Beitzah 17a; Chullin 101b, Shabbat 86b, Pesachim 53b.
You arrive home after Kol Nidrei. Even though you had a full meal before you left to go to the synagogue, you are already slightly hungry and quite thirsty. You open the door to your house to be greeted by a strange sight. The table in the dining room is bedecked with a white tablecloth and adorned with silver Shabbat utensils. The candles flicker in their holders and their shadows dance on the walls. But the familiar aroma of Shabbat food is missing. On Kol Nidrei/Friday night, there is nothing to eat.
If they would invent a Ma Nishtana for Shabbat/Yom Kippur, it would go like this. “Why is this Friday night different from all other nights? On all other Friday nights, we enjoy a festive Shabbat meal. Tonight? No dinner!”
The question is a good one. According to many opinions, it is a Torah obligation to celebrate the Shabbat with three festive meals and it is a Torah violation to fast on Shabbat. Why then do we not postpone Yom Kippur to Sunday like we do with all other fasts?
The most straightforward answer to this question is that the Torah explicitly commands us to fast on the 10th day of Tishri, no matter when it occurs, even on Shabbat. This is similar to – ברית מילה – brit milah, circumcision, which must be carried out, notwithstanding the melacha involved, on the eighth day after birth, even if this occurs on Shabbat. As if to emphasize this point, the Torah uses the phrase – בעצם היום הזה -”Be’etzem Hayom Hazeh—on this very day,” both in connection with fasting on Yom Kippur and with brit milah.
In addition to the case of Yom Kippur, there is at least one other case in which a person may fast on Shabbat and that is the case of a – תענית חלום – Ta’anit Chalom, in which a person wishes to fast to avert an ominous dream from becoming reality. Interestingly, these two cases are linked.
Dreams get mixed reviews in the Talmud. They contain elements of both nonsense and prophecy. Joseph dreams that his father, mother and brothers will one day honor him as king. The nonsense part was that Joseph’s mother was already dead at the time of the dream. The prophetic part was that his father and brothers did subsequently bow down to him. When the people of Nineveh heard the prophecy that their city would be destroyed, they fasted and repented.
In permitting a person who experienced a bad dream on Shabbat to fast on Shabbat, the Halacha uses the same terminology we use on Yom Kippur – לקרוע את גזר הדין – Likro’a et Gezar Hadin— to rip up the bad judgment.
The deeper reason for requiring us to fast on Shabbat/Yom Kippur may lie in the essential difference between Shabbat and Yom Kippur. Shabbat is God’s day of rest, -כי בו שבת מכל מלאכתו – “Ki Vo Shavat Mikol Melachto.” Yom Kippur is our day of rest –שבת שבתון הוא לכם – “Shabbat Shabbaton Hu Lachem.”
On Shabbat, we remain in this world and enjoy the earthly pleasures that God created. That is how we acknowledge Him as Creator. Shabbat, in this sense, is a day of physical rest.
On Yom Kippur, we leave the physical world. We take a day off from the inherent tension caused by the fusion of body and soul. We become pure souls. Yom Kippur is the dress rehearsal of our own Yahrzeit. We wear the shrouds in which we will ultimately face Him, and we discard the shoes that we will no longer need. By neither eating nor drinking, we celebrate the day like the angels we become. If Shabbat is God’s day off and Yom Kippur is ours, on Shabbat/Yom Kippur, God and His people celebrate a day off together.
That Shabbat is a day of rest belonging to the realm of the physical world and Yom Kippur a day of rest belonging to the realm of the metaphysical world seems also to be borne out by the punishment one incurs for performing a malacha on these days. Whereas the ultimate punishment for a melacha performed on Shabbat is death at the hands of a human court, the ultimate punishment for a melacha performed on Yom Kippur is – כרת – Karet, death at the hand of God, or the excision of one’s soul.
All told, nobody is quite sure which day is holier, Shabbat or Yom Kippur. On the one hand, it seems that Yom Kippur is holier because the Torah refers to it as “Shabbat Shabbaton” -—שבת שבתון – the Sabbath of all Sabbaths. On the other hand, perhaps Shabbat is holier because God sanctifies it, whereas beit din, the Jewish Court of Law, sanctifies Yom Kippur.
This uncertainty has practical ramifications. Which of the following two prayers does one recite first on Shabbat /Yom Kippur? Does one first recite the – שהחיינו – Shehecheyanu blessing that celebrates Yom Kippur because Yom Kippur is the holier event, or does one first recite the Shabbat Psalm of – מזמור שיר ליום השבת — “Mizmor Shir leyom haShabbat”? No one is quite sure. The Ashkenazi Jews recite Shehecheyanu first, but the Sephardi Jews recite the psalm for Shabbat first.
What everybody is sure about, however, is that the confluence of Shabbat and Yom Kippur creates the holiest day.
First, Shabbat enhances – תשובה –Teshuva, repentance on Yom Kippur because the very word – שבת – Shabbat, includes the principal letters of –תשובה –,“ת” “ש” and “ב.”
Second, the most powerful way to serve God is with joy and Shabbat is a day of joy – וקראת לשבת עונג —”Vekerata Leshabat Oneg.”
Third, the synthesis of Shabbat and Yom Kippur reunites the two sets of the tablets of law, the first that was given on Shabbat and then smashed, and the second that was given on Yom Kippur.
The blessing that is made over the Shabbat/Yom Kippur lights, which mentions both Shabbat and Yom Kippur,is so powerful that it is no wonder that we are lit up on this unique day.
And if one needed any more convincing of the rarified quality of Shabbat/Yom Kippur, we find it in the Havdala ceremony. Whereas on a regular Yom Kippur we use no besamim, sweet smelling salts for Havdala, on Shabbat/Yom Kippur we do. That is because we take leave of the special Shabbat guest, the – נשמה יתירה – Neshama Yeterah, the extra soul that resides within us on Shabbat.
Raphael Grunfeld received semicha in Yoreh Yoreh from Mesivtha Tifereth Jerusalem of America and in Yadin Yadin from Rav Dovid Feinstein, ztz’’l. A partner at the Wall Street law firm of Carter Ledyard & Milburn LLP, Raphael Grunfeld is the author of “Ner Eyal: A Guide to Seder Nashim, Nezikin, Kodashim, Taharot and Zerayim” available for purchase at www.amazon.com/dp/057816731X and “Ner Eyal: A Guide to the Laws of Shabbat and Festivals in Seder Moed” available for purchase at www.amazon.com/dp/0615118992. Questions for the author can be sent to [email protected].
