Transcript
Good Shabbos! A good Erev Shabbos everyone! Today's Daf Friday, today's Erev Shabbos and we're here to turn our Friday into Erev Shabbos. Generously sponsored by Manny and Ziporah Fishman as a Refuah Sheleima for רבקה בת צפורה פרידל in memory of Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, רב יעקב צבי בן דוד אריה and in memory of Manny's father's neshama should have an aliyah. Today may look like Friday on your calendar, but it's not. Today is Erev Shabbos and we are here to turn our Friday into Erev Shabbos. This week's parsha, Parshat Mishpatim, talks about Shabbos. ששת ימים תעשה מעשיך וביום השביעי תשבת. Six days we do our work, on the seventh day we rest. למען ינוח שורך וחמרך וינפש בן אמתך והגר. Six days' work, seventh day we rest so our ox and donkey can rest, our slave and our stranger could be refreshed. We all have to rest and rejuvenate on Shabbos. Not only is there benefit on Shabbos. Who doesn't need to catch up on sleep? And there are studies that show that if you're sleep-deprived all week long, if you make up for it on Shabbos, it does count. You can compensate by sleeping well over Shabbos, over the weekend, the studies show you can make up for it. And who doesn't need to? Who doesn't need to do better? ששת ימים תעשה מעשיך. Six days we work, the seventh we rest. I saw a beautiful, beautiful idea by the holy Rebbe of Nadvorna of Yerushalayim and he says the following. There's a Zohar. The Zohar says we know Shabbos is the Mekor Bracha. Shabbos is the source of all bracha, all blessing in our life. We think the blessing in our life comes from the work we do all week. It's not true. The blessing in our life comes from Shabbos. The attitude, the experience, the energy of Shabbos, it's determined on that Shabbos what bracha we're going to have on the six days that follow. כל ברכאן דלעילא ותתא ביומא שביעאה תליין. All the bracha of the six days depend on the seventh day. The more we lean in, the more we sing, the more we laugh, the more we love, the more we learn, the more we are experiencing Shabbos, the more we count down for Shabbos to begin, never counting down for Shabbos to end, the more we experience Shabbos, then the more bracha that we derive, that we draw from that Shabbos. The six days, they draw the blessing from that seventh day, Shabbos. That's a Zohar. The Nadvorna Rebbe, Shlita, says that's pshat in pasuk. ששת ימים תעשה מעשיך. Six days you do your work. No, know that all your success in your handiwork in the six days of work depends on the level and state of your Shabbos observance. And that's וביום השביעי תשבת. Six days you do your work, but will they be successful? Those six days of work, will they bring blessing? Those six days of work, will they make it rain? All that depends on: did you rest on the seventh day? Some people think that, you know, they still talk business, they still talk shop, they're still networking, moving, shaking Shabbos. They can't shut down, they can't turn off. They're talking work, but what they don't realize is by dishonoring Shabbos, not only is the work they're doing on Shabbos not going to yield more success, but actually by dishonoring Shabbos, it takes away the possibility of the bracha of the other six days. Since the six days draw from Shabbos, you have to honor the Shabbos in order to be able to get the success of those six days. But even more than that, and with this I want to share with you a beautiful, beautiful thought from the Lehavos Esh, רב ישראל מאיר דרוק, Shlita. The end of that pasuk says למען ינוח so that your ox and donkey, they can rest. In the simple understanding of the pasuk, it means that you need to rest and your animals and your kelim, everything you own, everything that's yours, it too needs to rest. But the Lehavos Esh, רב ישראל מאיר דרוק, says something different. He says here the Torah is describing not the goal of Shabbos, but rather the metric by which the quality of our Shabbos is measured. We're to make Shabbos so special that the entire atmosphere transforms, that it's a fundamentally different environment all around us. So when we as a community, when we as families, when we as individuals, when we observe Shabbos properly, we don't just abstain from forbidden work, but we use our time for Torah, for davening, for singing, for laughing, for loving, then we've impacted the whole surroundings, that even the animal will feel the difference. למען ינוח שורך וחמרך so that even your ox and donkey will say, \"Hey, today is Shabbos! I smell the cholent! I smell the chicken soup! I hear the zmiros!\" Even your animal, your cats and your dogs will say this isn't the other six days of the week, there's something different going on. למען ינוח שורך וחמרך doesn't just mean Shabbos they should rest, it means that the Shabbos atmosphere should be so much so that even an animal can identify that there's something different that's going on. That's how we're going to turn this Friday into Shabbos, into Erev Shabbos. That's the homework, chevre, heilige chevre! Let's draw the bracha of the whole week from Shabbos and then by drawing that bracha, you can donate. percent of the way there, we're almost done. We need your help. We want more people turning Friday into Erev Shabbos, more people living with Emuna, more people living with Parsha perspectives, more people's Siddur snippets changing their Davening, but we need your help. So if you haven't yet given, brsonline.org/global, brsonline.org/global, please if you could match what you've done previously, if you could give for a first time, we need your help. This Shabbos, stay happy, stay healthy, and stay holy. It should be a Shabbos in which our animals, our cats, our dogs, our hamsters, our goldfish all know this is a different environment, something different's going on. And when we create a Shabbos with that environment, the six days will flow with Bracha. יום זה מכובד מכל ימים, יום זה מכובד מכל ימים, כי בו שבת צור עולמים, כי בו שבת צור עולמים, ששת ימים תעשה מלאכתך, V'yom Hashevi'i L'Elokecha, Shabbos Kodesh, Shabbos Kodesh.
