Transcript
Welcome and Good Shabbos. Today is not a Friday. Today is our Shabbos. We're turning our Friday into Erev Shabbos. Thinking very much about our brothers and sisters in Israel, davening that everybody is safe and secure and a sweeping, sweeping victory over our evil enemies. I want to thank our sponsor as Turn Friday into Erev Shabbos series, sponsored by dear friends Mendy and Tziporah Fishman l'zchus refuah shleima for חיה רבקה בת ציפורה פרידל in memory of Mendy's father and in memory of Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, Rabbi יעקב צבי מענדי בן דוד אריה. Today's Turn Friday into Erev Shabbos is also sponsored by the Ellis family in honor of Stephen Ellis, זעשא בן שלמה לב on his first yahrtzeit. Thank you to the Ellises for all of their generosity. I want to share with you a beautiful teaching connected to this week's parsha, but really relevant to every single week from Rav Kook. Rav Kook writes in his Hakdamah Le-Shabbat Ha'aretz. He writes a very, very beautiful thought. A beautiful thought about Shabbos. Shabbos's role, Shabbos's place. Why we long, why we look forward, why we need. Why more than the Jew has kept Shabbos, as has been said, Shabbos has kept the Jew. He writes, Segulas Ha'umah, the treasure, the secret to our nation, הטובה האלקית הטבועה בקרבה, seder ha-olam, החיים הישרים והטובה המתאימים על הצדק והיושר, a life that is straight, that is good, that is appropriate for righteousness, ha-sheket ve-ha-shalva, peace, serenity, tranquility, החן והאומץ הממולא בהסתכלות אלוקית מקפת. If we want to be able to live a proper, balanced, calm, happy, serene, spiritual, a real existence, who we should be, our best version of ourselves, אין חיי החול יכולים להוציא מן הכח אל הפועל. The life of the weekday struggles to realize that potential. Who we are in the weekday where we're running and we're doing and we're going and we're accomplishing and we're achieving. All week long we have to-dos and tasks, we have errands, we have responsibilities, we have bills we have to pay, we have worries, we have anxieties all week long. That chayei ha-chol, the life of the weekday, it's hard to actualize and fulfill the best version of ourselves individually and collectively. חיים אלה במהותם המעשית התחופה מסתירים גם את ההוד הרוחני של הנשמה האלוקית. That life, that frantic life, that frenetic life, those responsibilities, that noise, that life of the weekday, it blocks, it obscures, it covers up the deep godly soul ומעכבים את הרצת האור הבהיר הישר לתוך המציאות החילונית השולטת. And it blocks the rays of light, the bright, straight light into the governing secular reality. דחיפת הגדול והשתלמות של חיים צריכה שתצא אל הפועל על ידי נתינת רווח. We need some margin, we need some space, we need to breathe, we need to think, we need to reboot, we need to reset, we need to be able to come alive. You ever feel overwhelmed? You ever feel run ragged? You ever feel you're running so fast? You ever feel there's so much noise? There's no quiet, there's no margin, there's no space to think, to be. Shabbos represents that space. Every week there is an interruption. Every week there is a break. Every week there is an introduction of margin and space and quiet, and that's where breakthrough happens and that's where our best selves come out. היחיד משתער מחיי החול לפרקים קרובים. The individual shakes off, shakes out the weekday life be-chol Shabbos. בא שבת בא מנוחה. מתחילה הנפש מתחילה הנפש להשתחרר מכבליה הקשים. We begin to break free from those shackles, from those responsibilities, from those weights that are holding us down. We begin to break free. ומבקשת היא אז נתיבות עליונות חפצים רוחניים כפי טבע מקורה. No longer are we pursuing and chasing, getting everything done, getting to inbox zero, making, returning all those calls, fulfilling all these tasks. Now we're able to really release and express and connect with the depth and the authentic and the most real part of who we are. להודות לה' ולזמר לשמך עליון להגיד בבוקר חסדך ואמונתך בלילות עלי עשור ועלי נבל. ביני ובין בני ישראל אות היא לעולם. Our parsha, Ki Sisa, says that Shabbos comes and it is the sign or the symbol, it is the os between us and God le-olam forever. יום קדוש אשר בו תתגלה נטיעת האומה הנטייה של החיים האלוקים ביחידה אותי לאומה. This is the sign you're part of the Jewish people. That all week long is not the reality. All week long is not what we're working towards. All week long is not our best selves, our most real selves. It's Shabbos. The payoff, the payday, all of that is to get us to. Shabbos, Shabbos we recover from the negative effects of a week of materialistic and physical world that often weakens our best selves, our purest selves, our genuine inner essence. Shabbos is that sanctuary, it is that place, it is that shelter in time that we begin to feel our balance, our wholesomeness, our souls can reconnect our true source and can repicture with the aspiration who we could be, who we want to be. Rav Kook writes, I read it to you in the English: The pressure of growth and the perfection of life requires actualization by providing a space in which to take a rest, shake off the bustle of everyday affairs. The individual can recover from mundane living at frequent intervals. It's called Shabbos. בא שבת בא מנוחה. Ba menucha. That's our mission, that's our task, that's our responsibility, that's what we're trying to do, that's what we're coming together for. That Shabbos is not we collapse, Shabbos is not exhaustion, and Shabbos is not just resting up for the week that will come. Shabbos is the goal, it is the essence. Shabbos is the most essential, Shabbos is the most authentic reflective version of who we are. The weekday version is important, and we have to find Hashem in the mundane and in the material and in the weekday we have to find Him there too, but the weekday is not the most authentic version of who we are, it's Shabbos. So here's our homework, turn Friday into Erev Shabbos this week, by beginning to transition on Friday, by beginning to come out of that weekday version of who we are into the Shabbos version of who we are, to disconnect from that materialism and the mundane and to enter that world of spirituality of reconnection. To disconnect from what's temporary and here and to connect to what is eternal and immortal, what is forever. We do so with a tremendous awareness that our brothers and sisters, please G-d they won't, it will be over, but may spend Shabbos running into shelters and out of shelters, and very much in the forefront of our thoughts, of our Tefillos, of our hearts, of all that we are, we recognize and we respect and we admire and we thank for being on the front lines of Jewish destiny and of the Jewish future in our Jewish homeland. And so this Shabbos, this Shabbos for ourselves and for those who will spend it running in and out, potentially G-d forbid, let us lean into Shabbos to be our most authentic and our best, our most lasting, our greatest. That the payoff of working all week is to be able to find that margin, to take that vacation, to make that space, to find that quiet without the noise, and to rediscover who we are, our dreams, our best selves, our greatest relationships, our deepest connections. To do that on Friday, already begin that transition which can't happen in a sudden, but has to happen gradually. To turn our Friday into Shabbos, to have a holy, a happy, a healthy, and a safe and a secure Shabbos, filled with בשורות טובות ישועות ונחמות. עם קדוש בקדושת שבת oy oy oy עם קדוש בקדושת שבת oy oy oy עם קדוש בקדושת שבת.
