Synagogue Sermon
Happy Though Hungry (1973)
In a famous passage, the Sages say, אלמלא שמרו ישראל שתי שבתות כהלכתן – מיד נגאלים, “if only the Children of Israel would observe two Sabbaths, they would be redeemed immediately.” This dictum has always proven puzzling. Why two Sabbaths? Which two Sabbaths? All kinds of answers have been offered. Today, permit me to commend to your attention what one commentator has offered us: a cryptic response, laconically formulated, without adequate explanation. He tells us that the Sages referred to two Sabbaths which coincide, two Sabbaths which are observed simultaneously. Is that possible? Yes, it is, only when – like today – Yom Kippur falls on Saturday. Saturday is Shabbat, and Yom Kippur is known in the Bible as Shabbat Shabbaton, “the Sabbath of Sabbaths.” So when we observe this double Sabbath, מיד נגאלים, we are at the brink of redemption.What does that mean? A meaningful interpretation is given to us by the great Hasidic master, the author of “בני יששכר.” Yom Kippur, he tells us, is fundamentally in conflict with the weekly Sabbath. Yom Kippur on Saturday presents, therefore, an immediate conflict, an inner contradiction. The law of the Sabbath is that the commandment of עונג שבת, enjoying the Sabbath, is realized by means of אכילה ושתייה, eating and drinking. Yom Kippur, however, is observed by abstaining from food. The קדושת היום, the sanctity of the day, is achieved through תענית, or fasting. How, therefore, is it possible to observe both Sabbath and Yom Kippur when they fall on the same day?The answer is this. It is true that Jewish spirituality does not require ascetic denial of material life and pleasures. Physical delight often enhances the spiritual experience. But what Judaism teaches us is that a higher level is held out to us: spiritual joy and religious experience can be attained without physical indulgence, when the total experience is no less satisfactory than if it did derive from material pleasures.Thus, at the time of the sealing of the Covenant in…
