Shabbat - On the Way In

 

Charity and Expenses: Spiritual Currency

A person with means is required to honor the Shabbat commensurate with his ability…[but] if one has nothing and must rely entirely on charity, the charity trustees are obligated to give that person at least three meals and some treats.
(Mishnah Berurah 242:1)

One should limit one’s weekday expenditures in order to save money to honor the Shabbat. Let no one say, "How am I ever going to save anything?" On the contrary, the more one spends for Shabbat, the more one will have.
(Tur, Orach Chaim 242)

 

The soul wants nothing more than to grow in its own ways, journeying ever closer to the Source of its spiritual sustenance. Shabbat is a weekly catapult for the soul; it can propel us in the direction the soul wants and needs to go. Yet for Shabbat to aid us most effectively, we have to prepare ourselves for the journey. Making the most of the forward thrust that Shabbat offers requires our cultivating qualities and attitudes that make our hearts more spiritually sensitive.

During the week there are numerous forces at work in this world that would deny us the vitality of Shabbat and undermine our spiritual progress. These forces affect the places deep within us, places in which we are ethically and spiritually most vulnerable. If they prevail, these adversaries can render us indifferent and spiritually numb, and in doing so can keep us from the vitality and consciousness the soul desires.

Our attitude toward money is one aspect of our consciousness that is particularly vulnerable and so especially beleaguered. When we are caught in a rut worrying about whether we have enough money; when we are despondent over the fact that we don’t have enough; when we invest all our energy and thought into earning more of it - then the troublesome forces of negativity have scored a victory.

Even so, what would we do without money? Money is one of life’s necessities; we have no choice but to involve ourselves in the pursuit of a livelihood.

Beyond ensuring personal financial security, conducting our business practices honestly and with faith in God is essential for tikkun olam - the world’s social and spiritual transformation into what God meant it to be. Effecting this transformation is our responsibility as human beings; therefore on some level we must engage the circumstances that lure us to the pursuit of money. And yet it is precisely this compelling appeal of money that opens the way to the forces that would undermine our spiritual development.

Preparing for Shabbat provides us with two magnificent opportunities to overcome the spiritual insensitivity that is spawned of the adverse allure of money. The first is to give charity to those who don’t have enough money to purchase their Shabbat needs or, in the same vein, to host them at our Shabbat tables. The second is to use the money we’ve earned to honor Shabbat by purchasing and preparing the tastiest food, the best drink and the finest clothing we can afford.

Both of these remedies - sharing our resources with others and investing our money in the special Shabbat expenditures - raise the level of our heart’s spiritual sensitivity. By allowing spiritual values to determine our expenditures we loosen money’s hold on us and ease our attachment to it. The freedom that then becomes ours propels us forward along the spiritual odyssey that is Shabbat.