Transcript
ואת השכל נחיה שמה המעשה וזה המזג הנזהר והזהיר וזה הסוף שלו שוקד על דלתי ומלמדי טוב Erev Shabbos! Today is in fact not, today is not Friday, today is Erev Shabbos and we're here to turn our Friday into Erev Shabbos. A big thank you to our generous series sponsors, Mendy and Tzipora Fishman, זכות הרב כבת ציפורה פייגא in memory of Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, הרב יעקב צבי בן דוד אריה, and in memory of Mendy's father, הנשמה שתהיה לעליה. We are in the parshos of galus and geulah. The Kotzker Rebbe said that when we read these parshos, we're not reading about a piece or a part of the past, we're reading about the prescription for our own story, our own destiny, our own redemption. That we all experience a Mitzrayim, metzar, constricted, restricted, enclosing, small space, and the geulah, the redemption, the liberation, the freedom from and when do we have this? No time more than Shabbos. Shabbos is the geulah. Shabbos is me'ein Olam Ha-ba. Shabbos says that all week long we're in the galus of having to have a job and work, we're bound by other people, we have the master called work and money, responsibility and bills and invoices and tasks and tuitions and inboxes. All these things are our master, they're our galus. All week long we face and we navigate and we confront the galus of not really owning our own time, not really owning our own ability to have freedom. Comes Shabbos Zecher L'yetzias Mitzrayim. Shabbos liberates and emancipates, Shabbos sets us free. Shabbos gives us not just that taste of geulah, Shabbos is geulah. Because for Shabbos you put everything else up on the shelf. There is no answering the inbox and the WhatsApp and the text, there are no to-do's to check off, there are no bills to pay. For Shabbos we're shaleim, Shabbos we're whole, we're complete, we're free, and therefore it's Zecher L'yetzias Mitzrayim. It is a taste of exodus, a taste of freedom, a taste of liberty. The Slonimer Rebbe expands on this extensively in Parshas Va'eira in the Nesivos Shalom. In several essays he has, in one called אין ישראל נגאלים אלא בזכות השבת, he talks about that we are only redeemed in the merit of Shabbos. Shabbos is a day of emunah, bitachon, Shabbos is a day of connection and faith and in the merit of our ability to disconnect from this world and connect to the world of eternity, it's in that merit that we were first redeemed. But in an earlier essay, in an earlier ma'amar, he talks about that Shabbos is geulah. שבת מביאה גאולה לעולם כל ימי השבוע בחינת גלות. All the days of the week is galus. All the days of the week we have messages and inboxes and errands and places and wash and laundry and dishes. ושבת היא בחינת גאולה. Shabbos comes, put it all up on a shelf. Shabbos comes, shut it all down. Shabbos comes, disconnect in order to be free. שבכל השבוע שכל יהודי בטרדותיו ובבולעו ויצרו האפלה הרינו נמצא בגלות. All week long we have worries, we have anxieties, we have fears. All week long we have legitimate things that we have to tend to. וגם זה יש מדרגות שיש אף פעם פעם נזכר השם יתברך שאינו נמצא לגמרי ביד סטרא אחרא וגם הגבוה שמרגיש השם יתברך הרי הוא משוחרר. And therefore, אבל יש מי שיורד למדרגה נמוכה יותר של גלות כעובר מעי בהמה שכל ימי השבוע נמצא בידי הסטרא אחרא. All week long we're also in the throes of the yetzer hara, particularly because of the access and use of technology, but for so many other reasons. Our temper is short because our days are so full and we have so little time, and we're hungry and we're running, and all week long the yetzer hara, the sitra achra, we find ourselves in its grasp, in its throes. ומונח בידיהם לגמרי מבלי יכולת לפנות אנה ואנה כעובר מעי בהמה. And there's a katnus shel galus. We're like the galus Klal Yisrael when Moshe was telling them I'm here to set you free, but they couldn't hear him, קוצר רוח ומעבודה קשה. We feel so breathless, we feel so run down, we have so little vision and perspective and ability to believe it can be different. And comes Shabbos, take a neshama, restore that neshama and put on Pnei Shabbos N'kablah. We put on the Shabbos panim and now we're a new person and a different person. All week long we're the galus Jew and Shabbos comes and we're the geulah Jew. Shabbos is a taste of that world, of that future. Nichnas L'Shabbos. We enter Shabbos and Shabbos enters us. מתנער מכל אשר שקוע בימות השבוע. We shake off all the things that we are weighed down from all week long and we liberate ourselves. והוצאתי והצלתי וגאלתי ולקחתי. All four of the languages of geulah we experience over the course of the four stages of Shabbos, with of course sholoshudus, raiva d'raivan, being בחינת יחוד קודשא בריך הוא וישראל, the highest level. of connection. So here's how we are going to turn Friday into Erev Shabbos today: think about today, what's weighing you down, what's holding you back, what's making you feel the Mitzrayim, the metzar, making you feel restricted and constricted in your own life? What's making you feel helpless and hopeless? What's making you feel so anxious and worried? And now make a conscious effort to liberate, to step out, to set it aside, to put it down. It may still be there Motzaei Shabbos. It could be after havdala you'll have to return to it. Whether it's work, whether it's health, whether it's financial, whether it's relationship, whether it's the world, the news of the world. For 25 hours we have a cocoon, a city of refuge. For 25 hours we can disconnect from it. For 25 hours we are transported to a different place called Shabbos. And in that place called Shabbos everything's great and amazing and whole and complete. And for those 25 hours we lack and miss nothing. For those 25 hours there is geula. But it doesn't happen by accident and it doesn't happen passively. You have to actively contemplate and think and strategize and focus. So today turn Friday into Erev Shabbos by identifying, maybe it's the notifications on your inbox, maybe it's how many voicemails you haven't returned, how many errands you still have to run, maybe it's the bills that you're not sure how you're going to pay. All of us have that thing which is our galus. And make the conscious effort and decision to liberate, zecher l'yetzias Mitzrayim, to spend a Shabbos, to spend a Shabbos a taste of geula, a Shabbos that's a me'ein olam haba, a Shabbos where we're not thinking about and weighed down by those things and in that way be able to be transported in the zechus of that Shabbos to come out of Shabbos and to be able to have a geula that lasts in fact all week long. Have a wonderful Shabbos, stay happy, stay healthy, and stay holy.
