One-Sixtieth of the World to Come

Two weeks ago, on a beautiful Friday morning on the edges of Jerusalem, Rabbi Dani Segal of the Shalom Hartman Institute asked my Rabbinic Leadership Institute cohort a simple question:

What is your me’ein olam haba moment of Shabbat?

He was invoking the rabbinic teaching that Shabbat is one-sixtieth of the world to come.

The Gemara teaches:

חֲמִשָּׁה אֶחָד מִשִּׁשִּׁים, אֵלּוּ הֵן: אֵשׁ, דְּבַשׁ, וְשַׁבָּת, וְשֵׁינָה, וַחֲלוֹם. אֵשׁ — אֶחָד מִשִּׁשִּׁים לְגֵיהִנָּם. דְּבַשׁ — אֶחָד מִשִּׁשִּׁים לַמָּן. שַׁבָּת — אֶחָד מִשִּׁשִּׁים לָעוֹלָם הַבָּא. שֵׁינָה — אֶחָד מִשִּׁשִּׁים לַמִּיתָה. חֲלוֹם — אֶחָד מִשִּׁשִּׁים לַנְּבוּאָה

There are five experiences in this world that are one-sixtieth of their ultimate form:
Fire is one-sixtieth of Gehenna.
Honey is one-sixtieth of manna.
Shabbat is one-sixtieth of the World-to-Come.
Sleep is one-sixtieth of death.
A dream is one-sixtieth of prophecy.
(Berakhot 57b)

In other words: there are moments in this world that give us a taste of something beyond it.

So he asked: What transports you?

At first, the room was quiet. Then someone shared. Then another. And suddenly the floodgates opened.

The rush before candlelighting—and then the sudden stop.
Walking through the house singing “Shalom Aleikhem” into every room.
The moment after guests leave, dishes done, sitting quietly at the table together.
Teenage children—taller, cooler, independent—instinctively bowing their heads for Birkat Kohanim as if they were five again.
Early morning coffee and hevruta with a partner.
Breaking off pieces of challah for children who no longer live at home, holding them close through ritual.

There are 26 of us; I don’t remember every example. But I remember the feeling in the room.

We were glimpsing one another’s inner sanctuaries. Shabbat in its shared form and its utterly unique form. The one-sixtieth was palpable—transcendence, rest, restoration, unguarded love. For a moment, we were transported.

And it is not easy to be transported.

Our world is heavy. I had just spent two weeks in Israel—one with the BJ trip, one in fellowship. Israel is struggling without a clear path forward. At the same time, I was constantly following what was unfolding in Minneapolis. It can feel absurd—even disloyal—to unplug from injustice, fragility, violence.

And yet, there we were. Transported.

I don’t think we can survive without Shabbat.

Not only because it interrupts our addiction to productivity, to screens, to endless consumption. But because it gives us a taste of what could be. And without that taste, we might begin to accept what is.

The poet Aryeh Sivan writes:

מִדֵּי בֹּקֶר אָדָם מִתְעוֹרֵר
עַל שְׂפָתוֹ שֶׁל יַם הַמָּחָר
וְשׁוֹאֵל אֶת עַצְמוֹ: לַחְצוֹת
אוֹ לֹא לַחְצוֹת

Each morning a person awakens
On the shore of tomorrow’s sea
And asks himself:
To cross
Or not to cross.

Every weekday we stand at the edge of tomorrow—anxious, striving, uncertain.

Shabbat is different. Shabbat is an ocean of tomorrows. It is the widest horizon we are given in this world. It lets us feel, even briefly, what the far shore might be like.

If we do not taste its expansiveness, its eternity, its promise, we may never gather the courage to cross at all.

And we must cross.
The world needs us to cross.

Shabbat shalom—and welcome to one-sixtieth of the world to come.

Rabbi Felicia Sol