Ten things were created on the eve of Shabbat at Twilight [on the sixth day of creation]. They are: … As well as tongs, since tongs are made with tongs.

(Pirkei Avot 5:6)

Tongs. The silversmith uses tongs to hold hot metal and form it into tools and vessels. Hence, “tongs are made with tongs,” since one would need a pair of tongs to hold hot metal and form it into tongs. Who, then, created the first pair? G-d himself.

The original tongs represent an article that seems to have no independent purpose and serves only as a tool for the creation of another article. In the human experience, the “original tongs” are those actions that serve only as facilitators to a meaningful act. (E.g., chopping wood to make a fire to make coals with which to make a knife to use for circumcision). By creating those tongs Himself, G-d granted meaning even to those parts of life that seem to be only means to a holy end.

Only when a person transcends himself and his assumptions can he treat the uninspiring “tongs” as purposeful in their own right. When a person is animated solely by the Divine will, his performance of the mitzvah transcends the particulars of the mitzvot–he does not distinguish between the mitzvah itself and all he must do to facilitate the mitzvah, since both are equally the Divine will.

This supernatural, transcendent ability is not granted during the first six days of creation. It is a power granted by G-d at twilight of the first Friday, a time that draws its energy from the supernatural Shabbat.