“B’asara maamaros nivra haolam – With ten utterances the world was created. (Avos 5:1) “And G-d completed on the seventh day His work that He did, and He abstained on the seventh day from all His work that He did. (Genesis 2:2),” King David explains that “By the word of the L-rd the heavens were made, and all their host by the breath of his mouth.” (Psalm 33:6) everything was created. Since words an be work, on Shabbos (the Sabbath Day) we must be careful which words we speak and how many of them.
Thinking about work or business is permissible, however, keeping to the spirit of Shabbos, as a holy day, it is discouraged and forbidden. The Shulchan Aruch (Orach Chaim 306:8) teaches, “It is permitted to think about one’s weekday affairs; however, in order to enjoy Shabbos (the Sabbath Day), it is a religious precept/commandment not to think about them at all and it should be as if all of one’s work is done.”
There was once a very righteous man who owned a vineyard. His vineyard was protected on all sides by a wall. One Shabbos afternoon, when the man was taking a little walk, he noticed that a hole was broken in one spot. He became very worried. “If wild animals or passersby get into the vineyard and eat up my grapes,” he thought, “I will no longer earn money from selling grapes. I will have to fix the wall immediately after Shabbos.” In order to save time he decided, “I will go on Shabbos to someone who knows about building walls to find out exactly how to fix the hole. The sooner wall will be repaired, the safer my grapes will be. If I know exactly how to do it, I will be able to start as soon as Shabbos is over.”
When he came home after talking to the wall builder, he was calm at first, but soon he began to feel sorry for his actions.
“What have I done,” he exclaimed! “I made a terrible mistake; I’m afraid I violated Shabbos, ruined the holiness and spirituality. During Shabbos, we are not allowed to even talk about forbidden work that we plan to do after Shabbos. The Holy One, blessed be He wants us to imagine that all work is done. We should not worry about future work at all.” He was so sorry that he had discussed the wall repair on Shabbos. He decided that he must repent. But how?
The righteous man thought “I want to show the Holy One, blessed be He that I am really sorry that I talked about the repair on Shabbos. Therefore, I won’t fix the wall even after Shabbos is over. I will always leave it broken just as it is now.”
He was, in fact, allowed to repair the wall after Shabbos, but since he was such a religious person, he didn’t want to benefit from words that were forbidden on Shabbos.
The Holy One, blessed be He rewarded the man by performing a miracle for him. A large bush began to grow in front of the exact spot where the wall was broken. The bush completely blocked the hole in the wall. This bush was a special kind called a Tzlaf (Caper) bush. The Tzlaf bush grows a delicious kind of fruit. Both the leaves and the fruit are edible. There was always plenty of fruit on the bush because the Holy One, blessed be He made the fruit of the Tzlaf bush grow and regrow very quickly.
This amazing bush also provided the righteous man with a good income. He was able to sell its fruits which kept growing all the time. From then on, he was able to learn Torah without worrying about money. This was his reward for treating Shabbos with holiness and sincerely regretting his actions.
May all your tales end with Shalom (peace)
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Tell it to your children, and let your children tell it to their children, and their children to the next generation. (Joel 1:3)