Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Shabbat Shalom! Rav Dov Ber Cohen explores the inner meaning of Kabbalat Shabbat — not merely as a liturgical sequence, but as a genuine act of receiving. He opens with the teaching that Shabbat is a
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, shalom, so we're talking about Kabbalat Shabbat. We've got up to Kabbalat Shabbat, just speaking about Shabbat, because what else is there to speak about, really? Everything is really בחינת שבת. The whole of life, Shabbat is the whole purpose of life. Shabbat means to be present with Hashem, to be present with ourselves, to be present with other people, to be present with Hashem. And when we're truly present, we have the two things that define Shabbat, kedusha and menuchah. kedusha and menuchah. kedusha means conscious spiritual presence, and menuchah means deep well-being. A deep physical, emotional, mental and spiritual sense of, \"I've arrived, there's nowhere to go, there's nothing to do, I'm just fully here. Completely, I'm here. All of me is here, together.\" And that's why we say Shabbat Shalom, because shalom means peace and perfection, and we achieve peace and perfection by becoming present. And that's what Shabbat is doing. And then we said we want to keep Shabbat all through the week. And then we said Friday is all about preparing, making a kli, making a vessel to receive the lights that are coming down on Shabbat. Then we said minchah on ערב שבת is the highest part of the week, it's the pinnacle of the week. That minchah just before Kabbalat Shabbat is very special, very powerful minchah. And then we go into Kabbalat Shabbat. And we did a whole series on candle lighting. Then we go we're now talking about Kabbalat Shabbat. And we said yesterday that we have to receive. You have to be You have to be open to receiving what Shabbat is. We said we don't have קבלת פסח, we don't have קבלת ראש השנה, קבלת We don't have קבלת anything else. We have Kabbalat Shabbat, because Shabbat is a מתנה טובה יש לי בבית גנזי ושבת שמה. Hashem says, \"I got a very special gift, and it's Shabbat.\" And what that really means is it's me. It's me. Hashem's greatest gift himself to us is himself. As we said on Shavuot, which is also מתנה, מתן תורה, that's why we have קבלת התורה. You have to mekabel, you have to receive it. Hashem's giving himself to us. And during the week we're so caught up in doing everything we're doing during the week that we it's hard to be truly present. So Shabbat is 25 hours of of immense presence, hopefully, be'ezrat Hashem. So we start Kabbalat Shabbat with a song called Yedid Nefesh. And I was at a Shabbat meal about 6 years ago, and there were these two Israelis there. And they'd been to the army and now they're backpacking around India and they got they got very, very into Hinduism. Very into Hare Krishna. They went to I went to Vrindavan, which is the temple, the main temple for that sect. And there's a type of a path called Bhakti. Bhakti. The path of Bhakti means the path of devotion. There's different paths: there's Raja Marga, which is the path of meditation. There's Jnana Marga, which is the path of intellect, studying the Upanishads and the scriptures. There's Karma Marga, which is the path of conscious action. And then there's Bhakti Marga, the path of Bhakti, which is devotion. Just pure, like, trance-like prayer, connection. And that's the one that they they went to, just a pure God worship, worshipping the deity, and it's very, very powerful. We have to understand, very, very important. You go into a Buddhist temple in Thailand, you're immediately struck with a deep sense of serenity and presence. You just walk in there, it's like presence. You walk into a Hindu temple, and you're carried away in an ecstatic God worship, like amazing! You walk into a shul, you're like, \"What are these people doing, really?\" Right? Bobbing up and down a bit, looking out the window, looking at their watches, like mumbling the same thing that they mumbled yesterday, and you get davent. Rav Soloveitchik says, \"Many Jews, they don't want to pray, they want to have prayed. I got it I got it out the way.\" So we got we got to think what's going on here. If you have a spiritually seeking, conscious, secular Jew, and you could take him to a Buddhist temple, your average shul, and a Hindu temple, he's not going to shul. I'm not going to shul. Who wants to go to shul? Now, you want to come to my shul on Yom Kippur, 6:00 in the morning till 8:00 at night, mamash ecstatic worship with meditation, with everything, just a like That's what you want to do, but not every shul is like that. So, I was sitting at this Shabbat table with these people, and they said, \"You know, we're into bhakti.\" Bhakti. And there's bhakti yoga, there's bhakti, the path of devotion. So, I said to them, \"I'll just tell you the truth that Judaism is the perfect divine synthesis of all of the four paths of yoga.\" Yoga means unification, by the way. That's what yoga means. Unification. It's not just the postures. The postures are only one step on Patanjali's eight steps of yoga. Maybe we'll give you a class on that one day. But anyway, we have them all, don't worry. So, I said Karma Marga, the path of action, that's what mitzvot are, being so present in our actions. That's what mitzvot, and really chesed is, as well. It's so present in my action. I'm doing I'm putting on my tefillin, but I'm so putting on my tefillin. When I'm putting on my tefillin, I'm so doing it. I'm so doing When I'm lighting my Shabbat candles, when my wife's lighting her Shabbat candles My seventh anniversary today, mazal tov. So, when we light the Shabbat candles, you're just so I'm just lighting my Shabbat candles. It's the seventh of Tamuz? Seventh of Tamuz is my anniversary. Today is my birthday. Oh, wow! Happy birthday! Mazal tov! I forgot to look at the Hebrew calendar so Seventh of Tamuz, your birthday and my anniversary. Baruch Hashem. So, what are you doing for your anniversary? We're going to have a picnic for lunch together in the park in about an hour. And we'll see, you know? I bought her a really cool thing, which is a fold-up wooden rocking chair that pull cuz she we had whatever she has an art studio and and it pulls out and you can lie back of it, and that, and it's got a little massage thing. A very, very cool, wooden, perfect, bamboo and wood, amazing fold-back rocking chair. And she didn't want it. But she said it in a really nice way. She said, \"Look, Dubby Bear, that's you know, the thought, and you really thought about it, and it really meaningful, and I know why you got it for me cuz you know I like to do this and everything, but I don't want it.\" That's how good our relationship is, by the way, that she felt that she could do that and I'd accept it. So, I burnt the chair. No, I didn't. So I took it That'd make a great bonfire. I did I got I get 17 and you're I took it back already cuz it's from the top of the road, but I got a voucher to buy other stuff in that shop. She loves that shop. Like bamboo, wicker work. Are you going to get her something else? No. You know what? I feel I kind of got away with it, cuz I I got away I got the and Do you know what I mean? I did get away with it. And I got 17 roses. 17 roses plus this it was a very thoughtful, amazing gift. So, I got what I needed out of the gift. So, I don't now need to get her something else. She said she want she needs a bigger blender. And I'm like, \"Okay.\" But I'm not going to walk home with a blender Here we go, here's a blender. But she's going to be very happy with the blender. This is a very healthy marriage. I'll tell you why. Because firstly, we can communicate like that, and secondly, like you're meant to buy your wife something before Pesach, Shavuos, and Sukkos. So, I used to spend a long time shopping, and I didn't know, and synthetic material or real material, and this, and I was like In the end, she was like She said to me, \"Look, I love shopping, and you hate shopping. So, I'll just buy myself something from you.\" And I was like, \"That is so good. That is so good.\" Cuz otherwise, I'm going to end up trying to shop, get you something you don't really want, but give you the receipt so you can go and change it anyway. And then I get her something little as a thought, as the thought that this is really from me. But we're so happy with that arrangement. I'm like, \"It's a win-win.\" I don't have to shop, and you get to shop and get exactly what you want. So, will you do it again? What? I mean, I Now, I'm going to buy the chair again next year, as well. That is an amazing method now, how it worked out. No, if she does the shopping, you're just going to let her do that, or you're not you bought her a gift this time, though. Wait. No. For the anniversary, I always buy her something. But I didn't know I went to jewelry shops, and I just like just don't I can't do this. So, it really worked out really well. And I think she's going to get the I don't know, she'll get a blender, and she'll be happy, and I'll be happy. And then she'll she'll make me a smoothie with the blender. Kickboxing diet. So fine. Back to our prearranged topic. Fine. So then we have that's the karma yoga, that we have to be very conscious in our actions. But then we also have jnana yoga, which is the path of intellect. And I'm like, that's what Torah learning is. We're going into the This isn't the Upanishads. The Torah's from before the Upanishads and the Vedas, my friends. We're going to go very, very deeply into to 70 layers of meaning in the Torah, at least four we got: the peshat, remez, derash, and sod here. We're going to be learning the פנימיות התורה. What is it really saying? What's really good? Raja yoga, which is the path of meditation. And like we got we got deep meditation, נשימה נשמה, the path, we got Abulafia meditation, we got Rabbi Shimon, we got we got that covered. Bhakti, this is what nigunim is. Nigunim, you you sit on a Friday night, eyes closed, light the lights have gone out, but the candles are still playing, and you're just singing nigunim. Also very important when you sing a nigun with words to carry on singing when the words finish, because then it takes it to the next level. It's the same tune. The words are very important because the words are really holy, uplifting, spiritual words. But once the tune is finished, you keep going for a few rounds with no words, because now we've gone beyond the words. We've gone from the קטנות, from the focused-ness of words into like גדלות, where the music is just going straight into my neshama. So when you're if you're ever leading the davenen, to understand that you're you're meant to be guiding. The prayer leader is not meant to be, it's not a concert, you're not showing off how good your voice is. You're meant to be guiding people into an experience. In fact, the prayer leader is called the chazan, and a chazan means the visionary. I have a vision. חזון ישעיהו. But definitely after you've sung the whatever it is, קל אדון, you want to be singing after that, long. So our davenen of Shabbat morning, like four hours Shabbat morning davenen, and it's so good. It's just so good, and people are like, \"Oh my goodness, how can you do that for four hours?\" You can go to a shul where they daven for two hours, it feels like four hours. We daven for four hours, it feels like two hours. Well, because we're really there, we just want to be there. And amazing it's amazing singing, amazing, Baruch Hashem. What else are you going to do for four hours on Shabbat morning? What What is there to do, apart from sing? And so that's what nigunim is, but I said I I pulled out a siddur and I showed them Yedid Nefesh. You want some bhakti yoga? Yedid Nefesh, beloved of my soul. ידיד נפש אב הרחמן, my my compassionate Abba, my compassionate I've got this book, my wife got me a book many, many years ago which breaks down all of the Shabbat songs, all the commentaries, all the פנימיות on all the Shabbat songs. It goes through שלום עליכם, everything in שלום עליכם, כל מקדש, שביעי, and it breaks down I I was going to bring it today, to I was going to give a whole class just on Yedid Nefesh today. Not happening, but there's it's an amazing thing. It says it says נפשי חולת אהבתך, my soul is sick for your love, my I'm yearning. And just like the Rambam says that you're meant to be חולה ומשוגע. You're meant to be sick and crazy for Hashem, sick and crazy for Hashem. It's a very, very high level, like this lovesick, now. You know when you love someone, like a teenage love, you're just like There was a a guru, the hugging mother, you remember, Ammaji? I know her name. In India, the hugging mother. She had a big ashram in the south. I went to see, I got a hug from her. It was a bit sweaty, but But there's videos of her, she used to like just go go into this crazy trances when from when she was a kid, just screaming like for her god, and she'd like But that's really what we're meant to be feeling. You're really meant to be feeling like Very, very difficult to actually get to that place, but just singing about it does enliven a little spark within us, hopefully. Because your neshama is sick for Hashem's love, your נפשי חולת. My soul is yearning, and needing, and lacking, and I just can't stop thinking, I'm just obsessed. We're meant to be obsessed with Hashem. And the book says actually that the six days of the week is the choleh, where I'm yearning. It says, \"אז תתחזק ותתרפא,\" but then Shabbat comes in and then I'm strengthened a bit because Shabbat, Hashem is more revealed, so it's easier to feel that, with nowhere to go. This is why late Friday nights, singing in the dark, long third meals, long third meals, just singing, just singing nigunim over and over again, is so good, so healthy. So I showed them the beloved of my soul. Says, \"ידיד נפש אב הרחמן... נפשי חולת אהבתך.\" And then we call ourselves עבדך. עבדך means your servants. But we just called Hashem our Father, Hashem's our Father, usually father is has a son. But the book also says no, first we have to be humble, and we have to subjugate ourselves and be like an עבד to the אדון. We have to be like a servant to the Master. Says that the Ari zal used to speak to Hashem for three hours a day: one hour as a servant to a master, one hour as a son to a father, and one hour as a lover to a lover. Ha-Ari z"l. I don't have time to that, so I'll do one minute of each. But that's okay, that's still okay. Do one minute, do one minute, do two minutes, do whatever you can. But we need to be speaking to Hashem, and the whole song, it's amazing, נכסוף נכספתי, I'm yearning, a deep yearning. Basically, what we're doing as Shabbat comes in, קבלת שבת, is we're tapping into yearning. We're just yearning. Does every shul do that? I mean I know your shul, but does every shul sing ידיד נפש? Not every shul does that. ידיד נפש, and there's so many, they're like, they're at least five awesome ידיד נפש tunes that you can choose from, and then a different one for third, we sing ידיד נפש for third meal as well. ידיד נפש, and I think for many people, as soon as they get to shul and as soon as ידיד נפש starts, it's just like ah. Especially in yeshivah, we definitely feel that. ידיד נפש does: ידיד נפש... And you're like, okay, להבדיל אלף הבדלות, when I used to go clubbing, you know, you get there and that tune comes on, and you're just like, okay, now I'm coming up here. It's the same, ידיד נפש comes in, you're like, okay, we're starting, the journey is beginning. Everything everything's behind me. I can't answer any emails now, I can't check my phone, it's gone. I'm now being transported into this portal of presence, קדושה, אהבה, מנוחה, מנוחה ושמחה. מנוחה ושמחה... I think maybe we'll speak about this in another class, that the real עונג שבת, we were speaking about עונג שבת being food in a way, the real עונג שבת is להתענג על השם. We should we should get immense delight in Hashem. How do we do that? It's the nigunim, the songs, zemirot, very, very important. Because obviously, the Rambam and the halacha said עונג שבת is food. But really, the deeper ספרים say the food is just to bring your body along. It's like feeding the animal so that the animal is happy, so that the neshama can now just להתענג על השם. Netivot Shalom says it's like the son of the king, the prince, went to live in the town. But every week he got a letter from the king saying how much I love you and and I'm with you, and he's very The prince is happy, so every week he showed everyone in the town, he said, \"The king's We got a letter from the king! The king loves us, and it's amazing! We got a relationship with the king! We can go and visit the king! The king's invited We're the king!\" And no one really cares about the king or the letter. So it's a bit letting it lets Every week he gets a bit let down. So then he comes up with an amazing plan. He says, \"I'm going to make a feast every week called the feast of the letter of the king. I'm going to invite everyone in town. And at the feast of the letter of the king, we're going to have amazing food, we're going to have wine, all the all the food you could possibly want, and wine, everything. And I'm going to invite everyone to the feast of the letter of the king. And then during the feast of the letter of the king, I'm going to read the letter of the king.\" So all the townspeople they show up, they're like, \"Brilliant! It's a feast of the letter of the king!\" And they got all food and they got their wine and they're drinking, and they're just So the townspeople are very, very happy now. They got all this amazing food and wine. And then the king's son gets out the letter and said, \"And now we got the letter of the king!\" And everyone's like, \"Yeah, the letter of the king! The feast of the letter of the king!\" And he reads the letter: \"The king loves us!\" And they're like, \"Yeah!\" So he says, that's a mashal for the body and the soul. The body isn't that interested in Shabbat. No, not so interested in Shabbat. But the soul is all about Shabbat. But the soul has to deal with this little animal, annoying thing. So it pays it off. It's really the feast of the letter of the king, so it's the the village people. It's the village people. So that's what the body is. So that's when it says עונג שבת is nice food, it's that's oneg for your guf. Your body gets oneg from nice food. Your soul does a bit, by the way. We're going to see that the soul actually gets pleasure from Shabbat food. We always say in general during the week, why do we make One of the reasons we make berachot, I'd like to give a whole berachah class one day, but one of the reasons we make berachot is because the food feeds the body and the berachah feeds the soul. The food isn't doing anything for the soul, it's keeping the body strong and healthy so that you can serve Hashem, which is good for the soul. But actually Shabbat food itself directly feeds the soul, cuz Shabbat food is like a korban. It's a It's There's a lot of good things. It's like bringing a korban, and the table is like the mizbe'ach. And that's why we have the salt is on the mizbe'ach and the wine on the mizbe'ach, very special. So Shabbat food is very, very important, but really the ikar, ikar ta'anug, oneg on Shabbat is singing. Now if you can't sing, that's okay, you can close your eyes and breathe and listen to other people sing. Please don't try and sing if you can't sing, it ruins it for And if you can't do that, you can bang on the table a bit. You can bang a little bit on the table. But the nigunim are the key. The nigunim are the key. So here we go. והנה כבר נהגו ישראל לומר קבלת שבת. We have this minhag in Yisrael to to to say קבלת שבת. Now, did Hashem tell us to say קבלת שבת? Is it anywhere? Is there any halacha about that? No, we made it up, which makes it extra special. Makes it extra special because we're saying we want to do this extra thing. We want to do this extra thing. I think Hashem loves קבלת שבת more than any other tefillah, in a way, 'cause other tefillot we kind of have to do it. This is like, it's just a whole extra thing. From, most people think about 500 years ago, the Ari zal time, they started doing this whole thing. So where do we learn it? שורש הדבר כבר נזכר בגמרא. The Gemara also says בואו ונצא לקראת שבת. Come, and let's go out in honor of Shabbat. There's got to be something. We got to go out and greet Shabbat. We got to leave, we got to get out, go. Like if if someone you love is coming to the airport, you don't wait for them to come to your house, you go and you meet them at the airport. I'm coming to meet, I'm proactively coming to meet you. And what they used to do a lot is to go out into the fields. They used to go בחוץ בשדה to show how much they appreciate it. לקבל את פניה. Now Shabbat is different to everything else in Judaism. Shabbat is given a personality: the שבת כלה or the שבת מלכה. Shabbat is called the queen. Shabbat is called the bride. Pesach isn't called the something. Nothing else is called Nothing else is personified. The only thing that's personified is Shabbat itself. It's got this It's basically the Shechinah. The Shechinah is coming and we're waiting to welcome the Shechinah is coming. לקבל את פניה, to receive her face. We're coming to receive her. כי עתה בכניסת השבת השכינה מתגלה בעולם, because now as Shabbat comes in, the Shechinah is being revealed in the world. כי בימות החול הוא מכוסה, because during the week, it's covered up more. ועתה היא מתגלית, לכן זה נחשב שהיא עכשיו מגיעה. So the Shechinah's around, but it's more covered up, but now as Shabbat is coming in, it feels like she's arriving. Shabbat she's arriving. She's coming. Very excited. And we really said at the beginning, the whole of life is about relationship. And there's a famous Midrash that every day has a זוג, every day has a partner: יום ראשון with יום רביעי, Sunday and Wednesday, they're partners; Monday and Thursday are partners; Tuesday and Friday, they're partners. And we said before, because on Sunday it said let there be light, and on Wednesday, it says the sun was created. On Monday it said let there be sea and sky, on Thursday fish and birds. On Tuesday it said let there be land, on Friday animals and humans. So they were all paired The other days are paired up. But then Shabbat says to Hashem, \"Hey Hashem, where I don't have a זוג, I don't have a partner.\" And Hashem says, \"עם ישראל, the Jewish people, they are your בן זוג, they're your beshert. You're created to be together. Two halves of one soul.\" So that's what we're doing. We're We're inviting the Kallah. You're going to We're all getting Every Friday night, we're getting married. וכשהמלכה מגיעה, and when the queen comes, צריך לקבל את פניה, you have to receive her. You don't just let her come, you got to be there ready to receive her. כי לא יתכן שהמלך יאיר אור יקרות והמלכה תבוא ותתגלה ואין איש שם על לב, שם שם על לב. So it can't be that the the king and the queen, the royalty, they're they're arriving, and they're revealing, and there's no one who's paying attention to that? ובאמת כל לב יהודי מרגיש את ההארה שבאה לעולם. And it's true that in your heart, in your soul, every Jew feels Shabbat. Every Jew, what whatever it is, this is why it's so special living in Israel, because even the most secular Jew, they're saying \"Gut Shabbat, Shabbat\" Well, not \"Gut Shabbat\" Shabbat Shalom, Shabbat Shalom. It's Shabbat. Everyone knows it's Shabbat, whether we're keeping, whether we're not keeping, today's Shabbat. And after Shabbat everyone says Shavua Tov. Everyone knows it's Shabbat. ובאמת כל לב יהודי מרגיש את ההארה, ורואין אור השם יתברך מתפשט בכל דבר. ואיך, and how Hashem's light is actually within everything. ואיך מרננים כל העצים ועשבי השדה לפני השם כי בא. And how like the whole world, it's not only the Jewish people, although we're meant to be the main ones, it's the whole world. The whole world is very excited for Shabbat. So the leaf, the trees, the whole the whole of creation, this is the this was the pinnacle of all of creation. Hashem created and then pulled the curtain back, so the whole of the universe is now buzzing on a much higher level as Shabbat comes in. וזה העבודה שלנו. So what is our avodah? להכניס, לחשוב, להרגיש, איך עכשיו מתגלה שכל הבריאה מלא באור השם יתברך. So what we're actually trying to do when we're singing, very very important when you're singing Kabbalat Shabbat, to not forget Hashem. I mean serious, people like forget Hashem. Sometimes you see some minyanim where they're ay yay yay yay yay yay yay yay yay yay yay yay turned into like a football chant. It's like, dudes, it's not football, like. Now, obviously we judge them favorably and say, look at these beautiful Jews with their amazing Jewish identity, but you got to make sure are these people actually receiving the Shechinah at this point, or they it's just we could be we could be at a Zusha concert. It's just a great Matityahu concert. So we got to be balanced. I had one Rabbi, Rav Barry Klein, he said, \"You guys, you're not really, truly spiritual.\" He was the best, he was amazing. \"What are you talking about?\" He goes, \"You know the highest part of your week, the most spiritual part of your week is Shacharit when it's the repetition and then the the chazan says, hoy me yay yay, עמך, wa wa, עמך, yay yay, and you're sitting there like He goes, \"But you're not actually thinking about Hashem, you're just like feeling good.\" He was very good He was a very good musar for us. And he goes, \"And do you know how I know it's true? Because if the guy didn't sing a song, you get all upset with him.\" He said, \"Right? No, you should be Or if he sings a nigun that you don't like, you're like, 'Oh, I hate that.' It's just because you like the nigun! Mazal tov, you like the nigun! So you enjoyed the nigun, so you went to a Zusha concert.\" So now, that really hit me, because I like I do that. So now, anytime there's a nigun at Kabbalat Shabbat that I'm really enjoying, I speak to Hashem during it. I say, \"Hashem, amazing. The nigun The music of the nigun is just awakening my neshama and awakening my heart, and creating It's like a love song. It's a love song, but it's about You, Hashem. It's not about breathing deeply through my nose, it's about You. It doesn't just turn into a we're dancing round. It's great Jewish unity, and it's a good Jewish identity, which is very important. That's another important The Kotel's amazing when you got you got charedim and soldiers all dancing together. That's a beautiful beautiful amazing thing. We just got to make sure Hashem's also there. Got to bring Hashem into everything we're doing. So that's the our actual avodah is to feel, to think and feel how now the the world we're in a whole different world. We're literally a completely different spiritual reality. The world we're in a different place. It's not like it's just another day of the week. We we've entered a different realm of being. We've raised our whole We know that there are these four main worlds: עשיה, יצירה, בריאה, and אצילות. We've literally we're now living in a different reality. Shabbat is a different reality. That's why we can't do the things we can't do on Shabbat, that's because we're not here, we're in a different place. So you and everything else we're doing to get ready for Shabbat we're not What's muktzeh all about? You can't touch that, you can't touch It's just to understand we're in a completely different world. The purpose of muktzeh is all about mindfulness. It's just being mindful. You don't need to touch that pen, because what's that got to do with Shabbat? So it's not meant to be all neurotic and uptight and weird, and I can't touch this, and I It's just helping you become superconscious that we're in a different day, that the pen is a different reality now. The whole of reality is different. שכל הבריאה מלא באור השם יתברך, the whole universe and everything in it is just filled with Hashem's light. וכולו כלי לאורו, and everything is just a is just a vessel to reveal Hashem's light. That's what we're trying to do. Now, by this time you've already like freaked out because of the Shabbat candles. So you looked at the Shabbat candles and your neshama is on fire. So by the time you even walk into shul, You're already like lit up. That's what the Shabbat candles did. Now I'm a light, now I'm going into shul, and now I'm just taking that light, going higher and higher with the light. ומסתכל על הבריאה, וממלא את לבבנו באמונה ואור ושמחה והתגלות כבודו. And therefore we're filling up our hearts with emunah, and with light, and with joy. Very important. We need to be going into these things with immense joy, letting go of everything and tapping into true simcha. Just a true simcha of being a Jew. I always think, it's hard when you raise religious kids who were born in Jerusalem, I'm like, we're keeping Shabbat in Yerushalayim. I'm some secular Jew from North London, and and I've now got my kids with פאות and בית יעקב, and and they're not seem to be as excited about Shabbat in Yerushalayim as me. Coz it's like, \"Yeah, what do you mean? That's what we do.\" I'm like, you don't understand what it is, what we're doing here. ולבטל בלבבנו את הבריאה מצד עצמה, ולראות איך הכל זה רק אור השם, ואין עוד מלבדו. And then we're mevatel-ing, we're Knowing that it's there is good enough. To say, \"I know that my soul is enjoying this. I know that there's a higher level in the world. I'm not feeling it. I'm not tapping into it, but that's that's okay. It's hard. I have my worries. I have my stuff going on, but just being aware of it, that's a very high level already.\" And in fact, that's the petach. That's the opening to maybe just start feeling a little bit, not with no pressure. \"I'm meant to feel this, I'm meant to do this, I'm meant\" No pressure. Just to know it's available, it's there. והלב נסער ומתפעל, so your heart is awakened and enlivened. מעיד על ההכרה והשגה. Your your heart is awakened with a recognition and a little bit of grasp of what's really going on. שירו להשם שיר חדש. We're singing to Hashem a new song. Important that every single week we say, \"שירו להשם שיר חדש.\" Is it a new song, by the way? No. We sang it last week, and the week before, and the week before, and the week before. And דוד המלך wrote it about 3,000 years ago. And you know what? Most people sang it to the same tune the week before and the week So how can you say, \"שירו להשם שיר חדש\"? שירו להשם שיר חדש. So the answer is it's definitely new. It's definitely new, first hopefully you're new. Hopefully you're a new person, you see things deeper, you've been through more things this week, you've refined yourself more. Everything's new. Every You you need to be new all the time. It's a new me singing this song. It's a new way that I relate to this song. So also I our shul we don't have a set this song for this thing. It's just whatever comes. Well, we often have similar songs, but whatever In fact, the person who set up the shul, Rabbi Raz Hartman, who is a בעל תפילה ממש, he actually once said to me, \"I'd rather you didn't sing a nigun than force one.\" Don't feel, \"I need to sing a song for this thing to sound good,\" or whatever. If it's not coming from your heart, just you can say the words, that's fine. But the most important thing is to mean, mean what you're saying. Yes? Why does it say that תפילת קבלת שבת is בתוך שמחה ובתוך מיעוט הבנה? Why does it say that? How is that... How can it be both? I I think he's saying that we're not perfect, and you're okay still. But we should do our best, and no one's perfect, we have מיעוט הבנה, a little bit, and even that's okay. ואנו מקבלים את התגלות השכינה בשירה וזמרה ושמחה, and we receive the revelation of the Divine Presence with song and simcha. It's going to be very exciting. I'm very excited that Shabbat is coming. We're singing this amazing song. כי הלא לזה אנו מצפים כל הזמן. Isn't this what we've been waiting for? מתי אבוא ואראה פני אלוקים. When am I actually going to get to have a real, open, true, personal, palpable relationship with Hashem? So that's what we were we're yearning for all Shabbat. That's why we all week, so that's why we said what we do during the week, the more we're yearning for Shabbat, the more special it is when it comes in. We made it special. We're excited, we're looking forward to it, so that when it comes it's very exciting, it's very special. When my mom's coming to visit, my mummy is coming to visit, that's very special. I'm very excited, my mom's coming, mom's coming. I talk about it with the kids all the time, \"Granny's coming, Granny's coming,\" we're getting the room ready, what we're going \"Granny's coming.\" And then we go to the airport together, we're going to go and collect Granny from the airport. We love Granny. We're very exciting. So the more we speak about Granny coming, the more exciting it is when Granny walks out at the airport and we all run and we jump on Granny and we love Granny. So this is what we This is how we're meant to feel. Okay, we'll carry on with Kabbalas Shabbat tomorrow. There's a lot to do about Kabbalas Shabbat. Be'ezras Hashem, should we all be zocheh to mekabel, to be true receivers of everything that Hashem wants to give us. Gut Shabbat.