at the end of the service when we sang Shalom Aleichem as a community. Normally we sing Shalom Aleichem, “Peace be upon you,” at the beginning of the service, but in order to begin with the beautiful tune of Y’did Nefesh we decided to add it at the end. Well it was worth it. There we stood in a circle in the gazebo, our arms around each other as a unified community, asking God to bless the angels (and us) with peace as we enter and leave this beautiful, holy space. It was heartwarming, memorable, peaceful, and just…good.

The quote shared above from the Talmud, in which Shabbat is seen as God’s “goodly gift” to the Israelites is appropriately found immediately after a discussion on the word Shalom, peace. The core of Shabbat, whether in a gazebo, on a nature hike, or in a shul, is to create the good gift of peace in our midst. It’s a gift that we must be grateful for because we’re not always lucky to have it in our lives. But when Shabbat comes every seven days, like it does tonight and tomorrow, let us remember to bring that wonderful, good feeling of Shalom into our midst.

Shabbat Shalom

Rabbi Ari Saks

 

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