All Amidah prayers (“amidot’) begin with the same three blessings, and end with the same three blessings. What happens in the middle of the Amidah varies with the occasion. On weekdays, there is a 13-blessing wish list, culminating in our prayers for the return to Israel and the rebuilding of Jerusalem. On shabbat and holidays, in contrast, there is only one middle blessing, linked to the character of that special day.

If we look at the middle blessings of the shabbat amidot, we will see that they, too, vary from each other. Each of the blessings reflects a different aspect of G-d’s most characteristic qualities. Friday night centers on creation, Saturday morning on revelation, and Saturday afternoon on redemption.

The blessing for Friday night contains a surprising twist. One could imagine that a celebration of G-d as creator would emphasize “all things wild and wonderful,” the vast array of created things, from black holes to baseballs.

But no. This blessing describes the whole purpose of creation, the pinnacle of G-d’s achievements, the cherry atop the universal sundae as….rest. Doing nothing, it turns out, is doing something. This will, of course, be of great comfort to every 40 year old couch potato living in their parents’ basement and playing video games.

But that’s not exactly what the prayer intends.

Instead, the prayer emphasizes that there are two phases to rest. The first is rest after work (so off the couch, guys!). This is where the concept of shabbat comes from. “Shabbat” literally means “to stop working.” But the prayer isn’t satisfied with simply stopping work. Instead, it suggests that by G-d blessing and sanctifying the shabbat day, G-d creates the opportunity for a deeper kind of rest, “mnuchah”—a rest of emotional and spiritual tranquility and equanimity.

Look at it like this: shabbat by itself is what you experience when you come in from a hard day’s work in the hot sun, sit down on your favorite chair, pop a brewski and get ready to watch the game. Menuchah is when you look around you and take a deep breath, feel overwhelmed with gratitude for your life and all that is in it, and realize, if only for a few fleeting moments, that you are exactly where you should be; that you, too, are blessed and sanctified.

No wonder that G-d considers shabbat to be, as our prayer tells us, “chemdat yamim,” “the most glorious of days.”