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In this shiur, Rav Dov Ber Cohen explores the inner and outer avodah of Erev Shabbat — what it really means to prepare yourself to receive the light of Shabbat Kodesh. Drawing on the Arizal and the st
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.
There's a purpose to life. Life has a purpose. You're here for an actual reason. Isn't that amazing? Are you living the purpose of life? Did you wake up this morning and say מודה אני לפניך מלך חי וקים שהחזרת בי נשמתי and think to yourself, wow, you know what I'm going to be doing today? I'm going to be tapping into the purpose of life. And you know what I was doing yesterday? I was doing that as well. And the day before and every day and all day all the time. Now most people in the world unfortunately aren't doing that. They're living their lives. They're going to work and they're doing this stuff. But are you living with purpose? Purpose, I have a purpose, which means you have immense vitality. I know why I'm here, there's a reason I'm in this world. תכלית מעשה שמים וארץ. There's a purpose. God created the world for a reason. It wasn't random. The fact that there's a God, an infinite creator of the universe, means that there's a purpose to life. And we've just got to tap into the purpose of life. That's all. And you know what the purpose of life is? Self-actualization and self-transcendence. Self-become the soul you really are, manifest your divine essence in the world through your thoughts, speech and action. And then bring godliness into the world. That's all you're doing here. And then all the other stuff, the mitzvot and the Torah and the family, all that stuff. That's good, that should help, but they're the amtza'im, they're just the means to the end. There's only one purpose of life. Purpose of life. So that's what we're tapping into. That's why Shabbat is really, really central to everything we do, because without Shabbat there's no purpose. Without Shabbat there's no purpose. You know what Shabbat is ultimately saying? Shabbat is saying there's a purpose to life and it's not what you think it is in your creating in this world. Success is not, is not measured by your business and material stuff. That's not how success is measured. Success is measured by how spiritual you are. And what does it mean to be spiritual? How do you define spiritual? So, my friend's very spiritual, what does that mean? They do yoga five times a week and they are sugar-free and gluten-free and they have a dreamcatcher next to their bed and they smoke weed and watch the sunrise over the beach, it's so spiritual, man. They're like so spiritual. My, my friend's so spiritual. So that's not spiritual, that's hippie, but we like hippie, you can do that as well. You can be hippie as well, but spiritual is only one thing. What does it mean to be spiritual? Means to identify as spirit. To identify as spirit, not as body, not as ego, to identify as spirit and use your body to manifest that in the, well, that's it, I'm spirit. You can be spiritual. That's what we want to do and that's why I said last time or the time before, people, I used to say I'm spiritual not religious, because I was really cool. I used to be really cool and then I became an Orthodox rabbi and I became cooler. So I was really cool so I said spiritual, not religious, you know, resonate, this resonates with me, it's my truth. You can't question that, that's my truth. My truth. I'm not hurting you, my truth. I resonate as like, great, but there is a truth and if your truth isn't in line with the truth, then it's not truth. It's cute, by the way, you're lovely, I love you, come for Shabbat, you're lovely, babysit my children. But you can't be spiritual without being religious. Oh, did I just say that? You can be, you can't be fully spiritual without being religious. You can't because the religion is the guidebook to spirituality. The religion is telling you how to feed and manifest your soul in the world. So how can you possibly be spiritual if you're not doing halacha and mitzvot? You can't do it because that's what it all means. Now can you be religious without being spiritual? Yeah, I think most people are. Most religious people are very religious and they're not spiritual. So we've got to be both. We've got to be both. The religion is guiding us to spirit, to consciousness, higher consciousness. That's what we're doing, higher consciousness. So we're getting ready, we're getting ready for Shabbat and we are now talking about erev Shabbat. Erev Shabbat and we said yesterday that yom shishi, the whole purpose of yom shishi is Shabbat, getting ready for Shabbat. It's a day of hachana. We just came out of Shavuot. Shavuot is named after the hachana, named after the preparation. We basically had 49 days of getting ready for Shavuot and then the festival itself is called weeks, it's called by the name of the preparation because we did what we could do for 49 days, we... perfected our vessel in order to receive the light and then we step back. And then the whole of Shavuot was just receiving. You weren't doing anything on Shavuot, we were just receiving the light that was flowing down into creation. So this is what Yom Shishi is. Yom Shishi is, I'm getting my vessel ready to receive the immense, beautiful, powerful, healing, refreshing, sweet light of Shabbat Kodesh. As the Gemara says, it's a matana. Actually, this is what Shabbat and Shavuot have in common. Torah is called, Shavuot is called Zman Matan Toraseinu, Toraseinu, Zman Matan Toraseinu, that's what it's called. And Shabbat is called a matana and that's why you have Kabbalat Shabbat, you have to receive the present gift of Shabbat. And we have קבלת עול מלכות שמים, we receive Hashem. But when we're receiving it, it's the best blessing in the world. Because without Torah, life's hefker. Like what are you doing? I wouldn't know what to do. So Torah's shown me what I'm meant to do with life. והנה אף שכל ימי השבוע יש בהם כח להכין את עצמנו לקדושת שבת מכל מקום יום שישי יש בו כח להכין לשבת באופן מיוחד. Even though every single day of the week we're getting ready for Shabbat, that's why every day of the week is called after Shabbat, Yom Rishon, Yom Sheni, we don't have names of the days, we have the number of counting towards Shabbat. So the whole week we're just getting ready for Shabbat. Friday is special. As it says והיה ביום השישי והכינו את אשר יביאו. It says in the Torah it was on Yom Shishi and they prepared what had been brought. They got ready, they're getting ready. And that's why Yom Shishi, especially in Yerushalayim and Tzfas, anywhere that's vibrating on a very high spiritual level, you can feel immense awesome energy. Yom Shishi. At first it gets very like high and then suddenly shuts down. When we do meditation, I lead meditation retreats and meditation things, what I do is first I often get people to scream. Stand up, shake your arms and legs, scream. And that's already difficult for people because whatever, they need to break out. I actually did one meditation retreat, five-day silent retreat in Bat Ayin actually, and we went into the forest and I got people to jump up and down making animal noises. So some people like me, that's easy, that's like I want to do that. But for some people it was like I don't do that, I'm not weird. But when they did do it, because eventually there's a kind of you have to, they're the ones who had the most amazing breakthroughs and then suddenly they were like and it's a powerful like this crazy and then I was like okay stop and then we went into the deepest place of meditation. Because that's how it works. You have to shake it up and then bring it down. That's why when I say it's very good to meditate in the morning, first you need to do exercise. You need to stretch, you need to run, like get the body going, get everything and then you dive into that place of silence. This is what happened on Har Sinai on Shavuot. I spoke about it on Shavuot night, that there was fire and thunder and lightning and crazy stuff going and then suddenly silence. All over the whole universe it was silence. Angels didn't do anything, complete silence. And then out of the silence, Anochi Hashem Elokecha. A tzaddik once says that we heard Hashem's voice in our own voice. Everyone heard Hashem's voice in their own voice. Very cool because it's your highest self. It's your anochi, it's yourself that is tell say Anochi Hashem Elokecha. Your I is your God. Your real I, your anochi, not your ego self but the true essence of who you are, that's you. So it's vibrating within you. So on Friday, that's what it is. Friday you're running around, it's a mitzvah to run on Erev Shabbat. You want to run around, very exciting, you go to the shuk. Now when I'm in the shuk, especially in the summer you got all the Birthright groups and it goes. So I put on my yanuka music. It's very so I'm listening to meditation music walking through the shuk and I'm just like Shalom, may I have some fish please? Very nice. So I'm in these two worlds. But then when the time comes, it stops. And we settle down into this immense peace and then from there Kabbalat Shabbat. Now I'm ready to receive, I've prepared, I'm ready for this experience. ולכן צריך במיוחד להתכונן ביום שישי כדי לזכות לאור שבת כראוי. So you've really got to take this opportunity to get yourself ready on Friday. So you really got to take this opportunity to get yourself ready on Friday so that you can receive the immense highlight, the highlight of Shabbat, the highlight of the week. It's a very highlight. As Rabbeinu Ha'Arizal says in Sha'ar HaKavanos, כדי שיבוא יום השבת ימצאו מוכן, in order to when Shabbat comes it finds you ready. When Shabbat comes it finds you ready. I'm ready. Now the mashal, the analogy I always think of is imagine you're going somewhere and you arrive at the airport and you think someone's there to meet you. And it's quite exciting, you walk out with your trolley and you're like and you're just looking over and then suddenly you're like hi and they're like oh and maybe they've got a balloon and very exciting and you're just oh someone's there to meet me. You know the feeling you get when they're meant to be there to meet you and you walk out and you're like hi oh and you're looking around and you're like oh and you don't do you know what a letdown it is? It's just like oh and then suddenly they come running in and they're like I'm so sorry you know I got the and it's still nice but you've lost that moment. I also find, do you do this as well, when I go somewhere where I know for a fact there's no one there to meet me. There can't be, I'm just going to a random place there can't be I know I've got to get an Uber. You still kind of walk out and you kind of just think maybe someone might come to meet. Do you ever get that feeling? Just like maybe? So when Shabbat comes, does Shabbat come and then you're not there? So Shabbat feels like hey where but if you're there you're waiting you're ready, the mekubalim used to sit with their tallis over their head and just wait for Shabbat. Sit there. Everything ready. Table set. Everything ready. And they're sitting there and they're waiting for Shabbat to come. They clearly didn't have a wife and children and guests because that's impossible. I don't know how you do that. I can't do that like and then Shabbat comes so in order to receive you want to be found Shabbat needs to find you ready. And that's called Kabbalas Shabbat. That's called I've come to receive you. So if I'm not there to receive Shabbat then the Shabbat is not received. וכתב האריז\"ל כמה מיני הכנה יש בערב שבת לצורך שבת אם במחשבה אם בדיבור ומעשה. So fine we've been talking a lot about these three levels called the levushim, the garments of your soul which are thought speech and action. Thought speech and action they're the garments of your soul. They're how you express your soul in this world. The soul before it comes into into a body doesn't have definitely doesn't have action doesn't have a body. Doesn't have speech doesn't have a mouth really and even thought it's not caught up in thought it's in pure consciousness. Neshama is just chilling in pure consciousness. No thought speech action. And this is what deep deep meditation is by the way. When you're when you're in a deep state of meditation there's no action going on you're not doing anything and you're definitely not speaking but you've also now settled your mind there's no thought going on anymore so you've basically taken off the garments of your soul. So we speak a lot in my classes about cleaning the garments of your soul making sure your thought speech and action are clean and holy and uplifted. I want to have uplifted thought speech and action and that's very important that is the main avodah but there is an avodah of taking off the garments and then just revealing the naked essence of your pure divine essence. Yes that's what hafshatat halevushim means? That's why we also say there's an inyan to do teshuva on Friday. Now remember when you hear the word teshuva how should you feel? Heavy heavy and bad. When you hear the word teshuva you should immediately feel a bit heavy bad nauseous and traumatized. Wrong. Wrong. The word teshuva must be the most sweet music to your ears. It's the sweetest word that anyone could ever say. Hey come home to your dad who loves you. That's amazing. Teshuva is so sweet. We love teshuva. Anyone who understands what teshuva is so beautiful. It's like your dad wants you to come home doesn't matter how far you've gone how bad you've been you messed up your thought speech and action you're doing all the worst things ever the second you just say hey dad I want to come home he's like yes come I've been waiting for you to come home. So teshuva people think teshuva means saying I'm bad I'm bad I'm bad but that's not what teshuva means. Teshuva is the opposite. I'm good. Teshuva is saying I'm so good I'm so did I speak lashon hara a bit? I did but I'm still good and pure and beautiful and amazing and I have to do teshuva for that. I have to peel that away. I have remorse for doing that. That doesn't define me though. That doesn't define me. I'm so good, I'm so sweet. I don't know you that well, but you all seem alright. Me too, okay. So you got some bad character traits, so you should hate yourself, beat yourself up because you got bad character traits? Hashem gave them to you for you to work on. So you feel good about your good character traits, you feel good about your essence, you feel good about your struggle. By the way, you should feel good about your struggle. That you're struggling, many people have bad character traits and do bad things and they're not struggling with it. They're just enjoying it and doing it more. The fact that you struggle with your not-great parts, that shows how beautiful and sweet and amazing you are. So you should feel good about yourself that you're struggling with stuff. So teshuva's beautiful, but that's one of the things we're doing on Erev Shabbat is I just want to let go of anything that's separating between me and Hashem, between me and myself. Because from Hashem's point of view, nothing's separating. I'll take you as you are. Hashem says, I'll take you as you are. But it's hard for us to show up when we have guilt and shame and all that stuff. How do I feel good if you're struggling? That's what I feel. I feel good that I'm struggling. How? Because most people are not struggling with that stuff. When I say struggling, I don't mean mental anguish struggling. I mean I'm fighting, I'm fighting my Yetzer Hara. I'm wrestling with it. Is there a difference between the two when you just say... Usually, sometimes. What you heard when I said the word struggling was I'm mentally and emotionally struggling, I'm not dealing with life. That's not what I meant. I meant, for example, let's say someone is martial arts. And I'm, and I'm wrestling. I'll change the word from struggling to wrestling. How about that? Better. I'm wrestling. I'm internally, I'm not in anguish. But I'm wrestling with my lower side. But I feel good that I am doing that because most people are just feeding their lower side. So I feel good about myself that I'm trying. I had a student, he has a vice. And he just got to Yeshiva. He's been here for two months or something and he says, I fell last night. I fell for the first time in a month. I feel terrible. And I said before you came to Yeshiva, how often were you falling? And he was like, well, that's every day, that's what I did. So I said, don't you think that's amazing? Firstly, that you've only fallen once in a month. Let's make it a just easier example. You used to smoke 10 cigarettes a day. And then you stopped smoking for a month and then you had one cigarette. You now feel bad about yourself? You feel good about yourself that firstly, you don't do it as much and secondly, even when you do do it not as much, you don't, you wish you didn't do it. So I'm wrestling with that. I think Hashem really appreciates that. Appreciates that. But I don't think everybody who's struggling necessarily feels good about it. I know. That's because they haven't come to my class. So I think most people don't feel good about their struggle. I'm telling them you should feel good about your struggle. The fact that you're struggling shows you're on a high level because most people are doing that stuff and they're not struggling with it. They're just saying this is what I do and it's fun and I enjoy it and I'm going to do as much as I can. The fact that it matters, that you're trying to grow, you should feel good about yourself. So what I'm doing is, for example, with my wife, when every Thursday night we do a clearing. When we were first married. She's a social worker and she was like, there's a communication technique called a clearing that just gets rid of anything between us. So three questions for clearing. Number one, what's not working for you in our relationship? No blame, no shame, no I hate you, no we're getting divorced, just what's not working. So when you come home late without letting me know you're coming home late, that doesn't work for me. I don't think you're a bad person. I don't hate you. I don't want a divorce. It's just not working. I don't like that. Or when you leave the toilet seat up, your shoes, whatever it is. Can be little things, but that doesn't work for me. Second, what is working for you? So that's nice, positive reinforcement. I love the way you say that and it's cute when you do that. Very nice, positive reinforcement. The last question was, what are you holding on to? So it's very different. The first question is general habits. You come home late, whatever, you don't say thank you. And then what are you holding on to is an actual event or something. Like you said something in front of the guests that I found a bit embarrassing and I don't think it was appropriate for you to say that. Okay, what else are you holding on to? Well, I thought you were a bit too harsh on the kids the other day. You didn't need to scream. He's just three years old. You know, I thought that. You didn't say thank you enough for whatever, like things that happened that I'm kind of holding on to. And it's an amazing process and you can't interrupt. You can't say, well, but you did, you're leaving your socks out, right? It's just an amazing process of completely open vulnerability and safe space where... without getting attacked for it and without attacking you. And then that's most of the clearing is just that I have a safe space to express myself. And that usually clears most of it out. And if there's still something that's difficult, you know what, I don't want to come home late from work but sometimes I have to and I can't change that, that's okay, so we'll communicate about that. But once it's all on the table so now we cleared and we did that every Thursday night so that we could go into Shabbat clear. Now we don't have it, I'm not going into Shabbat holding on. People make a big mistake, I'm not giving a relationship class now, but some people say don't go to bed in an argument. Don't fall asleep in the middle of an argument. And I think that's the worst advice I've ever heard because sometimes you're 2:00 in the morning you're exhausted, it's not helping. Go to sleep and wake up refreshed and then try again in the morning. Whoever said that, I don't agree with it. Never fall asleep until you've resolved the issue. Ridiculous thing. You're just exhausted, it's gonna make it worse. Fine. But you don't do it anymore? We just do it naturally as we go along now. But when we were first married we had to have the... Also for me it felt like I was going to the principal's office. She's like, Dovi Ber we need a clearing. I was like, okay. I'll go up there. Okay what's not working for you? And then every time she said what's not working for you I said, you know what I'm cool. And then every time she said what is working for you I'd say all the good things and anything that would not be working for me I'd flip it into a positive. I like it when you do that, which she didn't do so often but it was the positive of the negative. So I never said anything, I said everything's fine with me and I love it when you do that. Nice, no? But it's actually not good. Separate point because you want emotional intimacy so you should say what's hard for you. But I'm a British man, British Monk, we don't have emotions, we don't know how to express them. So I just did that. What are you holding onto? I don't know. So I'm doing the same with Hashem. I'm having a clearing with Hashem before Shabbat. Brilliant. So I'm not coming into Shabbat with any baggage. I'm free, I did it. I let go. Now people also are too harsh on themself with their teshuva. People say how do I know that I've really done teshuva and my teshuva has been accepted? How do I know? Well the Rambam says very clearly, if you admit you did it and you feel remorse and you commit to try not doing it again, you're done. That's it. What, you gotta beat yourself up enough? I have to beat myself up for two weeks? No. Feel deep real true remorse and then you're done. That's what the Rambam says. You don't believe the Rambam? That's you're wrong. We say that teshuva is like going to a mikvah. How long do you have to be under the water of the mikvah to be pure? One second. But you have to be completely submerged. If you got one little finger sticking out, then you're not pure at all. But once you're completely submerged in the mikvah you're completely pure. So once you have one moment of true remorse, not I'm bad, but ouch, that hurt that I let myself down. Ah, that's done the teshuva, now you've washed away the klipa. You've washed it away and now you're free. And the yetzer hara says, no, you gotta do it more and you gotta beat yourself up more and you're so holy, the more you beat yourself up the holier... it's just weird and wrong. Don't do that. Yes. You're gonna have to do teshuva for doing teshuva like that. We need a... what's the source? Who made it up that Selach Lanu you beat your chest out? Selach Lanu, the beat, you just tap your chest because you're opening up your heart. You're saying, hey... No, I saw, you're not allowed to hit yourself hard. It bothers me so much. Like people at the Kosel, please, okay you want to do it, go to your corner with a padded room and do it, thank you very much, but not near me, I don't need to see you beating yourself up. Hashem. Good, we're so loving and compassionate. But you'll judge them favorably and say, wow, these people are really trying to serve Hashem as best as they can and they don't know, and how beautiful... But we say I'm hitting this, not saying I'm bad, I'm bad, I'm bad, it's saying I'm good. Hey heart, hey, heart, you in there? Wake up. You're so good, you're so full of love and joy, wake it up. I don't know who does the bash... you're not meant to bash. No, it's a... what is it? It's isn't it the existence that you have to call back? The our holy sages. Okay so what was their intention? That gentle tap. To what? To awaken your heart, awaken your inner sweetness. It's basically a heartbeat, it's a drip drip drip of water of your intention into your heart. Like Rabbi Akiva water on the drop, dripping, dripping. Just wake up, wake up. You're okay. In fact, what you could do it would be a nicer way, maybe we can do it like this, you can instead of going like that you go like this. Hashem nifkach li. It's okay. Like patting a baby on the back. It's like, you're okay. Ashamnu, bagadnu. It's also so sweet that we sing our confession. Ashamnu, bagadnu. What, are you crazy? You're confessing your sins by singing a sweet song? It's amazing. It's amazing. Imagine you go up to your wife and you're like, I cheated on you, I stole your wallet, and I checked all your WhatsApp messages, like with eye contact. So the Baal Shem Tov says, do you know why we do that? Because Hashem loves hearing sweet music. Hashem just, what sweeter tune is there than that? Hashem's like, ach, all right, I forgive you. You know what? If you're going to sing such a sweet nigun, I love you, it's cool, I forgive everything. So that's what we're trying to do. So we want to come into Kabbalat Shabbat fresh and pure. And we said on these three levels, machshava, dibbur, maaseh. So you want to purify your thought, you want to purify your speech, you want to purify your action. ענין המחשבה כבר נתבאר לעיל. We already spoke a lot about the machshava. שימי שישי תלוי במחשבה. So we did this two weeks ago, that each day of the week we're working on a different energy, tapping into a different energy. I'm very, very lacking Sefirat HaOmer. I don't know if any of you are, but we finished Maariv and I'm like, the Shema? Ah no! Where's Sefirat HaOmer? What a pleasure to have a mitzvah every single day and to say the word hayom every day and get to say a bracha every day and to say Ribono Shel Olam every single day. So I'm like, today is the 53rd day, which is seven weeks and four days of the Omer. So you can't do that. But you can tap into the fact that Sunday is all about holy thoughts, Monday is about holy emotions and speech, Tuesday's about holy action, Wednesday's about holy action, Thursday's about holy emotions and speech, and Friday's about holy thought. We spoke that nefesh, ruach, neshama, ruach, nefesh, nefesh, ruach, neshama. The whole week is just going in this flow. So by thought, we're going to be having holy thoughts. Sunday and Friday are all about holy thoughts. Monday and Thursday is about holy emotions and speech. Tuesday and Wednesday about holy actions. Now, we have to have holy thoughts, speech, and action all the time, every day, but there's a particular idea to think about these things. So what's today? Today is Yom Sheni. The energy of the day is Gevurah. Yesterday was Chesed, Yom Rishon is Chesed. Yom Sheni is Gevurah. What is Gevurah? Gevurah is restraint, self-control, and yirah. Chesed is unconditional loving-giving and ahava. And Gevurah is restraint and yirah. Yirah meaning reverence and respect. It's like I'm holding back. Ahava is I'm running towards Hashem with my arms open. And just running, and then like Hashem picks me up. You know when your kid runs towards you, it's the best thing ever. Your kid runs towards you, when I come home from shul, Shimshon runs into the street and I, and he's like, whee, and I pick him up and I throw him in the air. And sometimes I feel like Hashem's like doing that. That's ahava. Some people daven like this, I did it once. We don't tend to do it as Jews, but I was like, pick me up. Just felt like Hashem was going to pick, I felt like a little like seven-year-old going up to his abba and being like, pick me up. It felt very nice to feel that Hashem's just going to pick you up and hug you. But then there's yirah. Yirah is reverence, so there is some distance, there's some restraint, there's some Gevurah in yirah. And you have to have both, Avinu Malkeinu, and understand that the father is the king and the king's the father. But yirah doesn't mean fear, it means awesome respect, excited wonder. It's like, whoa. So that's the avodah for today. And ruach, today is where we're integrating the ruach level of our soul that we got from Shabbat before. And we're thinking about holy emotion, holy speech, and emotion today. Fine. דהיינו ביום שישי צריך לעסוק במחשבה קדושה ושייכת לענין הנשמה ולעורר בלבו מחשבה של אש תשוקה להשם. So what really thoughts should we really be trying to have on Friday? It's the thoughts' fiery enthusiasm for going to the King's palace. We're going to have dinner with the King. We're going to the palace. Amazing beautiful opportunity. Netiva Shalom says Shabbat we're going to Hashem's house for the meal. Yom Tov Hashem comes to our house for the meal. And then Chanukah and Purim is where we're in a very, very low place and the king comes down even into the low place with us. We're not in his house, he's not even in our house, we've fallen into a pit somewhere but the king comes down and sits with us in the pit, picks us up. Chanukah and Purim the highest. So that's what we're trying to think. We're trying to think. How is it? How does that, how do you differentiate between like Friday and Yom Tov? You said, I know Friday you said that you go to his house. Friday I'm getting ready to go to the king's house. Yom Tov, the Erev Yom Tov I'm getting ready for the king to come to my house. But why? Why is it different? He just says, I mean is there any? Yes because Shabbat is set by Hashem, it's kavua whereas Yom Tov is set by us. We choose when Yom Tov is so then we invite him to our house. I see. Hashem's coming to our house kids! Hashem's coming to our house. My kids always say, \"Do we have any guests?\" And I'm like, \"Yeah, Shechinah.\" They're like, \"No, but any real ones?\" Like what's more real than Shechinah? Are you crazy? You think people are more real than Shechinah? They're like, \"No, ones you can see and talk to.\" I'm like, \"You can talk to Hashem! Now shut up, give me food.\" Machshava of Bitul Hayesh. You want to be thinking about letting go of your ego. ולחשוב בשמות הקדושים כפי מדרגה fine, and also there's special different names of Hashem that you can imagine, whatever. ומה שעוד צריך האדם להיזהר לקנות כל צרכי שבת ביום שישי this is what the Arizal says, you should know that it's very, very important for you to buy all of your stuff for Shabbat on Friday. No Shabbat shopping on Thursday. Unless if you leave it all to Friday you're going to freak out and shout at your children, in which case buy it on Wednesday. Don't be so spiritual, \"Well the Arizal says Friday, so I'm going to say to my wife you're not allowed to do any baking or shopping at all on Thursday because the Arizal says Friday.\" And my poor wife is like, \"I'm leaving.\" I'm like, \"Okay forget the Arizal, you stay, I'll kick the Arizal out.\" But if you can do the Arizal without causing Shalom Bayis or financial problems or resentment problems, then buy, buy on, buy on Friday. I get up early, I get up early every day and I'm in the shuk, I'm in and out of the shuk before anyone else is there. It's good. Twelve o'clock in the shuk you got then you got no chance at that point so I'm in and out. Yeah so the Arizal says lo beyom chamishi. You shall not do your Shabbat shopping on a Thursday. Umvakeish yikneh and everything you buy you should say L'kovod Shabbat Kodesh. You're going to buy fish for Shabbat as you hand over the money you'll say L'kovod Shabbat. Now do you know what's so unbelievable about living in Israel is that that's what the shop owners say. Even if you forget they're like L'kovod Shabbat, L'kovod Shabbat, L'kovod Shabbat. It's so good here, everywhere they're so good, they're like L'kovod Shabbat, L'kovod Shabbat, L'kovod Shabbat, everything's L'kovod Shabbat. So good, everything's good here, it's amazing. People are living with Hashem here, it's amazing. I love it. You get the most chiloni taxi driver and you see him he's suddenly reeling off Tanakh and stuff and they're like \"Rav, what do you think about this?\" I'm like, \"I don't know, I teach like personal growth and meditation, I don't know real Torah stuff.\" He's like אבל זה כתוב ששמואל למה שמואל חשב שזה I'm like, \"I don't know.\" It's amazing, I love these people they're so holy, it's so, it's amazing. What happened? I got to try and remember something happened in the park the other day with someone who didn't look religious at all but then started talking and I just looked at my kids and I was like \"What do you know? Don't judge people on their externals.\" He's not wearing a kippah and tzitzis and he's got his tattoos on his this but how much he's yearning for Shabbat. This guy was just talking about Shabbat and \"I don't do this\" and \"we say,\" yeah it was very, it was very sweet. L'kovod Shabbat, everything L'kovod Shabbat. The famous story of Rav Levi Yitzchak, everything he ate before he ate he said L'kovod Shabbat, L'kovod Shabbat. He ate, everything he ate L'kovod Shabbat and every, his wife all food they made for Shabbat put the salt in L'kovod Shabbat. My wife does this as well very holy baruch Hashem. Everything she put salt in L'kovod Shabbat. Do this L'kovod Shabbat, every spice L'kovod Shabbat, everything she's doing put it in the oven L'kovod Shabbat. Doing this L'kovod Shabbat, cutting the carrots L'kovod Shabbat, L'kovod Shabbat, L'kovod Shabbat. And one day Rav Levi Yitzchak didn't eat the soup and they're like \"What's going on? Why is he not eating the soup?\" And they couldn't work it out and then his rebbetzin his wife suddenly realized she burst out laughing, she says \"Ah!\" Amazing I know what happened. We got this new girl working in the kitchen and I forgot to tell her to say likavod Shabbat when she was cutting the carrots or whatever, and the carrots in the soup and he can't eat it if it wasn't made likavod Shabbat. Very high level. But then he ate the soup to make sure that she didn't feel bad about it. High level because once again you don't want to be so spiritual that you're making other people feel bad. That's not good spirituality. So it says here, amnam pashut, it's very clear שעם מזה שהוא קונה ביום שישי ילחץ בביתו אזי יצא שכרו בהפסדו. It's obvious that if by forcing everyone to buy everything on Friday you're going to cause pressure in your house, it's obvious that you lose all the merit of it. ובודאי עדיף שיקנה ביום חמישי, obviously it's better to buy it on Thursday ויקיים את עניין המעשה ביום שישי בעניין אחרים. So you'll do other things on Friday but don't put cause pressure don't put pressure on other people to be all spiritual although most of the things that the Arizal says to do I'm like how on earth did they do that with a wife and children and get like unbelievable it is. Did he do these things on Thursday night that's after it's Yom Shishi? Is that really? They want it on like Friday morning, Friday morning, just the real reason is to show that this is for Shabbat. The closer you're doing it to Shabbat the more you you can see that this is for Shabbat. And then with people I don't know where this tradition comes from people have started like having cholent at 11 p.m. on Thursday night likavod Shabbat. I don't understand that myself. I don't get it. likavod Shabbat? אף שעיקר ההכנה היא פנימית, so even though the main intention getting ready for Shabbat is an internal thing ועניינה להכיר עוד ועוד באור השם יתברך, and what we're really trying to do is build ourselves up more and more to receive the light of Hashem, מכל מקום צריך לזה שיתדבק גם בדיבור וגם במעשה בפועל. The holy sages, the Tannaim would do things likavod Shabbat, cook the fish, clean the house, each person did what they did. So you might think I'm going to sit on my high level of spiritual meditation and I'll get the maids and everyone else to prepare the house and you're not so holy I'm afraid. You've got to be getting your hands dirty. I do the shopping and the chopping. That's my job. I do all the shopping and then I chop. I'm very good at cutting carrots and cucumbers very thin. Don't know how, Hashem gave me this one thing. I'm very good at cucumbers thin likavod Shabbat, likavod Shabbat, likavod Shabbat, likavod Shabbat, likavod Shabbat. And I was thinking do I have to say likavod Shabbat for each chop or just for each cucumber? Do you have to say for the this cucumber likavod Shabbat or does it just have to be likavod Shabbat, likavod Shabbat, likavod Shabbat, likavod Shabbat? So tell me it depends how I'm feeling that day but sometimes it's just likavod Shabbat, likavod Shabbat, likavod Shabbat, likavod Shabbat, likavod Shabbat, likavod Shabbat, likavod Shabbat, likavod Shabbat, likavod Shabbat, likavod Shabbat. Very holy carrots cucumbers beetroot save for the end you get hands then everything else becomes beetrooty garlic small garlic raw garlic in olive oil very good. So I'm the sous-chef. I get the fish in the tray basically I get everything set up fish in the tray meat in the pot all vegetables cut up and it's all there and then my wife just has to come in and like and then that's how it works. Shopping and chopping that's my role. likavod Shabbat kodesh. Let's just finish this quickly. kach שביום שישי אנו עוסקים בכל חלקי ההכנה. On Yom Shishi we are mitasek, involved in all types of hakhana, machshava שיעבוד ביום הראשון השישי and the dibbur and the ma'aseh. We're doing everything. Why is this? הטעם הוא כי ביום הזה מתקבצת כל העבודה של כל השבוע. On this day and we said this before we have your five primary middot, Chesed, Gevurah, tiferet, Netzach and Hod and then you have Yesod. Yesod is the channel and a manager. The Yesod chooses how much of each of these to channel down. So I'm going to pick out a little bit of Chesed and the so Yesod is the manager and the channel and then you have Malchut, Shabbat itself which is receiving, it's the Shekhina, it's the bringing it out into reality. So on Friday which is Yesod it's taking all the middot of Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday שהרי יום שישי הוא כנגד מידת היסוד ויסוד עניינה לקחת את הארת כל המידות. is to take the expression of all the character traits ולקבצם להיות דבר אחד מעשה and then bring them together, make an easel and a painting and bring it all together באופן שיהא אפשר לגלותו בפועל על מידת המלכות and then we can reveal it Ki Machshava Levada if you only think stuff Af Shekocha Atzum even though the machshava has an amazing power וההכנה במחשבה היא חשובה עד מאוד מכל מקום אין זה השלמות you could be as we just said you could be sitting in your big deveikus God consciousness sitting under my tallis but if the kids are like killing each other and the floor's dirty and your wife is freaking out and you're like no I will be receiving the Shabbat I'm under my tallis it's like Hashem doesn't want that Hashem's gonna suffocate you in your tallis it's like you go and clean the floor as I always say to my students very very very I think you should go to the mikvah every day guys I don't see any reason why not to but at least before Shabbat okay a ridiculous thing not to go into Shabbat without going to the mikvah whatever we could there's a whole page and we're not going to learn it together in this class whole page is on the mikvah so for me very very very important to go to the mikvah Friday and if I don't I can feel I feel not pure and my kiddush is not as good but if it's 15 minutes before candle lighting and we got 10 guests coming and the kids aren't dressed and the floor's not washed and everything and I say to my wife at that point you know what I'm out of here I'm going to the mikvah Hashem doesn't like that mikvah you drown in that mikvah Hashem what you do is you send your wife upstairs you say why don't you go and have a shower I'll take care of the kids I'll dress the kids I'll wash the floor I'll get the candles ready that's what real spirituality is is to mevatel to nullify your own I think it has to be this way that's why the word for to go to the mikvah is litbol which is the same letters as bittul to nullify yourself to drown yourself and you can just get the mop and you splash it over your head that'd be a mikvah that's fine and then when you're making kiddush having not been to the mikvah because you were you nullified yourself to your wife and children then that's the best mikvah ever Hashem's like that's the holiest kiddush ever when you go Shabbat morning you make up for it אלא צריך להוריד את ההשגה והאור אל הפועל you have to take the divine understandings and light that you reach through your high thoughts and your prayer but then bring that into the world by cutting the carrots there's nothing holier than cutting carrots for Shabbat Rabbi Nachman says כל העולם כולו גזר צר מאוד the whole world is a very narrow carrot that was a joke but you get it ולעשות מעשים שמבטאים אותו you have to do actions Jewish spirituality is all in the action show up do the clean the floor there's nothing holier than cleaning the floor taking out the garbage awesome you let your wife take out the garbage you're crazy women don't take out the garbage you take out the garbage when I was getting married someone said to me you know what the choson he's domeh lemelech he's compared to a king compared to a king and no one tells the king to take out the garbage so you better take it out before she tells you otherwise you're not gonna be the king I also said how long are you domeh lemelech how long are you compared to a king for as long as you treat your wife like a queen and then everything alright Shabbat Shalom.