The Beginner's Guide: Why Is Keeping Shabbat So Critical and What are the Benefits?

Life has become exceedingly demanding. We are overwhelmed throughout the week, and sometimes that which is most precious and important is reluctantly pushed aside. Thankfully, we are blessed with Shabbat. The disconnect on Shabbat from communication devices, phones, and travels outside the home allows, for connection and closeness with those most dear to us. Shabbat acts as a protective wall for our partnerships and family relations and llows us to set aside all engagements and focus on each other without distractions and worries from the outside.

Shabbat not only allows connection with our loved ones but also with ourselves. The quiet of Shabbat gives a person the chance to find quality time with themselves, where they can take time to read, reflect, and provide their soul rest and peace from the race of the week. Thus, the disconnect of Shabbat ultimately creates a connection - with Hashem, our family, and ourselves.

Shabbat - Source of Blessing

The Zohar writes about the blessing that Shabbat brings - "All six days are blessed from the seventh day" (Part II, 63b), and "All blessings above and below depend on the seventh day, for it is from this day that all upper six days are blessed" (Part II, 88a). In other words, the six weekdays draw their blessing from Shabbat. All abundance that descends to the world during the weekdays comes from the illumination and spiritual influence of Shabbat. Shabbat grants life, abundance, and blessing to all other days of the week. By observing Shabbat, honoring it, and enjoying it, we will bring success and blessing in our lives.

Why Is It So Important?

The mitzvah of observing Shabbat is not like other commandments in the Torah, because it serves as a testimony of the observer that he believes Hashem created the world. Therefore, not observing Shabbat is a declaration of disbelief in the creation of the world by the God of Israel, for if one believed, they would certainly fulfill the command of the Creator to rest on the holy Shabbat.

The unique aspect of Shabbat observance among the commandments is that Hashem defined it as a sign of the covenant of trust between the Jewish people and Himself: "The children of Israel shall keep the Shabbat, to make the Shabbat throughout their generations, a perpetual covenant: It is a sign between Me and the children of Israel forever, for in six days Hashem made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day He ceased from work and rested" (Exodus 31:16-17). Therefore, the observance of the Shabbat covenant signifies the loyalty of the Jew to Hashem, and thus, desecrating Shabbat is essentially betraying Hashem.

The severity of not observing Shabbat is so grave that it leads to the cutting off of the soul of the Jew from the people of Israel. A Jew who does not observe Shabbat, in effect, declares they do not believe in the God of Israel and the Torah of Israel, thus causing their spiritual soul not to belong to the spiritual realm reserved only for the souls of Israel. Their soul, the high spiritual part present only in Jews, and not in the nations of the world, is cut off from them. Here's the Torah passage: "You shall observe the Shabbat, for it is holy to you. The one who desecrates it shall surely be put to death; for whoever does any work on it, that soul shall be cut off from among its people" (Exodus 31:14). The Zohar states: "A man who desecrates Shabbat has no part in the people of Israel" (Part II, page 205b), meaning a Jew who desecrates Shabbat has no part in the people of Israel. When a Jew who does not keep Shabbat repents and begins to observe it, their sin is erased, and they restore their soul to its original place.

The Weekly Challenge

Don't think too many steps ahead, decide to keep the last two Shabbats of the year (Parshat Ki Tavo and Parshat Nitzavim) – and it will stand by you on Rosh Hashanah, the day when your entire fate for the coming year is determined.

Read also:

Want to save or print the 'First Steps to Shabbat Observance' document? Click here to download the file.

Guide for the Baal Teshuva: What to do so that Shabbat won't be empty and boring?

Don't miss: The significance of the last two Shabbatot of the year

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