I left off back in March, so here is a reminder of where we were up to:

We were looking at Shabbos Minchah, and noted that Atah Echad follows the same pattern we had previously identified with Atah Qadosh via the Targum on Qedushah that we say in UVa leTzion. Qedushah refes to holiness; this tefillah refers to unity. First, we speak of “אתה / You”, i.e. Hashem Himself. Then, of “שמך / your Name” — how He appears to humans. And third, how people through the process of history brings the two ever closer together – whether as “Holy ones every day praise You” or “and who is like Your nation, Israel, a singular nation in the world / in their land.”

Now to continue our study of what the various tefillos mean to me, those times when I have the mental quiet and patience to think about what I am saying.

We can break down this paragraph into sections:

1- Divine Unity, and how it is the role of the Jewish People to make it manifest in this world. So that this world comes to unity in service of the Divine Plan. Shabbos commemorates the week of creation, and yet as we are about to say, it is given to the Jews alone. Perhaps this is why; Jews and the sign of Shabbos have the job of bringing that message to the rest of humanity.

2- תִּפְאֶרֶת גְּדֻלָּה וַעֲטֶרֶת יְשׁוּעָה יוֹם מְנוּחָה וּקְדֻשָּׁה לְעַמְּךָ נָתָתָּ – The tif’eres / glorious Greatness [1], and the diadem of Salvation, as day of Menuchah and holiness it was given to Your nation.

• תִּפְאֶרֶת גְּדֻלָּה – The tif’eres / glorious Greatness [1]: Back when we looked at birkhas Avos and we saw the four ways Moshe described Hashem (“הקל הגדול הגיבור והנורה”, we identified Gadol / Great in contrast to Gibor / Mighty in the sense of strength of “Character”, being able to make room for others and not always step in. Mercy vs. allowing for our free will and His consequent Justice. Thus, when things are going well, we see Hashem as Gadol.
  Shabbos is a time to see Hashem’s Gedulah in everything, to realize, at least as a theoretical concept for now, that everything, even life’s challenges and tragedies, come from a place of Divine Mercy and is a meaningful and important part of a plan that will ultimately bring His Good to all of humanity. And in that there is Tir’eres, in Qabbalah, the synthesis of Din and Chesed.
• וַעֲטֶרֶת יְשׁוּעָה – and the diadem of Salvation: But until that happens in the here-and-now, we need a Yeshu’ah, to be saved from the messes that we made within ourselves and the worlds. In that there is an Ateres, a diadem, a coronation of Hashem as the Center about which our lives revolve.
• יוֹם מְנוּחָה וּקְדֻשָּׁה לְעַמְּךָ נָתָתָּ – as a day of Menuchah and holiness that You have given to your nation. Menuchah requires “לְעַמְּךָ נָתָתָּ”, Hashem giving us Shabbos as a day of Menuchah / rest, and holiness.
  As R Wolbe (Mitzvos haShequlos) points out that we here acknowledge that Menuchah is something Hashem gives us, not something we can achieve on our own. We can practice oneg Shabbos, making Shabbos enjoyable, but whether that leads to Menuchas haNefesh, allowing the soul to be at rest, a settled and calm mind, that is not entirely up to us. Thus Menuchah is associated with the sentence’s first themes of the splendor of His greatness and how our redemption coronates Him (so to speak). We speak of striving for something out of our reach — for the sake of meriting His granting us success.

3- Last, elaboration of this third clause, explaining what it is we should be learning from this gift of menuchah: love and generosity, truth and faith (putting trust in an ideal), peace, serenity, stillness and security. Three pairs, each with an abstract side and a realization:

• מְנוּחַת אַהֲבָה וּנְדָבָה – a menuchah of love and generosity. These two exist in a cyclic relationship. One feels more generous to those love, and one feels more love for those they already gave to. Rabbi Yisrael Salanter and Rabbi  Dessler (Qunterus haChessed) teach that the second half of that cycle is the primary one. We start by loving those we gave to. Rabbi Shimon Shkop (introduction to Shaarei Yosher) says that this is because our self-love  will naturally grow to include those we invested ourselves in.
  Love and generosity are two middos, but still the latter is more related to action.
• מְנוּחַת אֱמֶת וֶאֱמוּנָה – a menuchah of Truth, and of truths we rely on. The first is abstract, Shabbos relates to ideas that are real. The latter also involves epistomology, how we know and relate to those ideas. We may not be able to give airtight proofs for every idea we build our lives around. But being unable to prove to others they love their children doesn’t make a parent any less likely to endanger themselves to save one of them.
  Emes and Emuah, like the previous pair, involves one half that is more abstract, and the other is more realized. 
• מְנוּחַת שָׁלוֹם וְשַׁלְוָה וְהַשְׁקֵט וָבֶטַח – a menuchah of Shalom and serenity, quiet and security.
  Shalom isn’t just a cessation of violence. It is an inner sheleimus, a wholness of heart, that expresses itself as being at peace with those beyond the self. (See the meaning I found in Shalom Rav.) Shalvah more properly refers to the external part of that quiet.
  And quiet and restful surroundings, including but far from that lack of hostility gives us the Bitchon, the trust in Hashem’s Plan for what happens to us, to be able to not only rest, but to realize that Divine Unity in how humanity experiences the world. Bringing us back to the opening of the paragraph.

Shabbos is a day to stop striving, and to take stock in how far we have come, and think about what we really want to be striving for. Less time on doing, and more on being and becoming. The Shabbos we speak about at Minchah is not only the Me’ein Olam haBa, the glimpse of the World to Come, but also of the Shabbos of today as the means to get ourselves there. But ultimately, we dream of

מְנוּחָה שְׁלֵמָה שָׁאַתָּה רוֹצֶה בָּהּ – The complete menuchah in which you Desire. The Goal at the end of the path. The dream we stop for a day to peer at, to live glimpses of.

Good Shabbos!

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1- I translated that “the glorious Greatness” and not “the great tif’eres” because the word is “gedulah,” a noun, rather than the adjective “gedolah“