"Oh Hashem, with love and favor grant us your holy Sabbath as a heritage."

From the words of the Torah, "six days you shall work and perform all your labors, but the seventh day shall be a Sabbath unto Hashem," the Talmud derives a dictum. From this verse, says the Talmud, we learn that "on the Sabbath you should feel as if all your labors have been completed." In other words, the Sabbath is not merely a day of physical rest. It is a day when a person shall actually feel a sense of fulfillment, a sense of completion. On the Sabbath, one is free from all the pressures and demands that assail him throughout the week. He is physically and emotionally at rest.

We may say, then, that the Sabbath experience is one which cannot be fashioned entirely by man alone. He must of necessity receive the assistance of the Almighty in the making of his Sabbath. For the Sabbath is not merely a day when one does not work: it is a day upon which one may achieve a measure of fulfillment. The Sabbath is "a microcosm of the World to Come," in the words of our Sages. And if we do our part, then Hashem will help us to experience this.

The Siach Yitzchak commentary on siddur writes that it is in this sense that we ask Hashem in this prayer to grant us the holy Sabbath as a heritage. For we are well aware that all by ourselves, we cannot make the Sabbath. It is true that it is up to us to refrain from doing any labor on this day. But this by itself will not be enough. And in recognition of this, we offer a prayer to Hashem. "We can do our part," we say to Hashem, "but the rest is up to you. And we ask of you that you place the crowning touch upon our efforts, and grant us success in our attempt to fashion a Sabbath day which will serve as our eternal heritage."

Copyright (c) 1998 by Rabbi Levi Langer

Courtesy of www.JewishAmerica.com
Have a good Shabbos!