Shabbat
Shabbat is the entranceway to Gan Eden. How do we know what Gan Eden is like? We read in the Sabbath morning Mussaf service:
They shall rejoice in Your Kingship -- those who observe the Sabbath and call it a delight.
Gan Eden is rejoicing in God's Kingship, rejoicing that we are part of God's world, God's Kingdom, that our souls are part of God as subjects to Him. When do we especially place ourselves so that we consciously know this? On Shabbat. For when we observe the Sabbath, live it and rejoice in it with such a rejoicing that we call it a day of delight, then we become consciously aware that we are in God's Kingdom and we are rejoicing there. Once we are there the verse continues,
The people that sanctify the seventh day -- they will all be satisfied and delighted from Your Goodness.
Gan Eden is the state where we are completely satisfied and delighted with God's Goodness.
To live the Shabbat, is more than to live it in accordance with the Halachot. To be sure that must be done. But not doing creative activity that involves us in the physical world is only the pre-condition to transcend the physical world. For if we are concerned with the physical world, we have held ourselves down and tied ourselves up. We cannot transcend and enter the Gan Eden of Shabbat. The Halachot are the outer part. The inner part, which the Halachot help us to achieve, is to change our emotional, psychological, and spiritual state to one of living on Shabbat in such a way that our state is one of complete rejoicing. We smile, we are at peace, and we radiate the joy of the Sabbath.