Yisro

The רמב"ן  writes that after the Torah tells us to believe in no one other than 'ה, that He's the creator, the all knowing & all able, we are commanded to honor His name. We are commanded to make a sign, a remembrance to constantly remember that He created everything & that reminder is the Mitzva of Shabbos.

The gemara says אמר רב יהודה אמר רב כל המענג את השבת נותנין לו משאלות לבו Rav Yehuda says in the name of Rav, whoever delights in the Shabbos is granted his heart’s wishes. Then the gemara asks what it means to delight in the Shabbos & goes on to enumerate delicacies that one should eat in order to honor the Shabbos.

The posuk says זכר את השבת לקדשו , remember the Shabbos & sanctify it; the gemara asks how do we sanctify the Shabbos? It answers that we sanctify it with wine.

It’s apparent from the gemara that the way to sanctify & honor the Shabbos is through food & drink. The gemara even tells us that anything spent on Shabbos is not included in the total income decreed for him that year & is repaid for whatever one spent above & beyond his expenditures.

The gemara also tells us how Hillel & Shamai would honor the Shabbos: Shamai would buy a choice piece of meat on Sunday & say this is for Shabbos. Then he would find something better, buy that for Shabbos & eat the one he had previously bought. He did that every day, so it came out that he ate the whole week for Shabbos  

Hillel had a different approach. He would buy food for each day as he needed it & wait until Friday to buy for Shabbos saying that we take each day as it comes & don't worry about tomorrow today.    

The בן איש חי says that each one was focusing on a different aspect. Shamai was showing the ultimate way to honor Shabbos while Hillel was showing the ultimate way to have Bitachon.

Perhaps the reason he chose to show bitachon when it came to honoring Shabbos since Shabbos itself is the ultimate showing of bitachon. The very essence of Shabbos is that we put life on hold for a day without worry because 'ה told us to & is taking care of us.

Now, if Shabbos is the sign for us to remember creation & for us to focus on the fact that 'ה controls the world, wouldn't it be more appropriate for us to be required to focus on more lofty pursuits than food & drink? Shouldn't we be sitting & learning instead of feasting on delicacies & drinking wine?

The בש"ט  explains with a parable. There was a prince who was captured & taken to a faraway land where he was forced to do menial work for his captors. One day he received word that his father had discovered where he is & was preparing to come get him. He was overjoyed & wanted to celebrate, yet didn't want his captors to figure out what was going on. He got them all drunk & while they were rejoicing in their drunkenness, he was rejoicing, knowing that he would soon be released without them having a clue as to the real reason for his rejoicing.

So, too, we are told to indulge our bodies on Shabbos so that it will be free of sadness & depression, not thinking about weekday business or any other hardships. This would allow the soul inside us, the prince inside every Jew, to reconnect with 'ה enabling us to soak in the message of Shabbos, which is total reliance on 'ה. Only when we can free our minds from the mundane by way of wine & delicacies, will our soul be able to connect to 'ה & instill in us the ultimate trust!