Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz: The Test of Transformation MarCheshvan

[Music] it's [Music] okay i want to wish everybody a haul a good uh good month we have now entered the month of freshman and today i also want to depart a little bit from talking about the parsha although purchase novak obviously very interesting but i want to talk a little bit about the month of freshman there is uh the one of the earliest books of kabbalah that we have is a book that is called the safer yitzira the book of creation and the book of creation is attributed to either avraham of eno and some say it actually goes back to adam harishan and what the safer yet seerah does is the savory etc creates or it enumerates the framework through which akalicboko created the world through the letters of the olive base the olive base is the spiritual dna of the universe and when the letters of the olive base are combined in certain ways there are spiritual energies that give rise to all of the different facets of creation in fact the ramban says this is the reason why hebrew why is the hebrew language called shonha kodesh the holy language so the rambam maimonides says that the hebrew language is called the holy language simply because there are no native obscenities in the hebrew language meaning sexual functions and extra excretary functions are all described as euphemisms that's why even in modern hebrew any of the swear words are always arabic there are no native profanities within hebrew and the rambam says that is enough for hebrew to be called lashana kodesh ramban does not like that answer because that's really a negative and the ramban says that hebrew is the lash or at least you know the lesson of the torah it's called lashana kodesh because it was through those letters and through those words and through those articulations that god created heaven and earth and although that could be understood in a very simple way whenever the torah says god said let there be light he said it in hebrew but kabbalistically there's a much deeper element and that is if you take the letters or aleph the combination of those energies will give rise to light in fact this is actually the meaning of uh the torin in last week's parsha describes adam harishan looking at all of the animals and giving every animal a name so mark twain uh wrote a parody of that story and mark twain has eve asking adam why did you name that animal a lion of course you're writing it in english and adam answered but what do you expect it looks exactly like a lion what else did you want me to call it and mark twain of course was being humorous but in fact if you were to translate that into hebrew why did you call the ari or the arya an arya or an irie the answer is exactly correct adam other marichon had x-ray vision he looked at the spiritual dna of every given animal and indeed a lion comes from the combination of the energy of the alice and the reish and the uh of course we don't have a clear explanation rea versus re you know that that's a separate issue but certainly the basic three letters alif rei should and that's lanakotis because obviously if a lion is called a lion l-i-o-n is not intrinsic to the nature of this animal but in latin a kodesh it is so every single thing that emerged in the universe comes from various combinations of the letters of the olive base the order the sequence etc tells us that there were tanoyem and amarayam who would actually create a cath through the incantations of safer yitzira which they would then proceed to shecht and eat for shabbos uh the famous stories of the maharao and the golem which some say is not true so historically we don't know if that happened but the idea of the golem is the ability of even a human being to use safer etc to create life now that life does not have a divine soul the divine soul can only come from god but it does have a biological soul a biological animation so a golem is not a person and we prosecute a golem cannot be counted for a minion etc but a golem does have the biological and even some of the intellectual powers of a human being say again a golem does not speak right so that that's because the power of speech is connected to the divine uh to connect it to the divine soul now that's safer you'd see here generally and as i say you can actually get it online you can even get a translation or a variety kaplan translate it separates here but it's not going to make a lot of sense to most of us but savory etc has a number of things in it and one of the things that it does is for every single month of the year it takes a letter of the olive base obviously not every letter is used and it connects it to a sense sight hearing smell and the like and there's a tsirif every month is a serif every month is a combination of an olive based letter and a sensory function so for the month of kashvan safriyatsira says the following the month of noon god took the letter nun and he made it the dominant king over the month of and he combined the letter nun with the khush with the sense of reach the sense of aroma is a characteristic of the month of christmas now it happens to be that the month of freshman has a nun in it but it has other letters as well so the question is what is the connection what is the basis of reach and nun and why is that connected to thematically to kashmir so rav zadok of lublin who actually explains this for every single month the particular significance offers a very very interesting explanation nun is a letter that is symbolic of nephilia falling down we know this from a famous gomorrah where rav yochanan explains why is there no none in ashrae right ashrae is an alphabetical acrostic every passage begins with a letter of the al of base right aleph pays our remembrance but then when we have the meme the next verse is not a nun as you would expect it is a sama it goes from mem to samur and it skips nun so rav yochanan says why is there no nun in ashrae i i i should clarify that the letter none does appear in ashrae but why is there no pasuk that begins with the letter nun in ashrae and ravioli explains because the letter nun connotes the downfall of the jewish people as it says in amis describing golos and horban nafla she shall fall they says if come she will not get up again basula israel the virgin of israel this is a devastating ominous prophecy of gollus and corbin and it begins with the word nafla she will fall so nun is connected to nafila david hamelech did not want to begin a passage with any reference to nafila and that is why the word nafila or no flim only appears in the next verse which is god supports all those who fall so in that connection we can say nafila but we don't begin a puzzling with no fema this is a statement of rav yoganan in massachusetts now there are three points i want to make about that statement before we go to the main the main discussion first of all in the dead sea scrolls there are alternative versions of what we call the masoretic text the masoretic text is our version of tanaar it's called masoretic because it's mesorah it is handed down from tradition all the way going back to moshe rabena but in the time of the second temple there were deviant sects that did not fully follow rabbinic judaism and they produced a body of literature known today as the dead sea scrolls that is still being studied and the like and in addition to their own literature they also have alternative versions of some books of the bible meaning eighty percent would be the same as the american text but they have their db agents so two interesting deviations are in their version of the book of esther the name of god is mentioned although it's not mentioned in our version by the way people might say well how do you know our version is right and their version oh the answer is this the answer basically is that and historians will tell you this when you have two versions of a text the less logical version is more likely to be the accurate one meaning to say the following in a book of tanach you would expect the name of god to be mentioned so if i have two versions of a safer one mentions the name of god one does not mention the name of god it is much more plausible that the original version didn't mention god for some reason and somebody later wanted to correct it to make it look more logical because the other sequence doesn't make sense if you had a version that had the name of god who on earth would produce a version that didn't have the name of god that makes no sense at all so in a sense historians will actually tell you the implausibility of a text is actually proof that it probably was the more accurate one because it doesn't make sense that you would go from the plausible to the implausible the other way the implausible may have had a certain reason why it was that way be it as it may that's one difference another difference is in the dead sea scroll version of the psalms there is a passage for nun in ashrae again they tried to correct it to make things more consistent once again the same argument the very fact that we don't have a nun is more proof of credibility that's point number one i want you to make about the dead sea scrolls ashrae point number two is that ravjoconon's explanation is actually difficult for two different reasons it's difficult because number one ashrae is not the only aleph base acrostic in the book of tehillim there are actually several aleph base acrostics and in those other acrostics the letter nun does appear so to make the argument that you never want to start with none because of nephilia is inconsistent number one with many succumb in talent that start with none and number two alphabetical acrostics that start with none the third point is that yes it's true that nun can have a negative connotation of nephila but all words you know there are good words start with none and there are bad words that start with another you can take any letter and you can make it a good word or a bad word so it's not so clear why nun is so linked to nefilah that it doesn't have any chance for admission in the beginning of a verse these are interesting questions but the bottom line is that the gemara itself does tell us that nun is symbolic of nephila and because nun is symbolic of nifila david hameles did not want to begin a passage of ashrae with a negative connotation of nephilia this is the gemara in brachas so says rav sadaq of all the months of the year is the most likely to be the candidate for a nafila for a falling for a spiritual loss and the reason that so is because we've just come off a month that is full of sacred moments rosh hashanah yom kippur right the chuva the introspection of yamim narayam followed by the joy of sukis and simphas torah and then we hit a month in which there's literally no yamcha now you know many people have known this that the official name of the month of khashvan is mark now the real reason why it's called markhashvan is either because that was the name of this month in the babylonian language and indeed all of the jewish months are connected to babylonian names and the second reason is mar in biblical hebrew means rain rain is called mar and therefore kashmin of course is the beginning of the rainy season and we were soca even today to have some rain so those are the two main reasons but there's a folk etymology that people often say which is not from ghazal that mar means the bitter month of hashman the month of khashfin is very bitter because it is said to be the only month of the jewish calendar that does not have any yamim tsovim there are no holiday celebrations in the month of kreshwa now the truth of the matter is let's see if that's even true so keshvan has no holidays okay granted uh kislev has hanukkah okay base has the second half of hanukkah because chanukah straddles kisley bentebes shabbat has two bishvat all right so you're counting two bishops already as a holiday you make a seder et cetera adar of course is purim nissan is pesach well what do we have with the york we have pesachini which we don't celebrate that much but it is a festive opportunity for a second chance we have lag ba omer which is a day of celebration and if you are a cne we have yomatsumats and as well as yom yerushalayim on the fifth of year and the 28th of er which are also days of celebration sivan we have of course the holiday of shabbos now thomas thomas is a toughy because the only uh commemorative event we we commemorate in tamils is the 17th of tammuz which is a fast day and that's when the uh when the romans broke through the walls of you shall i am that's the heidel ego but even then we treat that as a yum just because it's brought down in khazal that all of the fast days that commemorate the corbin when mashiach comes will be days of not just not fasting but will be days of celebration and redemption so we can count you as overtime as a dude in the month of we can say the same thing for tish above the day that mashiach was born and we also have the 15th of us which is treated as the happiest day of the jewish calendar all right so so far where we've made a youngster for everything then we get to the month of ella the last month of the year actually there is no yamcha inelo either but nevertheless ello is so adjacent to the month of tishrei that essentially we start salikos so we're connecting to tishrei already in the month of ello so we treat the holidays of tishrei as connected to elol as well but we come to kashman is bereft and therefore it's mark it is a bitter month and rab sadok says that is connected to nephilim because every person gains something hopefully from the narayam a certain inspiration a certain simcha a certain closeness to hashem a sense of chuva of renewal of trying to make the new year better than the old year right there's a great deal of motivation that lifts us up but you're going on adrenaline for three weeks and actually the whole month really i mean uh because you have a week after circus which is maybe decompression but but for the first three weeks all of it is yomtov and then all of a sudden you stop shorts no holidays no yummy tofu and a person often loses their inspiration they lose all of the things that they built up in the season of yemen that's why rav sadok says the safer yet seerah connects the month of to the letter none how do you salvage that sort of sadhuk says you salvage that by taking the natural nephilia that you would feel and you combine it with rayach what's rea is aroma what is the characteristic of smell smell is something that lingers even after the thing that generates the aroma is no longer here right the person is wearing perfume or cologne even when they leave the room the smell of the cologne lingers you have a roast chicken or something good food the smell remains even when it's no longer here so although it's true rav sadaq says that kashvin doesn't have any yelling to him has the reach of the yamatova there is a lingering spiritual essence in the air it's not a physical smell you don't necessarily smell anything physical but spiritually it is like a reach that lingers and you still connect to the holiness of the moadim by trying to tap into that rayah now in many ways you could actually argue that freshman is the most important month of the year because it is the very ordinariness of krishna that determines whether we have truly been transformed by the um narayan and sukis it's been said that reviso cilantro once remarked somebody wants saturated salt cilantro describing a certain yeshiva student this yeshiva student has gone through shas gone through the talmud three times when we saw cilantro said i'm much more interested to know how many times has the talmud been through him he's gone through the talmud but has the gemara changed him has it transformed transformed him is he a different person well we could say the same thing about all the yamim tovim we've been through many yamim tovin that's wonderful but how many yamim tovim have been through us have we been transformed now the fact that we are inspired during the empty does not prove there's been permanent or internal change the hajjanish once gave a beautiful mushroom the said if you have a pot of fire a pot of water that's boiling on the fire and the pot of water boils over you cannot really tell if the pot was full or the pot was half empty because even a half empty pot is going to spill over when it's on the fire the only way you can really know how full the pot is is when you take it off the fire and it's no longer boiling if it still spills over that shows you that it's full the khasanesh says the fact that i'm inspired when i'm celebrating the yamcha if that doesn't mean i'm full with holiness i might be mainly empty but i'm on a fire so i bubble over it's only when you're separated from those special moments in time can we actually see how full of kadusa you really are so in a sense which is ordinary life we'll say we'll call it non-special life is the litmus test to determine whether we've grown from the um in the rhyme it's an ephemeral transit emotional arousal that doesn't even mean anything in the long run and therefore in a sense the message of the month of hashman is to see god in the everyday and the mundane and this is a very important idea that the whole purpose of all holiness peak experiences whether it's yom kippur whether it's rosh hashanah whether it's every shabbos is not simply to feel close to god during the peak experience but to rather take that holiness into the everyday mundane aspect of your life and make the mundane special we actually see this thought in the umkippur aveda and we think we talked about the yom kippur service before yom kippur but you'll recall that the cohen goddell has two uniforms that he wears he goes back and forth between them there is his standard uniform that contains gold thread that he wears during the year and he even wears an onion kippur when he's not in the holy of holies but when he enters the kodashak darshan he takes off the gold uniform because gold is reminiscent of the faithful ego the golden calf and when he pleads for mercy on behalf of the jewish people we have a saying that's even entered modern hebrew but it's in the gemara aim katagar nasa sanegor that the prosecuting attorney cannot be a defense attorney now it's not that like people sometimes say oh i gotta it's not right to remind god of my sin god doesn't have to be reminded god knows the sin before we remind him but there's a certain arrogance there's a certain hubris a certain misplaced pride and chutzpah to please for mercy while you're waving in front of the ribanus alam evidence of your sin one should have a sense of shame for those of us and therefore when the coming god all goes into the code of and he takes off the golden garments and he only wears a pure white linen garment and that is the basis for the minute even today of wearing a kittle and even women will often dress in white because they want to mimic the kohen god alan yum kippur now there is a halacha that whenever the cohen guttal changes from one set of garments to the other set of garments he has to go to the mikvah so the way the am kippur of either works without going over all of the stages there are five stages he starts off with gold takes off the gold goes to the mikvah puts on the white goes into the holy of holies then takes off the white puts on the gold takes off the white goes to the mikvah puts on the gold does some service outside of the holy of holies then takes off the gold goes to the mikvah puts on the white uh goes back into the holy of holies takes off the white goes to the mikvah puts on the gold and finishes up the service in other words he wears the gold garments three times he wears the white garments two times and he goes to the mick von neum kipper a total of five times now what is the concept generally even today of going to the mikvah one goes to the mikvah when you're preparing yourself for a holiness that is going to be more elevated than where you are now so a woman goes to the mikvah because she's going to resume the holiness of intimacy with her husband a year goes to the mikvah or a non-jew goes to the mikvah because he's transitioning from being a non-jew to the holier status of being a jew even pots and pans go to the mikvah because they're being converted a pot and pen undergoes a conversion process they're being converted to the sanctity of a jewish table where there's divre torah and brachos and in so you immerse in the mikvah and that's why many khasidim will go to the mikvah every era of shabbos and some will go every day before they dive in because you're consecrating yourself you're dedicating yourself to holiness now if that's the paradigm of what mikvah represents there's a certain problem here i understand when the cohen guttal is going from gold to white he is moving from regular temple service to going into the holy of holies it's appropriate to go to the mikvah because he's being elevated to a much higher level but when he leaves the kodashak dosham and he takes off the white garments and he puts on the gold garments and he's going to do he's going to do a video that's of a lower sanctity why would he go to the mikvah coming off the highest holiest experience that a human being can have so why is there emer i understand why there is immersion going from gold to white but why would there be immersion you know when you go from gold to white you're about to enter the kodasaka dasha so you go to the mikvah because of that elevation but when you go from white to gold you're leaving higher holiness and you're going to a lower state of being why do you have to go to the mikvah and the answer is because indeed leaving the holy of holies might even be holier than being in the holy of holies because in the holy of holies you've achieved the highest level of holiness and communion and that's wonderful but now there's even a greater challenge take that holiness into the every day and for that you need consecration you need dedication and that's what the month of freshman is the whole month of tishrei is like the kardashian and szechuan i'm leaving the kodashak darshan i'm entering ordinary life and for that i need consecration kashmir is the great litmus test as to the whole meaning of the yam in the realm uh so the point basically is that the kashmir doesn't have yamamutovium it's nefilah you got to connect to reich right that's safer yet but in truth the statement that kushman does not have any special times is actually not totally accurate besides the fact that all of life is very special and beloved and something we have to be grateful for we say in the amita only because of the miracles that you have give us every single day besides that fact we have of course even in the month of we have the most precious holiness of all and that is the holiness of shabbos kodesh right the month of kashmir has four shabbos in it now it's an interesting point one can actually argue that shabbos is the holiest day of the jewish calendar if you ask most people what is the holiest day in judaism most people would answer yom kippur and they would point to the fact that yom kippur is called shabbas shabazon the shabbos of shabbasis that is an argument and i think that's probably the most common assumption people make but i can actually give you two proofs that shabbos has a holiness that is even greater than yom kippur a regular shabbos has a holiness that is greater than yom kippur proof number one is that when we had a basa mikdash and the based and administered punishments for averos the punishment for desecrating shabbos is more severe than the punishment for desecrating him kipper if i desecrated shabbos on purpose and there were witnesses and i was warned many technicalities i actually could get the death penalty i could be stoned for yom kippur god will punish the person if he did it on purpose but there is no death at the hands of a human court and in the hierarchy of punishment the average that have a based in punishment are more severe than the average that only have a heavenly punishment that is proof number one proof number two are the number of people called up to the torah on every shabbos we call up seven people to the torah plus a mufter any kipper we call six plus mafia yomtov five kholham iv and a regular monday and thursday three now clearly this is a hierarchy based on holiness of time right in other words if you forget about shabbos and yom kippur start just from yamtha if you clearly see that you're going down in holiness yum five kalamowe monday thursday three in other words the holier of the day the more alias you have now if that's the case why would it be so that shabbos has seven and yom kippur has six the conclusion seems to be inescapable that the holiness of shabbos is even greater than the holiness of yom kippur now if you're going to then ask me if that's the case why is yom kippur referred to in the torah as shabbat shabbat son the shabbos of shabbasis the answer actually is that in context that is not referring to holiness it's referring to restrictions and limitations meaning on a regular shabbos i am restricted from doing work but i'm allowed to eat yom kippur is a double shabbos because not only am i limited in not doing work i'm also limited in eating and drinking so shabbat shabbat son is not a statement as people often mistakenly think it is as to relative holiness it is a statement regarding the magnitude of extra restrictions that yom kippur has but in terms of holiness shabbos is even greater now of course it's the case of course it is the case that yom kippur has a power that shabbos does not have the power of forgiving of eros that is a unique in other words there's no question that yom kippur has a uniqueness that is not shared by any other day of the jewish calendar that much of course is true but in terms of the kedusha shabbos is even greater so in many ways we often take shabbos for granted because it comes so often and you know we look at yum turf that is really really special and we don't always pay attention to the magnitude of what shabbos kaidish is now those of you that have darvened in hasidic shows may remember or may have noticed that the mindra of arab shabbas which means the mintra before friday afternoon minha now it's interesting technically the minsha of friday afternoon is a weekdays opening it's not a shabbos davening and we dive in it like a regular minecraft but if you've ever been in steeples you'll you'll notice there's a certain shabbos flavor to that minsk that minsk has already treated as almost the beginning of shabbos the precursor of shabbos i remember the bus nerebby in boston this is the father of the present boston rebel this is lady yitzhak horowitz who came to eric israel but uh but i when i was when i lived in boston he was in boston and he always took for himself the rebbe himself always davent the minha friday afternoon and you may notice that they recite a long capital of tehillim before ashrae in that friday afternoon minha and that is the hillim kuf zion 107. that begins with the words haidu lashem ki tov it's not a hollow one it's a different one and then it goes through different things and it is said this is not an ashkenazic or sphere ashkenazim don't do it and spherum don't do it only hasidum do it it is said to be a minag a takana of none other than the balshemptov himself that the last prayer before you enter shabbos should be prefaced with this to hill him koph zion now dalem kofsayan is actually halachically halachically a very important capital because the hilum kuf zion talks about people who are going through difficult predicaments it mentions the person who is wandering in the desert and is in risk of dying of starvation it mentions the person that has lost at sea in the turbulence of a storm it mentions the person that is released from prison it mentions the person that is ill and on the verge of death and in all four of those cases god redeems them and there's a refrain a chorus they shall express their gratitude to god's kindness the nifla osav with nayadam and the wonders that he's done for people and from this capital from this chapter of tehillim khazal derived the categories for what is called beer casa gomel right there's a bracha that is recited when you have been saved from a danger you have to recite it in front of a minion or nine other people at least [Music] god has done good to the undeserving sugar milani cult of that you've done good for me and that is derived from tehillim 107. that's what the kumar says are about there are four categories that have to give gratitude the one that is lost in the desert the one that was in a sea voyage that that may have been dangerous a person who was in prison and a sick person we don't mean a person's time has a cold but if god forbid a person uh well corona is an interesting question actually corona will raise interesting go male questions obviously if somebody was hospitalized and god forbid on a respirator uh 100 percent they have to recite berkel if you have the uh you know the the 24-hour sniffles so to speak and bring you know you basically just have the very minor symptoms of a of a bad cold and it passes and you didn't have to leave your house then you wouldn't but certainly if someone is seriously ill you recite government so capitol coup zion is a very important capital it is the whole foundation of the idea of thanking hashem for deliverance from danger and it's even the source of needing a minion because it says there be roma muha you glorify god bika in a multitude of a congregation so it's a very important chapter but what on earth does it have to do with shabbos it doesn't talk about shabbos unlike to m92 which we're going to recite in kabbalah shabbas ms morsier lyom hashabas by the way that also isn't talking about chavez but at least it's prefacing a song for shabbos that's all other talk why is that islam for shabbos but that is a designated song for shabbos whatever the reason but the hillem 107 doesn't mention shabbos the balshemptoe simply said let's say it before minh friday afternoon what is the thinking behind the balshempt of staccano so this is something i want to suggest i i did not see it and i can't say that for sure this is the baal shem tov's kavanagh but i think there may be a very beautiful and significant meaning in this psalm you know somebody once asked ref cook the first great chief rabbi of eric israel before there was a state how come there's so much so much much locus in israel how come everybody's always fighting everybody's always arguing this is supposed to be a place of holiness this must be a place of goodness why is there so much locus in eric israel and rav cook's answer was how come there are so many sick people in a hospital hospital is supposed to get better get better i mean everybody's sick the answer is because they're sick they came to the hospital to get better eric israel ruff cook said it's the same way eric to show will attract people who want to fight want to argue in the hope that the holiness of the land will eventually bring them to shalom bring them to wholeness and holiness now rafcook was nothing if not an optimist and again whether this is true or not true i i you know i don't know it depends on the situation but this is what rough cook said real cook said eric israel is a hospital for the sick soul and that's why you'll have a lot of sick souls here you'll have a lot of sick cells here because this is the place where they can get cured and they get better that's what you're saying they get better now it may not be in the first generation it may be a few generations down but eventually this is this was rough cook's vision so one might say the following extrapolation the same way eric israel is a hospital for the sick soul bringing that soul back to health and vitality one might say shabbos in time has a similar function of potentially bringing wholeness and raphua to your soul and the four people in danger that are identified in chapter 107 might actually refer you know metaphorically allegorically to four different types of sicknesses of the soul for which god redeems them by giving them the gift of shabbos and the baal shamdov is connecting the four people who needed to be saved to the four types of people that shabbos can save as a hospital of the neshama so let's take it it's not the exact it's not the same order but i'm to take the four in in this order let's take first the one that is lost in sea the one that is in danger of drowning in the ocean we know that water often has positive connotations you know the torah is compared to water etc but we also know that water refers in a negative sense to hedonism and indulgence and taiva right to drown yourself in the waters of the world is to live a life that's devoted to pleasure seeking money power hedonism and therefore symbolically the one that's drowning in the water is the person who is living a life of self-indulgent hedonism and excess and as a result no longer has spiritual aspirations right he's dying that's going to kill him that is a form of drowning it's not physically drowning but spiritually your soul is drowning in the rat race in the american dream in the tel aviv dream whatever you want to call it and shabbos with its reminder that at least one day a week you gotta stop just say no allows you to refocus withdraw get away from the materialism get away from the rat race think about what your life is about okay so that's category one category two is the person who is sick and recovers now the rambam explains in his introduction to pirkei yogas called shimona prakim the eight chapters it's interesting pierce is only five chapters with a sixth edition the rambam's introduction is eight chapters so the introduction is more chapters than the book that it's introducing but the rambam actually uses a medical model to describe negative character traits he says if a person is consumed with negativity anger selfishness laziness arrogance these are sicknesses of the soul and one needs strategies of medicine spiritual medicine to heal those infirmities so when we talk about a person who is sick we don't only mean physical sickness but a person can be sick with negativities resentments hatreds angers selfishness egotism and hereto the peace of shabbos can bring him out of that sickness in other words that's god's redemption that that's what the baal shamdov's insight is that shabbos is god's way of redeeming the hedonist of helping the negative person become more positive and affirming about life but then we have a third level of danger and that is the person that is in prison now that's a little different that's a person unlike the sick person who feels negativity very strongly the imprisoned person is so locked into himself that he no longer feels anything he feels neither love nor hate he's simply dead inside that's a deadness of the spirit he's in jail he's imprisoned he is locked in within himself and thereto shabbos can be his redemption and the final one is the person that's wandering the desert now when you're wandering the desert what you're looking for is water but it's going to be hard to find water because it's a desert so this refers not so much to a sickness this refers to a spiritual seeker a person who seeks spirituality he's looking for meaning he's looking for purpose but he's going to the wrong places he's going to the deserts he's going to buddhism he's going to christianity he's looking he's a seeker of wisdom but he's not finding what he needs and shabbos will give him that water so the brilliance of the balshempto's insight is that although the literal meaning of the psalm is talking about people in actual danger the one that is drowning in the water the one that is sick and on the verge of death the one that's in prison and the one that's lost in the desert they can represent different types of spiritual predicaments that people face the hedonist the one that is consumed with negativity the one that is dead inside and the one that is searching for truth but has not yet been able to find it for all of these there is a part of call which will give a person redemption and salvation and that is shabbos and that's why the balchemtoph said before we begin shabbos before we pray the last prayer before we enter here is a call to all of the different sicknesses of the soul come and connect to shabbos kaidesh and your soul will be healed you will be rejuvenated you will find truth that's a very powerful message it's it's it's reminiscent in some ways although it's a different message you know one of the most moving parts of the young kipper service which sometimes people just ignore is right before kalnidry right before khalnitre there's a declaration that the khazen makes it's in small letters in the mahzar in assembly of the heavenly court and the earthly heart we hereby declare that we can pray with the sinners remember that that line in the boxer now what is that referring to exactly i mean i mean what do you mean with the sinners everybody's a sinner i mean we're doing too you know but the answer is there's a very specific hallucic statement this refers to people who were excommunicated now we don't have that we don't do that too much today but you know in the olden days a person who violated these significant norms of judaism was excommunicated he was put in hair the great philosopher benedict spinoza barack spinoza who was unfortunately a heretic although he was very very brilliant person he was excommunicated in amsterdam it was very scary thing they uh they put out the lights it was pitch dark and they blew chauffeurs and he was excommunicated from the jewish community and the person who's excommunicated you have to shun him you can't even be within his four ammos you know i walk by that person i gotta have social this is before i come on i have to have social distancing not allowed to go to show but one day a year we have to make the service available to everybody because if we're not willing to accept every jew then god's not going to accept us and before we start yom kippur we have a formal declaration that the bastion in shamayim agrees to and the base then on earth agrees to that every person every jew enters the shoal for yom kippur service all hay rooms are off this day it's an invitation in other words that everybody should come so the balcemtos recitation of tihillam is kind of doing the same thing in which shabbos is about to start everybody come connect the sicknesses might be different but the medicine works for all of them and this is the idea that even in we have shabbos now the thing to think about i think you remember about shabbos is there is a famous rabbinic teaching that he who prepares an era of shabbos he who prepares on friday will be able to eat on shabbos now literally that of course is true you either have to cook food before shabbos or buy food or get invited to somebody's house if you don't do one of those three you will not have food for shabbos that's very very true but there's a deeper meaning as well and that is there's a spiritual food that your soul absorbs in shabbos that's the meaning of the idea that you have an extra soul an extra capacity to connect to god but that capacity is only a potentiality it's not an actualization except if we invest the time to make ourselves ready for that so this is exactly the meaning of the statement he who prepares an erev shabbos will be able to eat that spiritual soul food on shabbos so you know one of the things you notice in irish israel and then through the matter is this is not only humankind this is among uh all segments of uh religious judaism and and to some degree even those who are not quite totally observant is that you already have a sense of shabbos approaching uh certainly friday morning and actually sometimes thursday night meaning in the united states you often have a situation where we have to enter shabbos like clark kent becoming superman or whatever it is you know people get home 10 minutes before shabbos they either take a shower don't take a shower they change et cetera there was no time to think no time to reflect no time to meditate no time to get ready you just rush from the workday into into shabbos well sometimes if that's the way it has to be that's the way it has to be sometimes the circumstances are not within our control but one has to understand that to truly gain what shabbos represents you need to prepare to study to learn to meditate to that's why many people recite the song of songs which is a love song of god's passionate relationship with us many people have the custom they set their shabbos table already friday afternoon and some even thursday night so the whole day they're contemplating shabbos and they don't have to go through the rush which can create tension but whichever way you do it i think all of us have to realize how special and unique shabbos is what a gift it is how it can transform our lives and how ultimately it can transform our weak as well you know the truth of the matter is every single day gets its spiritual influence from shabbos and it's amazing this even reflects itself in a halacha do you know we're supposed to recite abdullah when shabbos is over and we recite it saturday night but if you missed abdullah saturday night you can still recite it sunday monday and even tuesday until tuesday night which is already wednesday and the reason is it is said that sunday monday tuesday are living off the holiness of the shabbos that has passed wednesday thursday friday however are no longer connected to the shabbos that's past but they're getting the light of the shabbos that is coming so every single day gets the light of a shabbos sunday monday tuesday the light of the past shabbos which is why you can still make abdullah because you're connected to that old shabbos wednesday thursday friday the light of the new shabbos and that's what lacha dodi means the famous song that shabbos is makor that shabbos is the source of all blessing that hashem puts into the world because of that holiness of so hashem i hope all of us of course i include myself i should be zoha to appreciate the great matana that hashem has given us and even in the month of cheshvan which is mark we still have the wonderful gift of shabbos so be well and to have a good good chat [Music] me [Music]