A vort from the Rebbe on this week's פרשה, פרשת משפטים. In the beginning of פרשת משפטים it talks about the dinim of an עבד עברי. If a yid becomes an eved, a slave so to speak, to another yid, and that can happen or if he's poor and he sells himself to get some money, so he sells himself as an eved, or if a person steals and doesn't have any money to pay, then beit din will sell him as an eved, and that money will go to pay the one he stole from. And the din is the Torah says that he works for six years, and while he's working for the six years, his master gives him also a שפחה כנענית, and the children will belong to the master. And after the six years, it says he's supposed to go free. The Torah says what happens if the eved says at the end of the six years, \"אהבתי את אדוני, I love my master, I love my wife, this new wife that he gave me, I love the children that she gave birth to me, I don't want to leave.\" So the pasuk says you have to bore a hole in his ear. And the reason for that Rashi explains, because what we're telling him is: Your ear heard by Har Sinai that you're not allowed to steal, and you went and stole. Your ear heard by Har Sinai that you are avadim, slaves to Hashem, and now you went and bought yourself another master, got yourself another master, that's why we bore a hole in his ear. This is the simple halachah, the way it says in the Torah in simple peshat. But everything has a deeper peshat, a lesson in עבודת השם ברוחניות, in פנימיות ענינים, על פי חסידות, על פי דרוש.

So the Rebbe explains the peshat in this halachah like this: The six years represent six days of the week. Six days of the week, a person works. He is like an eved almost to all the gashmiusdike things, and that's how the seder is. You work and be involved in all the gashmiusdike things because you have to make a living. Obviously you also have to do mitzvot, obviously without a question you have to learn Torah. But nevertheless, you are a person who is, so to speak, an eved to the gashmiyus. But when it comes the seventh year, which represents Shabbos, Shabbos, there it's different. Shabbos, you have to drop all the gashmiusdike things, and you have to devote your time only in serving Hashem. Like it says in Shulchan Aruch, that when it comes Shabbos, you have to feel כאילו כל מלאכתך עשויה, you have to feel as if all your work is done. You have to feel that all the gashmiusdike work that you have don't exist. That day, you are not an eved anymore to the gashmius, that's a day you have to devote for learning and davenen in a very spiritual way.

But chas v'shalom there's a possibility for a person that even when it comes Shabbos, he says, \"אהבתי את אדוני, I love the master, I love the gashmiusdike master, I love the gashmius,\" and he doesn't want to go out free, which means even Shabbos he feels that he is meshoubad, he's an eved to the gashmius. So the Torah says, \"ורצע אדוניו את אזנו\", you have to bore a hole in his ear to remind him that your ear heard that it's not supposed to be this way, you're supposed to be devoted to Hashem, and therefore there's set aside a special day where that's when you really devote yourself physically to Hashem without anything else, not like the other days of the week. And by doing that, he is reminded what the real way is supposed to be, that when it comes Shabbos, the seventh day, represented by the seventh year, then he's supposed to go out free from the yoke of gashmius and he's supposed to serve Hashem. So this din, that if he doesn't want to leave his master on the seventh year, we bore his ear, this is a lesson to all of us to remember what our obligation is on Shabbos. So by learning this parshah in the Torah, it reminds us that on Shabbos, that's a day that we have to devote completely to Hashem, spend time learning, davenen, and all the gashmiusdike things should not be תופס מקום, should not mean much.

And by doing that, we'll be zoche to the other remez: The six years represent the 6,000 years, the seventh year represents the time of Mashiach, that we will be zoche, if we do the seventh year, the seventh day on Shabbos properly, we'll all be zoche to the יום שכולו שבת, the day that's completely שבת, מנוחה לחיי העולמים with the coming of Mashiach.