Shabbos: Hishtadlus vs Rest

When giving the commandment to keep Shabbos, the Torah tells us: 

“Six days you will work and you will complete all of your labor” (Shemos, 20:8)

Surely it’s impossible for a person to actually complete all of his work before Shabbos! Shabbos is more of a “pause” where we take a break after a long week – but there is always more to do the following week.

Rashi resolves the difficulty of this verse by explaining that one does not literally need to finish everything before Shabbos. It’s actually about our mindset. We should go into Shabbos feeling “as if” all of our work is done.

As If All Your Work Is Done

In his sefer Sifsei Chaim, Rav Chaim Friedlander asks a very practical question: how do we do this? Are we supposed to enter a dream world and just pretend we have no work to do? Are we supposed to try and fool ourselves? The Torah is instructing us to do something here that seems difficult, if not impossible. How can we fulfill it?

The answer, says Rav Chaim, lies in our understanding of what it means to “do our melacha.” What exactly is a man’s melacha – work in this world? 

Often we describe the work of man as “hishtadlus” (natural human effort). It is hard to comprehend why man needs to expend any energy in the first place. Hashem can do anything – and in effect – does everything. The fact that we need to do hishtadlus is a result of the original sin of Adam Harishon. (Had he not sinned, man would not need to put in any effort at all in his human endeavors, and would be given everything by Hashem directly.) When we do hishtadlus, we are merely fulfilling an obligation that Hashem requires of us. The Mesillas Yesharim calls hishtadlus a “tax” which must be paid. No one likes paying taxes, and certainly would not go out of his way to pay more than he has to. He also can’t skip out on paying it, or he would face some very serious legal issues. 

Our hishtadlus in any area – finances, shidduchim, or trying to get somewhere on time – do not accomplish the goal. That is purely in Hashem’s hands. We do, however, need to do something. We need to try.

Rav Zundel of Salant was known for his basic hishtadlus of merely buying a lottery ticket. He understood that Hashem has many ways to bring him his parnassah. So as long as he does something within the realm of natural means to open the door for money to flow, he is fulfilling his obligation – and his parnassah will come. We see that it is possible for those who have attained a level where they see that all hishtadlus is really meaningless, can rely on doing much less. Rav Dessler, in his Michtav M’eliyahu, urges even the common man to try and minimize his hishtadlus as much as possible, while still fulfilling the basic requirement, so that he can deepen his relationship with Hashem and his reliance upon Him alone.

All We Do Is Try

Our hishtadlus in any area – finances, shidduchim, or trying to get somewhere on time – do not accomplish the goal. That is purely in Hashem’s hands. We do, however, need to do something. We need to try. In Hebrew, the word “להשתדל” (from the same root at hishtadlus) literally means to try. When a person tries, he is unsure of the result, he just puts in a good, solid effort.

Once we understand that our only job during the six-days of work is to try, we can then go into Shabbos with a different approach. We can feel “as if” all of our work is done, because it is! We did our part.

When a man owns a store and closes it up for the weekend, he needs to make sure that he crossed every “t” and dotted every “i” before he leaves. The store is his responsibility and everything depends on him. But when someone is a store employee, he can leave at the end of the week with full confidence that as long as he showed up and put in his hours of honest work, he will get a paycheck next week. He’s just an employee, and if anything is left undone, it’s the boss’s problem.

Often we go through life thinking we are the boss, when in reality, we are the employees. There is only One Big Boss and He commands us to let go once a week and to remember this lesson: at the end of the day, success or failure is all up to Hashem. 

The Soul Rests

Shabbos is meant to be a day of menucha. This menucha is not merely a rest from physical work. If our minds are being carried all over the place, we are not relaxed at all. A true state of menuchas hanefesh is one in which a person is not living in the past or even five minutes into the future. It is when he is fully present in the moment, with all of his focus and energy on what he is doing right now. On Shabbos, when we stop – when we hold back from thinking about what we didn’t do and what we still need to do – we can feel this menucha.

The menucha of Shabbos comes just once a week. But this perspective, that all we need to do is try, and all is really in Hashem’s hands, is not meant to remain with us on Shabbos alone. We can carry the “Shabbos mindset” with us through all of our endeavors during the week, which will lead to greater menuchas hanefesh in general and a stronger connection to Hashem.