Be Delighted. Keep Shabbos.

On Shabbat the tzaddik delivers lechem mishneh. (The term lechem mishneh refers to the “double bread,” the two loaves of challah on which the homotzi blessing is recited at each of the three Shabbat meals.) This lechem mishneh is Mishnah Torah which gives you the privilege of generating new Torah insights that are “two for one.”
The tzaddik uses the holiness of Shabbat to deliver Torah lessons that contain eye-opening and lofty teachings. In these teachings you can find a lot of ethical instruction, motivation to be awe-inspired and new levels of comprehension for understanding the truth. This is what is meant by the term chidushei Torah, new Torah insights. Because when you listen sincerely to these teachings you are infused with new awareness of Hashem and powerful inspiration to live by the Torah.
If you truly hear these Torah teachings, you become a new person—your perception and wisdom are brand new. This is why the teachings are new Torah insights.
The holiness of Shabbat has a number of positive effects. One, it generates fullness of blessing in all the spiritual worlds, including ours. Second, it permeates every single level of serving Hashem with enlightenment. That means that even ordinary people, even those who aren’t considered God-fearing, glow with increased wisdom and perception for understanding Torah and faith. This doesn’t happen by itself. The Jew has to keep Shabbat as prescribed by the Shulchan Arukh, sincerely, for the sake of Heaven.
Keeping Shabbat honestly and sincerely makes one worthy of both spiritual and physical healing.

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You can make Shabbat shine. How? By keeping Shabbat properly and feeling the spiritual delight it gives. This awakens in you a desire to return to Hashem out of love, teshuvah m’ahavah. Keeping Shabbat properly triggers within you a love for Hashem so deep that you just want to become closer and closer to Him.
Most of the time, it is as a result of suffering that people become more caring about their relationship with Hashem. But when Shabbat shines on you, your motivation is your intense love for Hashem. You don’t need to suffer, at all, to be reminded that Hashem is always present and that you are obligated to keep the Torah (as are all of us Jews).
The illumination of Shabbat heals every sincerely observant Jew of all the suffering s/he has borne till now. S/He becomes worthy of people’s esteem. Each of these kosher Jews—in proportion to his sincerity and his honest observance of the Torah—gains recognition and honor from everybody s/he meets.
To the degree that your Torah observance is sincere and the greater prestige and esteem with which others view you, you will understand the Shabbat chidushei Torah (Torah teachings) of the generation’s leading tzaddik.

Eating on Shabbat—Such a Pleasure!

Through the mitzvah of taking an oath—to give charity or to do something good—and fulfilling it right away, you are privileged to experience oneg Shabbat. Oneg Shabbat means engaging in the bodily pleasures on Shabbat for the sake of Heaven, and not in order to satisfy your physical cravings, God forbid.

Immediately fulfilling your oath also graduates you to a more spiritual level of eating, even on weekdays. This enhanced level of eating is also a type of oneg Shabbat. Rebbe Nachman teaches that oneg Shabbat alludes to eating in a dignified and sanctified way (Likutey Moharan I, #57). If you can eat on this level, you don’t need to fast. {Rebbe Nachman doesn’t mean you don’t have to fast on Yom Kippur or the other obligatory fast days. He means you don’t have to undertake a voluntary fast day in order to achieve your spiritual goals.} When your eating is consistently on this high level, you gain mastery over your temper. You can achieve a high level of calmness that nothing angers you or even annoys you. Besides the obvious benefit of not becoming incensed when things don’t go your way, there is a tremendous by-product.

Our Sages tell us (Pesachim 66b) that when a person becomes angry, he is stripped of some of his Torah-wisdom. The reverse is also true. When are you careful to control your temper, your lost Torah-wisdom is given back to you. As your Torah-wisdom is restored, your Divine image shines more brightly. This beaming sacred light weakens your spiritual opponents and eventually gets rid of them. They are no longer be able to harm you or anything else in Creation. This is alluded to in the Torah when it says, “All the beasts of the field will fear and dread you” (Genesis 9:2).

The food you eat on Shabbat is very precious and very holy. Why? Because that food is transformed into pure, unadulterated holiness and Godliness. The Sitra Achra (the Side of Evil, aka “the bad guys”) has no portion whatsoever in the food you eat on Shabbat. This doesn’t happen automatically. You have to eat in the dignified and sanctified manner, as we mentioned above, and you have to eat genuinely for the sake of Heaven.

As your Shabbat-eating becomes more like this—the more it is authentic oneg Shabbat—the less often you will get angry and the less your anger will be. Not only that, but people and influences that prevent you from being a better Jew will fade out of your life. Perhaps best of all, you’ll merit to love your fellow Jews and live peacefully with all of them.

For Heaven’s Sake!

(With the kind permission of Pe’er Yisroel Institute)

Even if one’s sin contains absolutely no trace of mitzvah, that’s no reason for a person to forget Hashem, one’s Maker. He should mention God aloud. He should inject some “sake of Heaven,” whatever it might be, even if it’s farfetched, into what he’s doing. Look at King Saul. As he was committing the sin of going to a soothsayer, he swore, As God lives! (Shmuel-1 28:10).[1] …

They said something similar about Hillel. He would say “Baruch (blessed is) Hashem, day in and day out.” Everything he did was for the sake of Heaven, even though he was lazy in honoring Shabbos. He wasn’t like Shammai who started on Sunday to prepare for Shabbos.

The Rashbatz, Cheilek Hashem Amo of Magen Avos on Pirkei Avos

[1] The Rashbatz also brings the Midrash (Vayikra Rabbah 26:7): What was Saul like at that moment? Reish Lakish says, “He was like an unfaithful wife who was with her paramour and took an oath in the name of her husband. That was Saul—consulting a soothsayer and saying, “As God lives!”

148 West

NEVER EVER DESPAIR!

Tag Archives: Shabbos

Be Delighted. Keep Shabbos.

Eating on Shabbat—Such a Pleasure!

For Heaven’s Sake!