욥기 37:25의 Halakhah

And when I explained to you the requirement for three meals on Shabbat and informed you of its reward, I revealed it to you only partially, leaving some of it secret. Now I shall explain to you further the topic of panim hadashot –“a new face.” ²⁷⁵Hadashot panim – a “new face,” a term taken from the marriage custom of the Sheva’ Berakhot, when friends of the bride and groom host them for seven meals on the seven days following their wedding. At these meals they recite a special birkat ha-mazoncontaining the traditional Seven Wedding Blessings – the Sheva Berakhot. But they only recite this special birkat ha-mazon with the seven blessings on the second through seventh days following the wedding if there are at least 10 adults, and at least one “new face” – panim hadashot – a person who wasn’t there on the previous day. This custom and the words for the sheva Berakhot are introduced in b. Ketubah 7b-8a. This refers to the virtue particularly associated with Malkhut, about which Scripture remarked when it said, “Let us make human being in Our image and according to Our likeness,”²⁷⁶Gen 1:26. and when it is the great Shabbat, for indeed when Shabbat comes, a “new face” comes. And for this reason you will find in the discussion of the Sheva Berakhot, which is connected to a “new face,” as we maintain in the Gemara, “On the first day [after the wedding] one says all seven blessings. From then on, if there is a new face (panim hadashot), one recites them, but if not one doesn’t.”²⁷⁷B. Ketubot 8a. And Shabbat itself is like a new face.²⁷⁸In other words, even if there is not a new guest, if it is Shabbat, one can still recite the Sheva Berakhot in birkat ha-mazon. So Tosafot to b. Ketubot 7b. By analogy, this principle was also applied to other holidays which occur uring the week of Sheva Berakhot. But all the words of our rabbis z”l are built upon the wisdom of kabbalah, and it is the great foundation upon which all of their words depend. Happy is the one who meditates upon them and looks at their shining mirror. And at this point I do not need to expand upon the explanation of the topic of marriage in the lower formation of the world involving male and female, because of what I hinted at in my discussion of zakhor ve-shamor “remember and observe.” From this little hint you should be able to understand much more.

Another interpretation: He blessed it with light. When the sun set on the evening of Shabbat, the Holy One Blessed be He sought to hide the light and gave honor to Shabbat, as it is written, “and God blessed it, etc.”²⁸⁹Gen 2:3.With what did He bless it? With light. Everything began to praise the Holy One Blessed be He, as it is written, “Everything under the heavens, He made it sing.”²⁹⁰Job 37:3: Literally, “He lets it loose [yishrehu] beneath the entire heavens; His lightning [oro] to the ends of the earth.” The midrash treats yishrehu as if it were from the word “shirah” – “song.” Why? “His light [spread] to the ends of the earth.”²⁹¹Genesis Rabbah 11:2.

There is, however, a parallel text in the Yerushalmi, the Palestinian Talmud, Berakhot 9:2. The Yerushalmi also records that the blessing oseh ma'aseh bereshit is pronounced upon seeing "the firmament in its purity." But, in the Yerushalmi's discussion, R. Huna explains that the blessing is recited "only in the rainy season after three days, as it is written, 'And now they did not see light that is bright in the skies but a wind passes and cleanses them'" (Job 37:4), i.e., the blessing is recited after incessant rain spanning a three-day period. R. Moshe Sofer, Teshuvot Hatam Sofer, Oraḥ Hayyim, no. 55, expresses bewilderment: Why is the blessing occasioned only by three days of rainfall? Hatam Sofer amends the text to read "after thirty days" but fails to explain why the blessing is recited only after a thirty-day period of rainfall.