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In this wide-ranging and deeply personal shiur, Rav Dov Ber Cohen explores what it truly means to prepare for Shabbat, not just physically but inwardly. Drawing on the imagery of consciousness and con
The Rabbi Dov Ber Cohen Podcast explores Jewish mindfulness, emotional mastery, relationships, and real inner avodah.
In each shiur, Rabbi Dov Ber shares practical Torah wisdom for navigating anxiety, deepening connection, strengthening emunah, and living with greater presence and purpose.
Rooted in Chassidic depth yet grounded in everyday life, these teachings are experiential, honest, and transformative.
If you’re seeking clarity without pressure, growth without guilt, and spirituality that actually changes how you live - this podcast is for you.
Okay. So my phone was stolen and I lost lots of recordings. Holy classes that will never get out to the masses. They were prophetic classes and the universe wasn't ready for them. So I don't know where we really are up to but we're learning, we're going on a journey of self-discovery and spiritual awakening, which is the same thing I'd imagine. Self-discovery and spiritual awakening, same thing because we need to awaken to our spiritual selves. Our sages teach that really there are only two things. There are only two things: consciousness and content of consciousness. Those are the only two things that are: consciousness and content. So you can imagine a blank screen and then you've got the movie being projected onto the screen. So there's the blank screen, that's consciousness, awareness, pure awareness and then there's whatever's being projected onto the awareness. Those are the two things. And we are caught up in the world of content. We're so caught up in the world of content that we've lost touch with the world of pure consciousness. And the world of pure consciousness actually is blissfully pure and full of love and joy. We have many chairs here. Would you like a chair? There is consciousness of chairs and chairs. So our sages give us a mashal, an analogy and I've updated it a little bit that we have the screen and the movie projected onto the screen. All the while that the movie is being projected onto the screen the white screen still exists. It's still there, it's just we never get to see the white screen but it's still there. And if we could actually just turn off the movie, turn off the projector then you'd actually experience the white screen. True spirituality is turning off the projector and experiencing the white screen of your pure consciousness. Other spiritual traditions would say then you should stay there. That's the purpose. You made it now. Go and sit in a cave in the Himalayas and turn off the movie of life and sit in a space of pure consciousness and it's blissfully wonderful space to be in. I was there. It was nice. Six years I did that. Judaism says no. The problem with that is you're actually a movie director. That's what you are. You're here to direct the movie. As we know, Jews run Hollywood. That's really just a kabbalistic thing being projected into the world. You're not meant to escape from the movie. You're meant to lift yourself above the movie but then be in the movie. Now I'm the director of the movie. I'm not just a blank screen that whatever's being projected I have to deal with. So most people they're not even the director of their own mind. Who's projecting your thoughts into your consciousness? Where are those thoughts coming from? What percentage of those thoughts is creating a wonderful movie? I'll move back. I am all inclusive. So when you go to a really good movie what happens is you're so involved in the movie that you lose touch with your sense of self. You're not thinking about watching the movie, you're just watching the movie. You're so engrossed in the movie that you're not thinking about the past or the future or what other people think of you. You're not checking your phone. Now if it's not a good movie then you're checking your phone and you're... if it's not good. But if it's a really good one you are whisked away in. into the movie. And in fact, that's why people like movies, cause they don't like their life so much. And they just want to escape from their life into this wonderworld of movies. And what happens is then the movie finishes and suddenly you kind of snap back into reality and you're like, oh, I'm in London. I've got to put my coat on. It's going to be cold outside and raining, et cetera, and then you go back into your life. So you lose yourself into movies. And you can lose yourself into other things. You can be so involved in your, in your tennis. A really good tennis player when he's playing tennis, he's not there. He's just flow. It's called flow state. Flow state. I used to play a lot of tennis. Flow state. So when it comes to a movie, it's good to lose your sense of self. We often say also that that's why people, if you watch people watching a movie that they're engrossed in, sometimes they're sitting there with a piece of popcorn held up kind of to their mouth with their mouth open staring at the screen. Why are they doing that? Either put the popcorn down or put it in your mouth. Those are sensible things to do. Why they're doing that is because they're not there. They've lost their sense of self so they don't even realize they have a piece of popcorn in their hand. They don't even realize they're them. They've lost all self-awareness. They've been drawn into the world of the movie. And that's a wonderful thing when it's a movie. Our problem is that you've been so drawn into the movie of your psyche that you've lost all sense of self. You're so involved in your issues and your doubts and your fears and the future and the past and your sense of self and your role and your, you're just so caught up in that that you forgot, hold on, I'm a pure consciousness. You've fallen into the movie of your own psyche. So it said there's only consciousness and content of consciousness. And what is the content of consciousness? There's really the external world which is projected onto your consciousness through your five senses: sight, smell, taste, touch, and sound. That's how we relate. So you're just having, everything's being projected into you. And then you have your internal world, really thoughts and emotions. And we just said where are most of your thoughts coming from? They're not, you're not consciously producing your thoughts. Thoughts are just being produced in two factories, by the way. One thought factory is called the nefesh. The nefesh, body, ego, yetzer hara is sending messages into your consciousness. And the other is called the neshama. And the neshama, whose voice is called the yetzer tov, is sending uplifting, sweet, loving, kind, positive thoughts. And you, your consciousness, is in the middle. It's called ruach. So we've got nefesh, ruach, and neshama. The ruach is the, is the conscious awareness in this world. And into the conscious awareness, we're having the nefesh and the neshama are producing thoughts. And then you just really have to choose which ones to go with. Our problem in general is that the nefesh thoughts are much louder. Your body, your body and your ego is very loud. You can feel your body and ego pain very quickly. You feel your physical hunger, you feel your sadness, and you feel your, you feel your lacking so very, very strongly. We don't really often feel the yearning of our soul because it's being, the voice of the soul which is kol demama daka, it's a still small voice, is drowned out by the voice of our physical needs. So Judaism really teaches there are five things that we want to do in order to change this dynamic. The first one is to turn down the voice of the body-ego. Not by neglecting it. It doesn't work, by the way. We're not into neglecting ourselves. In fact, we say the opposite. You should completely nurture yourself. You need to be physically nurtured. Take very, very good care of yourself. Eat well. Exercise. Hot bath. Whatever. You have to be actually, the more you nurture your body, the less needy it becomes. So you want to look after your body, but you want to stop identifying with your body. Stop giving it everything it wants. Once your body is now asking for stuff it doesn't need, but it just tastes good or feels good, at that point you can start saying to it, hold on, I'll give you what you really need, but the extra stuff is not for you. So that's a nice balance. General Judaism teaches men need to do it a lot more than women. Men have a spiritual avodah called perishut, which means separation and really going beyond, really, really pulling back from physicality, particularly because men are more animalistic, alpha male, we have that very We need to really bend it to the other side, conquer that, women don't have that avodah, women have more self-nurture physically because they're less animally driven. We also want to start and we don't want to say this out loud, but we don't want to say things like I'm tired. You want to say my body's tired. Out loud you can say I'm tired because you don't want people think you're crazy, you want friends. But really within yourself you shouldn't say I'm tired or I'm hungry. Souls don't get tired and hungry. Just say my body's tired, my body's hungry. Can I ask a question about that? Yeah, please. Like I don't know if you've had like a very long work day before, I assume you have. I bet you have, I know that you have. But what about when like you're not that physically tired but mentally you're just like you feel just buzzed out? Yeah, so you say my mind is tired. It's the same situation just in a different... Yeah, your mind isn't you. Your mind's... but we said it in the last class and the class before and the class before, most of our physical exhaustion actually comes from mental over-analyzing. Even your physical... why are you tired? Let's say your job isn't construction. It was once upon a time but... Let's say it's not. And your job is you're sitting in an office and you're just literally sitting in a chair and you're typing. People leave that job completely exhausted. Why? Physically exhausted. Why? You didn't do anything. Because your mind... when you're not given vitality then you get exhausted. Or when your mind is over-analyzing everything and can't make decisions, what do people think of... Most people spend most of their waking hours kind of fighting their inner voice and that's really tiring, physically tiring. But if you do construction for 10 hours but you're loving it, then you go out clubbing afterwards. So what... it's a completely... it fits in together. So if you want, the other example I often give is it's late at night, you're learning Torah and you keep falling asleep. So you say look there's no point trying to keep learning Torah, I keep falling asleep, there's no point, I'll go to bed. Put the book away and you say I'll just check one email before I go to bed. Two hours later you're still checking emails. How did that work? I thought you were exhausted. Because suddenly I got some vitality, I got some dopamine flushing stuff, now I'm awake again. But all of that, all of that, that's all consciousness. Your neshama's cool. Your neshama's like chill. So there's good content of consciousness and there's bad content of consciousness but it's all content. But there's something called consciousness behind, just being present, being aware. So what we want to start doing is two things. Firstly, turning off the projector so we can just experience pure consciousness. But after that, choosing what content we want to be in our consciousness. So people choose what music I want to listen to when I go on a journey, they choose what food they want in a restaurant, they choose what book they want to borrow in the library, they choose who they're going to marry. How about choosing what you have in your consciousness? That seems like the most important choice you could possibly make. No one's doing that. Everyone's just dealing with whatever gets thrown into it. So that's not... that's not a healthy way to live. We want to be start becoming aware of our content. Yes. So how do we handle situations when other people... It's a good question. How do we deal with when other people project their stuff into our screen? That's just another projection onto your screen. You've still got your screen and it's their projection. So how do you deal with that? We said really there are three ways to deal with other people's negative projections. Number one: approach the situation and communicate and try and change them. Number two: if you can't change them you leave them. Toxic relationship, get away. Number three: if you can't change them or leave them you change yourself. You accept and you adapt and you realize if this is what's being projected onto my screen, I don't have to be a victim to it. I'll try and change it. If I can't change it or leave it, then I'm not a victim. And then we have things like emunah which says this happens to be what I need projected onto my screen right now. I wouldn't choose this to be projected on my screen, but seeing as it's not my choice at this point, then I'm going to make the most of it. And the two levels of making the most of it we said. There's the positive attitude which an atheist can also have. Okay this sucks but it is what it is so I'll make the most of it. And that's very good by the way. I like positive attitudes, very very good. But then there's the religious take which is above positive attitude which is called emunah, bitachon, which is not just I'm going to make the most of it because what can I do, it's no I'm going... Embrace this because this is what I need. This is a higher level. It's the highest level of positive attitude you could possibly have. If for some reason in my soul's journey through the world it needs this going on. Which doesn't make it easier, very hard, still painful and you can cry and you can process and it's difficult. But once you see that this isn't going against me, it feels like it is, but it's actually there to help me. Doesn't necessarily make it easier by the way, still painful, but it shifts our approach towards it. Everyone take a deep breath through your nose. Smile. I didn't say breathe out. Gosh, making up the rules. So this is what we're doing, this is what our life is, we're becoming directors of our movie. And also, what's a really beautiful thing is once you understand that this is what life is all about, you have to understand that you're projecting onto other people's movie screens. So just like someone can come and destroy your peace of mind by throwing rocks into the pure still waters of the pond of your consciousness. Oh nice, recorded that. You get to choose what you want to project on other people's consciousness. Isn't that beautiful? So I can see you and I could just come and destroy your peace of mind now. Oh look at you or wow what a mentch, so sweet, you're beautiful. You could have been anywhere today and you chose to come to yeshiva, listen to a class, that's meaningful, that's amazing. Most people they're doing other things not meaningful, you chose to do something meaningful today. Baruch Hashem. You should feel so good about yourself. So I've just now projected something really nice and you're like wow that's quite nice. I could say the opposite, I could find I actually can't find anything bad about you but for some people let's say I could find something not nice to say and I say that that would destroy the cool pure fresh waters of the pond of your consciousness. So why don't we be the sort of people who are going around projecting sweetness into other people's lives? Very hard to do it if we're not projecting sweetness into our own life first. Are you being nice to yourself? Do you have a really nice voice in your head? Do you like hanging out with yourself with no phone or book? You're just like you know what, my mind is really lovely. I love hanging out with my mind, it's very cool, it says funny things. My mind says funny things a lot. Sometimes it says stupid things and I'm like dude and it's like okay sorry. But it's cool. So you want your mind which is the only friend you have your whole life. You get married you're not with that person forever and ever and you're not with them all day every day. Your mind you're with all day every day, it's your constant companion. You better like it. If you don't like that voice in your head you're in big trouble, you're going to have to spend your whole life distracting yourself from the voice in your head. Watching movies, don't want to do that. You want to calm and train the voice in your head. Fine. So what we're really learning about today which you didn't realize is Shabbat. That's what the class is all about. Look, I've got the book open, look, Shabbat. But now you understand Shabbat on a deeper way because Shabbat is the day of returning back into pure consciousness and then the week day is the movie that we need to project. We need to project the movie. And we said that really Shabbat is a meditation retreat. Once a week we have a meditation retreat. We go and sit in the cave, that's where we're meant to be. But then we say no you've got to live, get out of the cave, we're not sitting in caves for our whole life, we're getting out of the cave. But we're bringing Shabbat consciousness with us into the week. So it's not just like I'm going for a meditation retreat and that's it, I'm going to have little moments of Shabbat throughout the day. And we have a lot, Judaism's very, very into this. We have Shacharis, Mincha, and Maariv. We have three times a day where I'm going back into Shabbat. For example, I don't have my phone on me anywhere near me when I'm davening. It's not in the same, I'm not bringing my phone into a Beis Knesset. I also, and this isn't halacha by the way, I don't have money, I literally don't have muktza on me, I'm like I'm stepping into Shabbat. Shacharis is Shabbat. Someone said to me, you know you lived in India for a long time, you lived in the East for six years, what do you think of chakras? And I said we love Shacharis. Shachris, Mincha, and Maariv. I thought it was funny. I think that's funny. But the whole class was busted just for that actually. I'm going now. Nice, good job. It was over our heads. It was on a higher level. It was a bit... it was funny on the... You know what, maybe it was funny on such a low level that it wouldn't even get to your... it was such... And then I have brachos. I make brachos. And that's Shabbat. Shabbat is Shabbat. I'm returning to my soul. And then I have mezuzos. That's Shabbat. And everything's Shabbat. We're bringing Shabbat into our lives with us all the time. So we've got this flow. Judaism's always got this flow. Consciousness movie, consciousness movie, but what we're doing is we're making the movie conscious. We're conscious-ifying the content. We're making the content itself conscious. As it says, and we know, the whole of universe, the whole Shabbat is we say Zacher L'maaseh Bereishis to remember the creation of the universe. And how was the universe created? Kulam B'chochmah Asita. You created everything with chochmah, with consciousness, that's what it really means. And quantum physics now says that really the whole universe is just made of consciousness vibrating on a high level, or not such a high level for some people. It's consciousness. So this is what we're doing. That's why Shabbat is תכלית מעשה שמים וארץ. It's the whole purpose of creation is Shabbat. So Jews, what we do is we live Shabbat. We're in Shabbat. We're preparing for Shabbat, experiencing Shabbat, or integrating Shabbat. There's nothing else. I don't understand how someone could live without Shabbat. I just don't get it. I do because I did it for thirty years. But it's like what is it without the whole purpose of the creation? Why my soul is here? I don't have that. Then what do I have? What, there's no meaning behind anything else. I'm just going through life trying to get as much pleasure as I can before I die. And I might be a nicer person so I'm setting up orphanages and I'm doing... but there's no ultimate meaning. There's no... there's nothing I'm really working towards. There's nothing really I'm really integrating. So Shabbat holds it all together. Most people lose vitality in their life because they're just juggling different areas of life. My finances, my relationships, my health, my raising my children. So I'm juggling all these areas and I'm trying to make them okay. But if there's not one unifying central pillar that I'm going towards, then it just gets tiring. I'm just juggling life. Judaism says no, I've got a central pillar, it's called Shabbat. It's called meaning, it's called Yishuv Hadaas, it's called presence, it's called consciousness, it's called revealing Hashem. It's... so then my health and my relationships and my children and my work, they're all part of something. I'm not juggling anymore. I'm saying how are these things tapping back into the purpose? How is what I'm doing throughout the week actually taking me towards where I'm going? Do I have anywhere to go? I think that's the question. I think people have existential crises because they don't have anywhere they're really going. Ask your general person, where are you going? What are you doing? What's the point? And they're like, to live a good life. And what does that mean? Well, I saw a good movie and I had a dinner party. That's very cute. They're lovely, lovely people. But it's like what, so what? There's no essence. You've lost the neshama. People are living life without neshama. It's a body, it's like a guf without a neshama. It's like a body without a soul. So life without Shabbat for me now seems like it's just a body. I'm doing stuff and I might be doing good stuff, I might be a good person, but there's no soul. No breath, every breath of life that comes in, Shabbat. So we've been learning a lot about Shabbat. I think we lost about ten of our Shabbat classes. They're in the West Bank on my phone now somewhere. Baruch Hashem. You know what, I think maybe someone's listening to it and it's going to mekarev a whole village out there. That could work. That could happen, you know. There's going to be these people sitting around and they're just going to start listening and they're going to be like Shabbat. So now we're preparing for Shabbat. Erev Shabbat. If you want to catch up, I think there are twenty online already on Spotify. Go to the Rabbi Dov Ber Cohen podcast, Shabbat series. There are nineteen or twenty already up. Numbers twenty to twenty-seven, they're on the other side of the Jordan now. They're in Damascus. There's a whole little shul being built in Damascus based on my phone that was stolen in the Old City. I'm sure, I'm sure of it. So I don't know where they are. So I don't know what they are either, so I might be repeating them but it's fine. So here we're learning together. Erev Shabbat Kodesh. Erev Shabbat Kodesh. Erev the sweetness of Shabbat. Erev Erev really means the day leading up to. But it also means sweetness. The day leading up to Shabbat יום שישי הוא היום מחבר אותנו אל קדושת השבת שבאה ומתקרבת אלינו. What is Yom Shishi? What is Friday in Judaism? The whole purpose of Friday is Shabbat. It's just there to get ready for Shabbat. In Israel we don't have Sunday. That's why we're so successful, I'm not joking, I think there's statistics. We're so successful because we don't have a Sunday, let's get going. Let's start the week. But we do have two days, we have we have Yom Shishi v'Shabbat. The sixth day leading into the seventh day. And so really Shabbat Yom Shishi in our minds is I'm getting excited. We said really that one of the major parts of getting the most out of something is how excited you're getting about it. I'm really excited. There really two there're really three parts. Three parts of preparation. Number one is understanding. I understand what it is. I understand what I'm doing. I understand what Shabbat is. If I don't understand what Shabbat is and it's just a day when I can't do everything I enjoy doing then I'm not going to be excited for it. So just get real depth. If you want to put on tefillin the more you understand about tefillin the more excited you're going to be to put them on. If for you tefillin is literally just black boxes, that's just weird. That's a very weird thing to do, black boxes on your arm and your head. Very strange. I actually felt very uncomfortable the first time I put on tefillin. I'm like this feels so naive and ancient. Why would you actually we're in the year 2006, seven it was. 2006 put on tefillin like what are you doing? Some ancient weird ritual tradition, tradition. So it wasn't comfortable for me but once I started learning about tefillin and it connects your head and your emotions and your actions and you've got Hashem's name written on your body and you seven times for חסד גבורה תפארת נצח הוד יסוד אתם דבקים בהשם אלוקיכם חיים כולכם היום and the shin on your hand I was like listen these are power tools for spiritual enlightenment. That's what they are. I was speaking to some people in the park yesterday, Gan Sacher. I live Gan Sacher is a very popular place to go on Shabbat. Kids speaking speaking in the park, apart from there's a whole fight circle now. I don't get that. I just don't get that. Is a fight circle? Yes. On Shabbat, in Gan Sacher, frum religious people fighting, but even the worse than the people that are fighting everyone's standing around watching and cheering and stuff, it's Shabbat, even on a Sunday it's weird, but on Shabbat? Yom menucha. Especially hard for me cause I do martial arts and I'm like I've gotta get in there. I've gotta fight that side of me, I'm like actually I had a big chiddush. It's a chiddush about ego. I'll just share it quickly cause I never stay on topic anyway so it's fine. So I wanted to there was a part of me, I don't I'm not I think it's not okay, I don't think there's anything okay about it. But there was a part of me that wanted to get in there and fight. Cause I do kickboxing, I've got a black belt in taekwondo, I fight. But then I realized that's just my ego. I want to get in there and fight. I don't but then I realized it's a lose-lose situation. Because if I get in there and I fight and I win my ego will be so built and I don't want that my whole life I'm fighting I don't want that, but my ego also stopped me going in because if I lose I'm gonna look stupid. So I just started laughing at my ego, I was like you are so funny. So it's a lose-lose situation anyway. I lose if I win and I lose if I lose. In fact it would be better for me to lose because that would at least try and make me humble. So it would be better to lose. So then if I lost I'd just say I just pretended to lose so I could be humble. Amazing. The end of the ego's a fantastic thing. Anyway, I was in the park talking to these boys who I know them, very very good boys from very good families. Grew up religious families, a little less connected now. And they were really talking about microdosing psilocybin and all that. They said you should come and do these these circles and I said look, medicine's for sick people, I'm not sick. But if you're sick you need it, if you need medicine, take it. If you have PTSD from being in Gaza or abuse as a kid, there's a place for that. I think that. But I'm not sick, I don't need it. But they said but just do it anyway, why don't you do things that just for their fun? Wouldn't you go don't you play tennis? I said yeah, but not things that completely alter my consciousness. I don't I don't because I think in between is not good for you. It might give you a very high experience for a little bit, but in between you're thinking about a lot, oh, I'm going back to that and that was good, do I need to do it again? Do I... it just becomes such a thing. So I said I don't need that in my life. And I said *Hashem* gave us a path. He gave us a path, He gave us *mitzvot*. He gave us *mitzvot*. And He gave us *tefillah*, authentic speaking to *Hashem* from the heart. He gave us learning *Torah*, all sorts of *Torah*. Learning the *Gemara*, learning *Rebbe Nachman*, learning *Mussar*, learning whatever. He gave us *Torah*. That's that's very good for us all. He gave us meditation. Meditation's great. He gave us *Tshuva*. So the truth is, if you're doing *mitzvot* consciously and joyfully, and you're praying to *Hashem* from your heart, with or without a *Siddur*, and you're doing *Tshuva* which is a beautiful amazing thing to do, by the way. *Tshuva* isn't heavy and I'm bad, *Tshuva* is I'm so good, I'm excited to go home to my Dad who loves me. And you're learning good, sweet *Torah*. You just I just you don't need it anymore. I'm okay. I say really, are you wearing *Tzitzis*? Do you love wearing *Tzitzis*? Are you doing what you need to do? Are you using the tools of super consciousness that the Divine Creator of the universe gave you? And if you really are, and then you feel still feel you need it, then I understand it, but spend one year saying *Brachos* and feeling like you're actually speaking to *Hashem*. Spend one year doing that. Breathwork, *Torah*, and then afterwards, if you're still completely stuck, then maybe there's a place, maybe. I don't know. So *Shabbat* is the *Mekor Habracha*, is the source of all spiritual insight. The whole week is drawn out from that source. So we gotta we gotta prepare for it. הוא היום אשר כל כולו מוקדש להכין את עצמנו להיות כלים ראויים לאור השם יתברך שמתגלה בשבת. Friday, *Yom Shishi*, is the day that is completely sanctified in order to prepare ourselves to become fitting vessels to receive the divine spiritual light that is going to be pumping down into our souls on *Shabbat*. That's exciting, that's nice. Wow. Unless you got something better to do on Friday, that's what I'd do. It's an amazing thing to do. So we said, there's ways to prepare for *Shabbat*, the three, like go back to it, understanding it, learn about it. Number two, yearn, learn and yearn. Number one learn, number two yearn. And number three is prepare physically. Nice clothes, *Mikvah*, which we're going to go look into. Get you *kan*, clean your house, buy nice food. So we have these three things that we're going to prepare. When you go on a camping trip and you're very excited about your camping trip, you read the guidebooks and the maps and where can I go and find... And then you get very excited about it, and then you pack your bag. So *Shabbat* is the ultimate camping. I love camping, I love being in the wilderness. My favorite book, I still have it, is the SAS Survival Handbook. SAS Survival Handbook. How to make all different huts in the forest. I loved that book, and how to do it. The first thing it says in the SAS Survival Handbook, it says the first rule of survival: take what you need. So do you want to become a true survival expert and you're going to you're going to have to make fire. You're going to have to make fire to cook. Do you know the number one key a survival expert knows to make fire? Bring matches. Bring matches. Now, if you don't have matches or you lose your matches or your matches get wet, then fine, then you have to work out how to do it. But turn up prepared. That's what a true survival expert is, he turns up prepared. וכל הארה של שבת תלויה בעבודת היום הזה. And all of our enlightening, upliftingness really depends on how we prepare. מי שטרח בערב שבת הוא יאכל בשבת. The person who gets ready and puts in the effort on Friday, on *Erev Shabbat*, *Yom Shishi*, they're going to really receive. Now, we said before, this makes sense in our we just finished counting the *Omer*. Although I've been counting I'm like today is the 51st day which is seven weeks and two days. I got stuff I'm like keep going. Go. Go. So we said that Sunday is *Chesed*. Today is *Chesed*. I'm actually going to start putting this out on my WhatsApp group. I don't know if you're on it. Every day what the energy of the day is, just based on that. And it's going to be the same every week. So today Sunday is *Chesed* and it's the day that of integrating the neshama from Shabbat into our being, into our psyche. That's what we're doing on Sunday. And it's really to do with high thoughts. Monday is Gevurah and we're integrating the Ruach of the Shabbat before. Tuesday is tiferet and we're integrating the Nefesh. Wednesday is Netzach and we're preparing for the new Nefesh. Thursday is Hod and we're preparing for the new Ruach. Friday is Yesod. So what is Yesod? Yesod is hiskashrus which means connection. The Yesod is the channel. The connection between them. Tzadik Yesod Olam. We're now connecting the spiritual and the physical. That's what Friday is doing. Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, that's really physical work week getting into this world. Friday is like the gesher, is the gateway, the ladder, the funnel into Shabbat. Yeah. It's the, it's the projector, whatever it is. It's getting us into Shabbat. היום יום שישי מחר שבת. That whole song people don't realize. היום יום שישי היום יום שישי מחר שבת. We say, even that song the people didn't realize is, what gives Yom Shishi its power? Machar Shabbat because it's Shabbat time. Shishi only gets its own sense of self because it's connected to Shabbat. It's the day we're preparing for Shabbat. ולכן ישראל חוגרין מתניהם. Jewish people tighten our belts. We're getting ready, we're going on a journey. לעסוק ביום הזה ביתר שאת בהכנה דרבה לקראת שבת. We're very excited, we get up very early and we get ready, we're going. This is what I'm doing, I'm so excited Friday, I'm so excited. Beruchniyus, Gashmiyus. In spiritual ways and in physical ways לעסוק בקבלת אור נשמה יתירה. To start delving into the time when we are mekabel, we are receiving this immense light of, remember we said four different peirushim what a neshama yeseira is, we're not going to go through them again, do you actually have an extra soul or you just have more of your soul or you have the two higher levels of your soul, Chaya and Yechida, or it's just a harchavas hadaas, menuchas hanefesh, Rashi says. Neshama yeseira just means you have an extra peace of mind and wholesome well-being comes over you on Shabbat. So whatever it is, we're getting ready for it. שמתחלת לנצנץ כבר בערב שבת. It's all, it's already bubbling. It's already sparkling, really from Wednesday. From Wednesday the Nefesh Yeseira's coming in, Thursday the Ruach Yeseira, Friday the Neshama Yeseira, it's all, Shabbat is bubbling from Wednesday. It's coming. And if you're, you gotta start getting your whole consciousness in line with the spiritual energies in the world. But Friday it's like climax time. And we said before this is why the Mishnah Berurah even says Friday is a very strong time for the yetzer hara, for the negativity because the yetzer hara, the dark side, the sitra achra, the dark forces hate Shabbat, they're very scared of Shabbat so they try and make couples argue with each other. The kids aren't doing what they need to do, the guests are coming, there's lots of stress, for some people you wouldn't believe this but find erev Shabbat very stressful. There's so much to do, panicking, running around and you've got guests and you've gotta do, why is that? Because the, the sitra achra doesn't like Shabbat so it's throwing stuff in. Also before a wedding, very difficult times before a wedding for the choson and kallah because there's something so holy is about to happen so they have all doubts suddenly and all problems. So once you're prepared for it, I think we did say this before in one of the pages, once you're prepared for it and you see it as part of the journey and the overcoming it is part of what's helping you bring down the light of Shabbat, then you're not scared of it anymore. I sometimes say in my house when I see tensions arising a little bit I say, wow, our first guest has arrived. And my kids are like, the yetzer hara? And I'm like, yeah, shut up, get ready. So וככל שזוכה אדם יותר להכין את עצמו ואת לבו בערב שבת. The more you prepare yourself and your heart on erev Shabbat כך יזכה ברחמיו יתברך. So too you shall merit with God's infinite compassion. לקבל את ההשפעה בשבת עצמה. So then you'll receive, according to the work you put in, that's what you're going to receive on Shabbat kodesh. So we've only got this much left of the book to do, so we'll be finished in about three years because we manage to get through three lines each class and we're going to prepare ourselves and we're going to receive an yom shekulo Shabbat. This is also what we said really, the olam haba, the olam emes, the real life is Shabbat. Shabbat is real, the weekdays, the queue. Shabbat is real and eventually there's going to be a yom shekulo Shabbat, a time when we're just basking in the glory of divine revelation. Would that only be for Jewish people or... No, nothing's only for the Jewish people. The Jewish people are here to be a light unto the nations. The temple's going to be rebuilt and Hamas are going to have done teshuva and they're going to come and bring up their korbanos. Yeah, feels like a long way away, but we're not into killing people, we're into transforming people. So Ishmael did teshuva at the end of his life, Ishmael will do teshuva, Ishmael will do teshuva. And if we don't get Ishmael to do teshuva, we haven't finished our job. We haven't finished our job, our job is to uplift the whole of humanity, a light unto the nations. But we've got to be a light unto ourselves first. Let's just start with that. Let's get the lots of Jews don't know about Shabbat. It's not their fault, I didn't really know, lots of Jews don't know what Shabbat is, they don't keep it and I feel so my heart yearns for them. Other people are judgmental, \"Oh, you're not,\" and I'm the opposite, I'm like, \"My sweet, sweet brother, how do you do, how do you live without Shabbat, what do you,\" I just don't, I'm in so much pain for them. It's like a movie, if you see the best movie you want to share it with everyone. Like I just saw Mufasa, I always wanted a brother, I love that song, I want everyone here to watch Mufasa, it's a very good movie. I want to share it with my brothers and sisters and then once I've shared it with my brothers and sisters, then I want for everyone, everyone. If you want to be a light unto nations, you have to be a light unto your nation yourself first. Can I ask you a question about the ego which you said earlier? Yeah, I know all about the ego, I've got a very big one. Cool. Like you said, like you didn't get into that fight even though, like, part of you considered it because like... No, the actual reason I didn't get into the fight was because it's not what you do on Shabbat. For sure. But then it gave me insights into the part of me that wanted to get in the fight and why did it want to get in the fight and... But my point was like the two reasons you gave why it was a lose-lose, the second one kind of sounded like the ego protecting you in a way, right? In a way, sort of convolutedly. Yes, 100 percent, there is that. Rav Dessler, he was, he wanted to give up smoking because he found out it wasn't good for you and Rav Dessler was like the gadol hador and he just could not give up smoking, it was very hard for him, so he put a big sign on his office door, \"I have given up smoking\" and he said, \"I'm using my ego to help me give up smoking,\" because once he put the sign out there, if he's a gadol hador, if anyone sees him smoking it's like you said, so there is, yes, there are sometimes good uses of your ego. But would you say like what we consider to be anxiety is when the ego is sort of protecting you from humiliating, humiliating yourself and that's preventing you from doing something that could be a blessing for someone else? Possibly, but anxiety is just crippling and not functional and doesn't make you a happy, healthy person. But yes, maybe it stops you doing stuff, but there're better, there's always healthier ways to do stuff to stop yourself from doing stuff than anxiety. Like someone said to me the other day, \"Well, if I didn't worry about missing the plane, then I wouldn't get to the airport on time.\" And I said, \"No, I get to the airport on time because I'm not an idiot. I know what time the plane is leaving, I know how long it takes to get to the airport, I leave 20 minutes earlier just in case and then I get there.\" So yes, worrying about missing the plane will get you to the airport on time, but you're not going to be a healthy person. So even when worry does work, it's not, there's better ways to do it. \"Well, if I didn't worry about my exam results, then I wouldn't work for my exam.\" Why don't you just work for your exam because you're really excited about passing your exam and all the opportunities that would open up for you? I can show you the world, shining, shimmering, splendid. Shabbat. Kodesh.