The gemara in
Shabbos relates that when Rebbe Shimon and his son exited the cave
after 12 years, they were very disappointed. They saw people plowing
and planting and exclaimed that these people are abandoning eternal
life and are involved in temporary life – מניחים
חיי עולם ועוסקים בחיי שעה.
Everywhere
they looked, their eyes would burn what they saw.
A heavenly
voice emerged and said “Are you trying to destroy my world? Go back
to your cave!” So they did for 12 more months [which is the time of
judgement in gehenom].
Afterwards,
they left the cave again and saw an old man running on Erev Shabbos
with two hadasim. They asked him what they are for and he replied
that it is for the honor of Shabbos, one is for zachor and the other
is for shamor. At this point, Rebbi Shimon said to his son, “Look
at how much Jews love mitzvos.” They were then satisfied.
What is GOING
ON??
Why do
Jews work? For parnassa? We don't NEED to work for parnassa because
we have Hashem who will take care of all of our needs without our
“help”. We work in order to accentuate the fact that we are
resting on Shabbos for the sake of the mitzva and not because we
don't work anyway. [Isn't that why you work??:-)]
When they saw
the Jews working, they thought that it is all about having parnassa
in this world and cried out “מניחים
חיי עולם ועוסקים בחיי שעה".
Afterwards, they saw the man with the two hadasim and asked him what
they were for. The man replied that they represented zachor and
shamor. Zachor means to remember Shabbos all six days. Shamor
represents guarding and strictly keeping Shabbos. It now became clear
that all of the toil of the Jews in the field during the six days was
just in order to sanctify Shabbos. So Rebbi Shimon exclaimed “Look
at how Jews love mitzvos” and they were calmed and at peace.
[עפ"י מי מרום פ' לך לך ועיי"ש לשני הסברים נוספים]
לזכות גילה שושנה בת נעכא גיטל
