ספר שמות

Another way of explaining the wording of our verse is based ‎on the realization that G’d in His love for the Jewish people gave ‎them commandments by means of which they would establish ‎their claim to eternal life after their bodies had died. (Makkot, 3 ‎Mishnah 16) The Sabbath features especially largely in that ‎context, as by observing it we experience a foretaste of the ‎afterlife. On that day, as part of its observance, every Jew can ‎experience the meaning of a truly spiritual experience and the ‎satisfaction it brings to the person enjoying it.‎However, seeing that we have a rule that reward for ‎performance of the commandments of the Torah is not given in ‎this world, i.e. during a person’s lifetime on earth, (compare ‎‎Kidushin 39), and therefore his enjoyment of the spiritual ‎pleasure on the Sabbath, G’d has arranged for this “foretaste” of ‎what to expect in the afterlife, the principal reward being ‎preserved for when the person’s soul returns to its celestial ‎origins.‎[The concept discussed here is part of one of the ‎Sabbath songs sung at the Jew’s table on Friday nights, the last ‎part of which commences with the words: ‎‏ מעין עולם הבא יום שבת ‏מנוחה‎, “the Sabbath rest is a foretaste of the world to come.” ‎Ed.] When a Jew experiences that as a result of observing ‎the Sabbath he enjoys an additional dimension of spiritual and ‎physical well being, he does not need to be an intellectual in order ‎to fantasize about how much more of this he will experience in ‎the world to come where he has been assured that the principal ‎reward for Sabbath observance as well as mitzvah ‎observance generally will be shared out. It is clear therefore why ‎our sages understood the manner in which the Torah refers to ‎the observance of the Sabbath in our paragraph as an ‎announcement of a valuable gift that G’d was given to the Jewish ‎people. The point the Torah made was that observance of the ‎commandment of keeping the Sabbath results in additional ‎advantages for the Jews doing so, over and above the reward that ‎G’d had promised the people for observing the legislation spelled ‎out in the Torah generally.‎Not only that, were it not for the foretaste the Jew ‎experiences of the world to come whenever he observes the ‎Sabbath, he would have no such foretaste by observing any of the ‎other commandments, so that observing the law to observe the ‎Sabbath is an encouragement to observe all the other ‎commandments with equal zeal. This may be at the core of the ‎sages in Avot 4,2 having made a somewhat puzzling ‎statement when they said: ‎שכר מצוה מצוה‎, usually translated as: ‎‎“the reward for fulfilling a commandment is the commandment ‎itself.” A more appropriate translation, interpreting this saying as ‎referring specifically to the commandment of observing the ‎Sabbath, would be: “the reward for observing the commandment ‎of observing the Sabbath is that one will also observe the other ‎commandments.” The revelation of this aspect of the reward for ‎Sabbath observance is something that was not revealed to the ‎gentile nations. By not revealing it to them, G’d made certain that ‎the gentiles would not want to socialize with Jews observing the ‎Sabbath and benefit by such socializing.‎At this point the author comments on part of the Sabbath ‎morning prayers, between ‎ברכו‎ and ‎קריאת שמע‎, which goes as ‎follows: [the Ashkenazi versions is slightly, but ‎insignificantly different, Ed.] ‎אין ערוך לך ואין זולתך אפס ‏בלתך ומי דומה לך אין ערוך לך ה' אלוקינו בעולם הזה ואין זולתך מלכנו ‏בעולם הבא אפס בלתך גואלנו לימות המשיח ואין דומה לך מושיענו לתחיית ‏המתים‎ “There is none to be compared to You, and none beside ‎You; there is nothing without You and who is like You? There is ‎none to compare to You O G’d our G’d in this world, there is none ‎beside You; O our King for life in the world to come, there is ‎nothing without You O our Redeemer in the days of the messiah ‎and none is like You our Saviour in the revival of the dead.”‎ ‎