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itself, when we verbally declare the above-
mentioned foundational tenets of the 
Jewish faith.
“Observing” Shabbos, on the other 
hand, is about desisting from the acts of 
creative work prohibited on Shabbos. The 
irony is that this seemingly endless list of 
regulations and prohibitions is amazingly 
liberating because it’s the things we can’t 
do on Shabbos that free us up to do the 
things we can. Says the Ramban, “observ-
ing” Shabbos allows us the opportunity to 
fully engage ourselves in spiritual pursuits 
— learning Torah, connecting to God 
through deep, heartfelt prayer and deep-
ening our faith in our Creator.
There is another way in which Shabbos 
is spiritually transformative: it reaffirms 
our role as God’s partner in creation. The 
Midrash makes this explicit, stating that 
whoever recites the paragraph Vayechulu 
— which refers to God’s completion of 
the world on the very first Shabbos of cre-
ation, and which we say in the first part 
of the Kiddush on Friday night — “it’s as 
if he has become a partner with the Holy 
One, blessed is He, in creation.”

BEING GOD’S PARTNER
Conceptually, Shabbos is a mitzvah that 
actively demonstrates that we are God’s 
partners in creation. The Torah explains 
that we work for six days and rest on the 
seventh because God created the world 
in six days and rested on the seventh. 
By mirroring our own existence in our 
Creator’s, the Torah is signaling to us 
that we are essentially creators, like Him, 
moving through the very same seven-day 
cycle of creation and rest.
But we are not just God’s partners in 
creating the world out there. We are very 
much partners in creating ourselves. And 
Shabbos is a crucial element of this pro-
cess of inner transformation.
The Talmud identifies 39 categories 
of work that are prohibited on Shabbos. 
Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch says the 
common denominator is that all 39 are 
expressions of human creativity. All 39 
melachot (acts of work) — whether it be 
harvesting, baking, cooking, carrying 
or lighting a fire — are about imposing 
human will on the world to achieve cre-
ative and constructive objectives. 
Rabbi Hirsch explains that God gave 
us powers of creativity to exercise free-
ly. This we do during the week. But on 

Shabbos, we “give back” these powers to 
God. We acknowledge the Divine source 
of our creativity. We acknowledge the 
One who created us, who gave us these 
creative powers, as the ultimate Creator.
Shabbos, then, becomes about a dif-
ferent kind of creativity. Shabbos teaches 
that creativity is not just about tangible 
things. We do the work of becoming 
better people. During the week, we are 
involved in creativity which has a tangi-
ble, measurable impact on the world. On 
Shabbos, the focus switches. We transfer 
our creative energies into creating our-
selves. We do this by acknowledging God 
as the Creator of the universe, which, as 
we have discussed, has a deep impact on 
our faith and sense of identity.

But, on Shabbos, we also transform 
ourselves through the time and mental 
space we are afforded to work on our 
characters, to reflect on our lives, to build 
and enrich our relationships with others 
and with God. Their impact may not be 
directly observable or tangible in a tra-
ditional sense, but these are all intensely 
creative endeavors. On Shabbos, we learn 
to appreciate the idea of internal creativ-
ity that emerges from ceasing external 
creativity.
We learn this from God Himself. The 
Torah says: “God completed His work 
on the seventh day.” (Bereishit 2:2) Rashi, 
referring to the Midrash, says the verse 
implies that God did actually perform 
creative “work” on the seventh day; that 
rest itself was a creation. The Torah is 
reinforcing the idea that there is a creative 
aspect to desisting from work on Shabbos 
— that rest on Shabbos isn’t about doing 
nothing, and creativity is not just about 
what we produce physically. 
People tend to measure themselves 
by their tangible productivity. Unless 

they are creating something that can be 
touched, measured or charged for, they 
believe they are not being productive. 
But, sometimes, we need to stop our fren-
zied activity so we can focus our attention 
inwards.
When we cease external creativity 
and focus on developing ourselves and 
improving our relationships with our 
families and community, when we invest 
in our spirituality and our connection to 
God, and in the relationship with our-
selves, we are being no less productive 
and creative. The laws of Shabbos are 
structured in such a way as to facilitate 
this form of productivity and creativity.

LOOKING INWARD
Ultimately, we see that becoming a 
partner with God in creation is not just 
building the external world, it’s about 
building our own inner world, transform-
ing ourselves into the best version of us 
we can be. And Shabbos, in many ways, 
aids us in this task — it’s a day on which 
we withdraw from the world in a certain 
sense and replenish our inner reserves; it’s 
deep, spiritual “quiet time” that refreshes 
and reinvigorates us, that refines and 
redefines us.
By making the declaration of 
Vayechulu, that God created heaven and 
Earth, we become a partner with God in 
creation in this full sense. Of course, God 
does not need our affirmation. As the 
Ramban explains, Shabbos, like any other 
mitzvah, is for our benefit, not God’s. 
And, like any other mitzvah, like any 
good friend, Shabbos helps us become 
better people. It transforms us.
There endures a deep and loving 
friendship between the Jewish people 
and Shabbos, a friendship that is deeply 
embedded in our national psyche. This 
emotional connection to Shabbos is 
reflected in the words of an ancient song 
traditionally sung on Friday night. “Mah 
yedidut menuchatech — How beloved a 
friend is your rest.”
It is this friendship with Shabbos, this 
enriching relationship, that has truly 
transformed and uplifted the Jewish peo-
ple for thousands of years and will con-
tinue to do so forever. 

Rabbi Warren Goldstein is the chief rabbi of 

South Africa.

“SHABBOS HAS 
ACCOMPANIED US 
EVERY STEP OF THE 
JOURNEY — AND, 
LIKE A GOOD FRIEND, 
IT HAS POSITIVELY 

IMPACTED US.”

