rashi quotes a medrash that darshens that the manna (i had written man, but when it was on my gmail status someone thought i was talking about cannibalism and got all offended on me) not only didnt fall on shabbos, but also didnt fall on yom kippur and yom tov.
(as a parenthetical note, why do we need a derasha that it didnt fall on yom kippur - of course it wouldnt - since they cant eat it!! unless, maybe its not assur to eat manna on yom kippur? does it count as food? maybe it isnt "yesuvei daata")
in reality, tosfos in beitzah points out that this is a machlokes. in shabbos friday night shemoneh esreih we say "vikidashto mikol hazmanim" - shabbos is holier than all the other yomim tovim. the medrash (see tosfos harosh) explains that this refers to the fact that shabbos was unique in that the mannadidnt fall on it.
( there seems to be a contradiction in how we pasken. on the one hand, we say in davening vikidashto mikol hazmanim, which the medrash explained to mean that manna fell on yom tov. yet we know that lechem mishna is a zecher to the double portion of manna erev shabbos - and we also use lechem mishna for yom tov - implying that yom tov also got a double portion of manna on erev yom tov because no manna fell on yom tov)
why didnt the manna fall on shabbos? this is a machlokes between rambam and rashi/ramban. rambam says that when the passuk says by the manna"al yetzeh ish mimkomo bayom hashvii" - dont go out to collect the manna, this is a source in the torah for a biblical prohibition of techum shabbos. ramban says techum shabbos is drabanan, and therefore the torah is referring to the prohibition of hotzaah, as if it said al yotzi ish mimkomo. lets assume like the ramban for now.
theres a machlokes in beitzah 12a whether "yesh hotzaah liyom tov" - did the torah assur hotzaah on yom tov. i wonder if this machlokes is connected to the machlokes in midrashim about whether the man fell on yom tov. if hotzaah is assur on yom tov, then manna didnt fall on yom tov, and vica versa.
but then this is quite strange; this is called the "kidashto" of shabbos that because it is assur bihotzaah, manna didnt fall on it? whats so holy about that?
there is a fundamental distinction between the issur of melacha on shabbos and that of yom tov - namely ochel nefesh. what makes this distinction so funamental is that according to the ramban in parshas emor, its not just that the torah said melocho was assur on yom tov, and then made an exception for ochel nefesh. the ramban explains that the phrase used to assur melacha on yom tov, mileches avodah, only refers to non - ochel nefesh (what he calls non- pleasure related) melachos. pleasure related melachos however, are not avodah, and therefore were never included in the prohibition against melacha on yom tov.
in other words, melacha is assur on yom tov because of the tircha and work it involves - mileches avodah. pleasure and food related melachos are permitted because they do not detract from simchas yom tov, if anything, prohibiting them would detract from yom tov.
but on shabbos, melacha is assur whether it is "work" or not. why?
melacha on shabbos is defined not by how hard or laborious the task is, but rather, by accomplishing a creative process (i was digging up old files on the computer over winter break and found my bar motzvah speech - it was about this). we dont do melacha on shabbos not only / primarily because of the hard "work" entailed in doing a melacha, but because we are imitating hashem's rest from creation. this means we cant be involved in any creative processes even if they are easy/ pleasurable.
this distinction comes to a head when it comes to mileches hotzaah. tosfos in the beginning of shabbos refers to hotzaah as a melacha geruah (a "weak" melacha) because there is no defining physical process for the melacha - the same action of carrying is a melacha from inside to outside, but if i schlep something heavy around my house all day, it is totally muttar (well, maybe assur becuase of uvdin dichol or something). hotzaah is almost purely an "accomplishment-based halacha" - namely, achieving a transference of reshus. this is why the gemara singles out hotzaah, of all melachos, as being possibly permitted on yom tov, where the focus isnt on the accomplishment of the melacha, but on the avodah of the melacha.
in this respect, shabbos is holier than all the other yomim tovim. every other yom tov, not doing work is just a means to achieve some goal - simchas yom tov or something. on shabbos, resting from melecha is an end in and of itself - we are imitating G-d, the very definition (one might argue) of kedusha.
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