Or is it?
The Talmud affirms Mi sh’torach b’erev Shabbos yochel b’Shabbos – Those who prepare on the eve of Shabbos will have what to eat on Shabbos. The gemara offers the esoteric interpretation This world is like the eve of Shabbos… alluding to Olam Haba. We who abide by Hashem’s dictum to keep the Shabbos holy will attest to experiencing the euphoria that graces our mandatory day of rest when we are blissfully afforded a glimpse of the World to Come – as we commemorate and emulate our Maker Who rested on the seventh day.
Tuning In
The background music in the antechamber we currently inhabit is taking on an intensity of its own volition. In the days of my childhood and adolescence the tempo was subdued – the melody and rhythm blending in with the times harmony fluctuating in a tolerable frequency range. Who can feign oblivion to the marked increase in the pitch and volume of today’s musical accompaniment to the melodrama that plays itself out on the world’s stage?
Who among breathing thinking feeling human beings is not awed – and inspired – to prepare on this eve of Shabbos in order to gain entry to the Main Banquet Hall as the Maestro the Conductor of the world leads the orchestra to its climactic finale? Who can fail to comprehend that we are perched on the edge of a precipice?
Tiku b’chodesh shofar bakesse l’yom chageinu – blow the shofar at the moon’s renewal (the first day of the lunar month of Tishrei) … Ki chok l’Yisrael hu – for it is Judgment Day and a divine decree that Israel blow the shofar on Rosh Hashanah.
… if only my nation would heed Me and walk in My ways… I would in an instant subdue their foes and turn my hand against their tormentors… (Tehillim 81).
