Shabbos Foundation Of Oneness

במדרש אסור להרכיב קני מנורה בשבת שהוא כבונה ובנין אסור כו' אתה סבור שמא לרעתך נתתי לך השבת לא נתתי אלא לטובתך כו'

In the Midrash: It is forbidden to assemble the branches of the Menorah on Shabbos, for this is akin to building, and building is forbidden, and so forth. Do you imagine that I gave you the Shabbos for your detriment? I gave it to you only for your benefit, and so forth.

The Midrash teaches that assembling the Menorah on Shabbos is forbidden as a form of building, yet Hashem stresses that Shabbos was given purely for our benefit, not as a burden.

הענין הוא כי הבנין הוא בששת ימי המעשה

The matter is as follows: Building belongs to the six days of activity.

The Sfas Emes opens his explanation: the act of building is fundamentally a weekday endeavor, belonging to the six days of creative work.

אבל השבת הוא יסוד של הבנין והוא האחדות

But the Shabbos is the foundation of the building, and it is the oneness.

Shabbos, by contrast, is not part of the building but its very foundation, representing the underlying oneness of all things.

כי הבנין הוא ע"י הרכבות ובכל מורכב נמצא תערובת טו"ר

For building comes about through assembling and joining parts together, and in everything composite there is found a mixture of good and evil.

Building means joining separate components, and anything assembled from parts inherently contains a mixture of good and evil.

אבל בשורש הבנין וקיומו ויסודו שהוא השבת לא יש שום תערובת לכן בכל הימים כ' ויהי ערב

But in the root of the building, its sustenance and its foundation — which is the Shabbos — there is no admixture whatsoever; therefore on all the days it is written, "And there was evening" (Bereishis 1).

Since Shabbos is the unified root and foundation rather than something composite, it carries no admixture of evil; this is why each weekday says "there was evening" but Shabbos does not.

ובשבת [* לא] כ' כן

But regarding Shabbos it is not written so.

The Torah pointedly omits the phrase "and there was evening" regarding the seventh day, signaling its freedom from the darkness of admixture.

ולכן התענוג בשבת מצוה ולא נמצא בו תערובת רע ולא כן בימי המעשה שצריכין שמירה יתירה ע"י שיש בהם התערובת

And therefore the pleasure of Shabbos is a mitzvah, and no admixture of evil is found within it; this is unlike the weekdays, which require extra guarding because they contain the admixture.

Because Shabbos is pure, enjoying it is itself a mitzvah with no taint of evil, whereas the weekdays demand extra vigilance precisely because good and evil are intermingled within them.

ובשבת בא הכל אל האחדות כי כל מה שברא הקב"ה לא ברא אלא לכבודו

And on Shabbos everything comes to oneness, for whatever the Holy One, Blessed is He, created, He created only for His honor.

On Shabbos all of existence returns to its underlying oneness, since everything Hashem created was made solely for His honor.

וזה השבת שנק' עדות סהדותא איקרי שבנ"י מעידין על שברא עולמו בששה ונח בשביעי

And this is the Shabbos, which is called "testimony" — it is called a testimony — for Bnei Yisrael bear witness that He created His world in six days and rested on the seventh.

Shabbos is termed a "testimony" because through it Bnei Yisrael testify that Hashem created the world in six days and rested on the seventh.

וזה העדות הוא גמר ויסוד הבנין של הבריאה וביטול כל הדברים לשורש האחדות וזה ענין שיר של יום השבת טוב להודות לה'

And this testimony is the completion and the foundation of the building of Creation, and the bittul of all things to the root of oneness; and this is the meaning of the Shir shel Yom of the Shabbos day, "It is good to give thanks to Hashem" (Tehillim 92:2).

This testimony represents the finishing and foundation of all Creation, and the bittul of every created thing to the root of oneness — the very theme of the Shabbos song, "It is good to give thanks to Hashem."

וכן בעבודה שבלב זו תפלה גם ע"ז נאמר ששת ימים תעבוד כו' ותפלת השבת הוא בבחי' סידור שבחו של מקום ואח"כ בקשת צרכיו בימי המעשה כדאיתא רנה זו סידור שבחו ש"מ

And likewise in the avodah of the heart, which is tefillah, regarding this too it is said, "Six days you shall labor" (Shemos 20:9); and the tefillah of Shabbos is in the aspect of arranging the praise of the Omnipresent, and afterward, the requesting of one's needs on the weekdays, as it is stated that "a joyous song" refers to the arranging of His praise — understand this.

The same pattern applies to tefillah, the avodah of the heart: weekday prayer focuses on requesting one's needs, while Shabbos tefillah is devoted to arranging Hashem's praise, which the Sages link to the word "rinah," a joyous song.

ותפלה זו בקשת צרכיו

And this tefillah is the requesting of one's needs.

Weekday prayer, by contrast, is characterized by the asking for one's personal needs.

ועמ"ש לעיל פ' ואתחנן:

And see what was written above on Parashas Va'eschanan.

The Sfas Emes refers the reader to his earlier teaching on Parashas Va'eschanan for further development of this idea.

Summary: The Sfas Emes contrasts the six weekdays, which are the time of "building," with Shabbos, which is the foundation and oneness underlying that building. Because all building is assembled from separate parts, every weekday endeavor contains an admixture of good and evil and requires extra guarding — which is why each weekday is marked by "and there was evening," a phrase absent from Shabbos. Shabbos itself is pure and free of any such admixture, so its pleasure is a mitzvah, and on it all of Creation returns to its root of oneness, fulfilling the truth that Hashem made everything for His honor. This is why Shabbos is called a testimony, through which Bnei Yisrael affirm that Hashem created the world in six days and rested on the seventh, the bittul of all things to the One. The same structure governs tefillah: weekday prayer is the requesting of needs, while Shabbos tefillah is the pure arranging of Hashem's praise.