Shabbos Mussaf

The middle berakhah of Shabbos Mussaf begins with a rare acrostic — the Alef-Beis, but in reverse order: starting with ת and ending with א:

תִּכַּנְתָּ שַׁבָּת רָצִיתָ קָרְבְּנוֹתֶיהָ. צִוִּיתָ פֵּרוּשֶׁיהָ עִם סִדּוּרֵי נְסָכֶיהָ. מְעַנְּגֶיהָ לְעוֹלָם כָּבוֹד יִנְחָלוּ. טוֹעֲמֶיהָ חַיִּים זָכוּ. וְגַם הָאוֹהֲבִים דְּבָרֶיהָ גְּדֻלָּה בָּחָרוּ. אָז …

(Nusach Sfard continues with an acrostic of the letters that have final forms, “מִסִּינַי נִצְטַוּוּ (עָלֶיהָ) צִוּוּי פָּעֳלֶיהָ כָּרָאוּי.” I don’t know what to do with that, but since this discussion is just about what I think while I’m davening [when I think about davening, and I don’t daven Sfard, I can only leave it at an exercise for those who do.)

There are two ways to see the arrow of time. In terms of physical causes, causes precede effect. And so, Hashem as First Cause created a universe, which due to what He made and how, caused later things… Free will similarly, if I choose to let go of something, it will afterwards fall.

But as Rav Shelomo haLevi al-Qabetz put it in Lekha Dodi, “סוֹף מַעֲשֶׂה בְּמַחֲשָׁבָה תְּחִלָּה – [Shabbos,] which was made last, was ‘Thought’ about first.” When planning, we start with the end. In the above example, if I want a ball to fall, I will first let go of it.

When we look at the sequence in ת – ש- ר- ק … – ב -א order, we are not looking at causes, but at goals. “סוֹף מַעֲשֶׂה בְּמַחֲשָׁבָה תְּחִלָּה”.

As we saw in Yismach Moshe, the Shabbos morning tefillos could be seen as describing the bridge from the Shabbos of Creation, the topic of Friday night, and the Shabbos as a glimpse of the World to Come, which we will look at when we get to Minchah.

Yismach Moshe is about the joy of knowing mine has an indispensable role in the engine of creation which is uniquely mine and that I was created to be the perfect fit for. My role in bringing Creation forward along Hashem’s Plan.

Mussaf begins with the opposite view, from the culmination of Hashem as Ultimate Purpose’s plan to the current moment. How our moment has a cosmic purpose.

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There is a more philosophically involved version of this idea in an earlier post at “Aspaqlaria: Tiqanta Shabbos”.