 The halacha tells us we are supposed to bathe with hot water Erev Shabbos. What is this – some kind of cleaning tip? What if someone can get just as clean with cold water? There are kabbalistic sources that say this
is a preventative measure against the Satan, who causes us to become angry on Erev Shabbos. We deflect his move by taking the heat he would bring upon us as anger and using it instead as hot water for bathing.
This leads to two questions: 1) Shabbos is the time when we want to promote harmony and sholom bayis (it is one of the reasons given for lighting Shabbos candles). Rather than developing strategies to avoid anger on Erev Shabbos, would it not make more sense to prevent anger on Shabbos itself? 2) Why does anger flare up on Erev Shabbos?
The Gemara in Shabbos (118b) says whoever observes Shabbos according to halacha is forgiven even for avoda zara. Why is this?
The Rambam rules that whoever becomes angry, it is considered as if he has worshipped idols. An idol worshipper is not an atheist – he believes in divinity; he just does not like the way God runs things. He wants to be the deity himself – or at least be able to dictate its terms – and so he chooses and then worships those idols that will conform to his own image of what a divine being should be and should do. He is bothered by the difference between the reality of God the way He is and the way he would like God to be. Anger is an expression of the same difference. It comes about when a person cannot accept that the reality of what is happening is in conflict with what he believes should be happening or what he wants to have happen.
There is an interesting phenomenon about Shabbos. There are many people who disobey many of the requirements of Shabbos but consider themselves observant of Shabbos. Shabbos is an extremely demanding mitzvah that cannot be effectively kept without constant review of its laws and regulations. If someone cares so little about this mitzvah that he doesn’t bother to familiarize himself with the laws necessary to properly keep the Shabbos, why does he bother to keep it at all?
The reason is because this person is not opposed to Shabbos. In fact, he loves Shabbos and he wants to keep it. He loves the beauty of Shabbos and its benefits. The only thing is, he wants it on his terms. He doesn’t like all the melachos and all their details – he’d rather just choose those parts of Shabbos with which he is familiar and to which he is accustomed. This is the same mindset that attends the worship of idolatry.
Shabbos contains so much pleasure and personal enjoyment that the risk is very great that we will seek to have its benefits without accepting responsibility for its full observance. The test for whether or not we can approach Shabbos on its own terms is whether or not we can avoid anger. If we can accept what happens to us on its own terms and resist becoming angry when things do not go our way, it is clear that we can also relate to Shabbos without demanding that it adjust itself to our desires. This is why the Satan brings this test on Erev Shabbos – that is when we need to be reminded that our own notions of Shabbos must give way to its reality.
And now we can understand why one who observes Shabbos “according to halacha” is forgiven even for avoda zara. Keeping Shabbos with halachic accuracy demonstrates that the person has overcome his urge to make reality conform to his image.
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