 Rabbi Yochanan said in the name of Rabbi Yose: One who takes pleasure on Shabbat is given a reward without limit, as it says, “Then, when you delight in the Almighty…I will give you the inheritance
of your father Yaakov [Isaiah 58:14.]” Not that of Avraham – of whom it says, “Walk throughout [the boundaries] of the land [Bereshit 13:17].” And not that of Yitzchak – of whom it says, “To you and your offspring I will give all these lands [26:3].” But rather that of Yaakov, of whom it says, “You will spread out to the west, east, north, and south (i.e. without limit) [28:14].”
[Shabbat 118a]
Enjoying oneself on Shabbat would seem to be a relatively easy mitzvah to perform. Why should its fulfillment result in such a spectacular reward? Furthermore, what did Yaakov do that his inheritance should be unlimited, in contrast to the circumscribed rewards of the other Avot?
Also, there is a syntax irregularity in the text of the passage. Rabbi Yochanan’s statement, in the original, reads as follows:
Kol ha-me’aneg et ha-Shabbat, notnim lo nachala b’li m’tzarim.
Taken literally, this should mean, “One who pleasures the Shabbat is given a reward without limit.”
Because this rendition has no practical meaning, it has commonly come to be translated as we translated above – “One who takes pleasure on Shabbat…”
But in order to actually mean that, the text should better have read:
Kol ha-mit’aneg ba-Shabbat (as in the Friday night zemirot, where we find the line “kol ha-mit’angim bah yizku l’rov simcha”), notnim lo nachala b’li m’tzarim.
How can we explain this textual anomaly?
In Parshat Vayishlach, after Yaakov wrestles his nocturnal adversary to a victorious stalemate, he asks the man (who has turned out to be an angel) for his name.
And Yaakov asked and said, ‘Please tell me, what is your name?” [Bereshit 32:30]
The angel responds:
Why is it that you are asking me my name? [ibid.]
What is the meaning of this cryptic answer?
What Yaakov is being told is that by defeating an angel, Yaakov has earned the right to name him. The angel is in effect saying, “If you want to know what my name is, you don’t have to ask me – you can tell me what my name should be!” Naming something is a privilege of having authority over it, as we find going all the way back to Adam the First Man, whose first act of exercising authority came when he named all the animals in the Garden of Eden.
The process of Yaakov gaining dominance over this angel included his first recognizing that his adversary was, in fact, an angel and not a mere human being. Piercing the physical exterior to see the spiritual truth within (that his foe was actually the guardian angel of Esav) is what gave Yaakov the fortitude to persevere until achieving victory.
This is what is meant by an “inheritance without limit”. If I receive a gift from another person, that gift is necessarily limited. If he gives me two parcels of land, I have those two parcels, nothing more. If he gives me a thousand dollars, my take is limited to those thousand dollars. The only time I can receive a reward without limit is if someone tells me, “For your reward, I will let you name your own reward.” Since I have been given control over the definition of the reward, and I can set it as high as I want, it is truly and completely unlimited. Yaakov earned the ability to name the angel in exchange for the effort he made to discover his adversary’s spiritual interior; so, too, anyone can earn a similar unlimited reward for a similar discovery of a spiritual truth enrobed within a material exterior.
That is what we can potentially earn by the way we relate to the physical delights of Shabbat.
If all we do is enjoy the physical delights available on Shabbat – eating tasty food, drinking sweet drinks, relaxing and enjoying our naps – we will not earn a nachala b’li m’tzarim, because while we may be appropriately using Shabbat to enjoy material delights, we have not identified the spiritual truth wrapped up inside the pleasures to which we are helping ourselves. The inner truth is that our enjoying physical delights on Shabbat is one of the ways we have of GIVING pleasure TO Shabbat. Taking pleasure on Shabbat is valuable not because of the benefit it gives us, but because of how much spiritual pleasure the personality of Shabbat receives by having us take that pleasure. (One parallel might be eating a piece of homemade pie at your bubbie’s house. Whatever pleasure you may have by eating it generally is second to the amount of pleasure your bubbie gets by having you eat it!) This is the significance of the textual irregularity. It does mean to take pleasure on Shabbat – but it means taking it in a way that finds you aware of the satisfaction your act of taking pleasure is giving to the Shabbat.
Once we understand this, we can take it to the next level and answer all our questions. In addition to consuming physical delicacies, there are numerous other ways we can delight the Shabbat – we can see to it that our surroundings are clean, tidy, and well-lighted; we can remain bedecked in our special Shabbat clothes; we can take time to pray with more kavannah; we can discuss spiritual matters around the table; we can schedule Torah study sessions with ourselves and with others; we can devote quality time to family members who need our presence. One who focuses on how he or she can fill all the Shabbat hours only with efforts and activities that bring pleasure to Shabbat is one who has truly earned an inheritance without limit – for by seeing through the surface of food, drink, and rest to the opportunities these items afford for providing spiritual delight to the Shabbat, he has duplicated the achievement of Yaakov Avinu, who escaped limitation and earned naming rights by discerning spirituality from within its physical encasement.
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