לִקְרַאת שַׁבָּת לְכוּ וְנֵלְכָה, כִּי הִיא מְקוֹר הַבְּרָכָה, מֵרֹאשׁ מִקֶּדֶם נְסוּכָה, סוֹף מַעֲשֶּׂה בְּמַחֲשָׁבָה תְּחִלָּה
The stanza above comes from Lecha Dodi, which is said in Shabbos in shul.
The end of the second stanza (in orange above) seems to be peculiarly out of order. The meaning of these words is “The deed comes at the end, the thought comes at the beginning.” Would it not have made more sense for this to read “The thought comes at the beginning, the deed comes at the end?” In other words, shouldn’t the parts of the sentence follow the chronological order that it is trying to convey?
Perhaps the parts of the sentence are sorted according to priority and not to order. This would explain that although the act of Creation was based on the intent to do it, that nevertheless the act preceded the thought in terms of importance. This is the idea explained by “God sought a dwelling place in the lowest worlds.
אָמַר רַבִּי שְׁמוּאֵל בַּר נַחְמָן, בְּשָׁעָה שֶׁבָּרָא הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא אֶת הָעוֹלָם, נִתְאַוָּה שֶׁיְּהֵא לוֹ דִּירָה בַּתַּחְתּוֹנִים כְּמוֹ שֶׁיֵּשׁ בָּעֶלְיוֹנִים. (מדרש תנחומא, נשא ט״ז:א׳)
The act of Creation is an expression so dear to God that it overrides the natural way of describing things in the order that they occurred.
This can further be applied to Shabbos itself. The whole apex of Creation was Shabbos, and so even though it occurs at the end, it was mentioned at the beginning.
The purpose of Shabbos is to try to migrate into this holy space and out of the mundane. It follows that the Shabbos davening is itself designed to facilitate that mental and emotional process, as a form of meditation. Perhaps then this wording can be used as a tool for concentration on God's initial motivation for the Creation, which can in turn help us derive pleasure from Shabbos.
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