"Who sanctifies the Shabbos, and blesses the seventh day."

The mogen avos blessing is a concise recitation of the essence of all the blessings in the shemoneh esrei prayer. It was instituted by the Sages because in former times, the synogagues were situated in fields outside the city. There was thus a concern that one who spent extra time at his prayers might be left alone in the field, in a position of danger. Therefore the Sages instituted that after the shemoneh esrei, there would be a recital of this extra mogen avos prayer, in order to lengthen the ma'ariv so that everyone could finish together.

The phrase that we have quoted, "Who sanctifies the Shabbos, and blesses the seventh day"--poses a bit of a puzzle. Why do we identify the Shabbos by two different names, the Shabbos and the seventh day? And why do we say specifically that Hashem sanctifies the Shabbos, and He blesses the seventh day?

It seems likely that this is based on the last verse of the vayechulu passage. "Hashem blessed the seventh day and He sanctified it, for on it He had abstained (shovas) from all of His work." Here it would seem we speak of both these elements of the Shabbos. We say that Hashem blessed the seventh day, and then we say that He sanctified it, because on that day He had abstained from all of his work--thus making it the Shabbos day.

And in fact, there are two distinct elements to the Shabbos. On the one hand, it serves as the culmination of all of the labors of the entire week. As the "seventh day" of the week, it provides a focal point for all the labors of the week, and enables one to see his week in its entirety from a spiritual perspective.

On the other hand, the seventh day is also the Shabbos day, a special festival when we take out the time to commune with Hashem. We speak of these two elements in the kiddush recitation. In the kiddush, we say that Shabbos is "a remembrance of Creation," and we add too that Shabbos is "first among the holy festivals." These are the two elements of the Shabbos. On the one hand, it serves as the culmination for all the labors of the entire week. Yet on the other hand, it is a stepping stone to enable us to raise ourselves from our preoccupation with our mundane weekday activities, and to become uplifted to a world of spirituality, a world of communion with Hashem.

"Hashem blesses the seventh day"--that is, He makes it serve as a channel through which all the week's labor is blessed. But there is more: "He sanctifies the Shabbos." The Shabbos is a day which is amidst the other days of the week, yet at the very same time, it is a day of sanctity, when one may tear himself loose from the mundane and ascend into the rarified atmosphere of the G-dly.

Copyright (c) 1998 by Rabbi Levi Langer

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