Introduction to Shabbat - Rabbi Reuven Lauffer

you know the first dimension of Shadows will talk about the the the laws of lighting shabbos candles and you know the what the who the when and the where is but before we get less of a few words of introduction about Chavez because she was really is something absolutely beautiful there's a Madras very beautiful mesh which says like this that and the Chavez after the creation Chavez came to God and said everything's got appear except for me in a minute I'll explain the depth of what the what shabbos is saying in a moment but just a finish of the matter ish it says that God so don't worry I'll give you a pair your pair will be the Jewish people which me your your mate will be the Jewish people which means that we insure us we go together Chavez's considered to be an ice spaniel Van Horne says God it's a sign between me and you and something which belongs uniquely to the Jewish people what's the depth the depth of the metric is really something very astonishing actually the brother Bill nagaon says if you take if you study carefully the creation the days of the creation what's going on over there says you see a pattern unfolding which is really quite extraordinary that the first three days of the creation were things coming into being in there what's a way to describe it in their raw state and the last three days of the creation it's put into practical application so for example on the first day God creates like darkness on the fourth day God creates the sun in the moon right which means that and the garage planes that day number one and a number for up here which means that the raw material is day number one is going to be turned into the practical application on day number for day number two and a number five or appeared a number three and a number six are up here and now of course the the meddra SH now makes even more sense than it did before because now Chavez comes and says hold on a second everybody's got their peer right where's mine and so let's try to work it out because it really is a very very beautiful idea if the first the you know this pair the first part the first day of the pier is the wall material and then the second day is the practical application so again day number one and a number for light and darkness and then you've got the sun in the moon right so now we've got a practical application to the light in the darkness that means that when I college ball created the world and he created shovers the practical application of shabbos is now the Jewish people right which means that without us there is no practical application to what God has brought into the world on the seventh day God created shovers it's there in its waiting I guess in its in its raw state waiting for the Jewish people to come in order to be able to apply what needs to be done in order to celebrate showers properly I think it's a very it's a very beautiful idea and I think it adds a dimension to understanding you know what what Chavez really is it's not that Chavez's just some kind of you know God got to the end of the week and then he rested but rather it's something which complements we complement Chavez and Chavez complements us and between us we make a perfect it's like a perfect pair so let's just try to work things out a little bit about shabbos shabbos is described by the rabbi's by cos album as being maintained alum haba which means a taste of the world to come so if I were to ask you to describe a taste of the world to come I think everybody here would probably come up with something vastly different to what Chavez's right if I were to ask you to do you know describe and define a taste of the world to come if I were to ask you to describe shabbes or no if I would ask you to you you are you are going to create a shabbos atmosphere shabbos environment without knowing what shava slips out right now right so you know that the end of the week we've got some kind of spiritual dimension which the rabbi's called me a nylon my bar which is a a taste of the world to come so and I'm asking you to do cat let's put together something which will make shabbos I don't think any of us would come up with a shabbos that we have we would all come up with something which is a lot more similar I would imagine to something like Yom Kippur which is an obviously spiritual a night we'd spend a lot of time in sure and we won't eat and we won't drink right and yet shabbos is really the antithesis of all of that because if you take a look at Chavez just looking from the outside what have you got we eat more than we would normally eat we sleep more than we would normally sleep we wear nicer clothing than we would normally wear during the rest of the week and it seems that there's an awful lot of emphasis on the physical when it comes to shove us as opposed to the spiritual which is something that needs to be understood so first off there's a very incredible very incredible idea from Le Amir block elizy Russia Shiva of tells who sells like this very simple idea that most other religions in the world they what they what are they dictated sound that very simple equation if you want to be more spiritual you need to be less physical if you're going to be more physical then you need to be let you're going to be less spiritual it's very simple and if you ask me which you didn't but I'm going to tell you anyway if you ask me it's a very logical equation as well right spirituality and physicality don't seem to go together very easily I would say and yet says already a mere block along comes shovers and disproves that whole concept entirely because what do we do we take the physical and we elevate it we turn it into a spiritual experience that's part of what Shalvis is all about right taking the physicality of the world so wearing nicer clothing and eating more food and sleeping more and we're going to turn it into a spiritual experience of course it's got to be done properly in order to have that happen but lamesa that's what it that's what it all comes down to the very it's a very very beautiful idea really is that we're here what are we learning over the first thing we're learning over here which I think it's not very fundamental a cottage bar who brought us into this world God brought us into this world we are physical human beings I mean you know what looking around the room I don't know how many of you human beings but but we are physical I with physical beings right and if we're physical beings it means that we're going to live in this physical world as physical beings and we're going to have to we're going to have to use the physical in order to become more spiritual that's the way that God has created his world and that's what makes this all so beautiful it really does i think i mentioned a few times in the past but its weight it's something which is very very fundamental and very deep there's a you know there are two different talents as a Babylonian Talmud and in Jerusalem Talmud and of course just to confuse matters of Jerusalem Talmud wasn't written in Jerusalem at all it was written in Tiberias but it was during the occupation which is why it's called The Jerusalem Talmud because you wish a line was in ruins at the time and it was considered that they would have called it the Tiberius talman it would have been considered to be a little bit of a little bit of a ever you know of an embarrassment to you shall I do they call it the Jerusalem Talmud but the end of the queue duchenne in the Jerusalem Talmud there's an astonishing statement where it says that lasted lava in the future every person is going to have to give a din and a freshman which means an accounting of the physical pleasures that they did not partake of in this what I'm talking about kosher pleasures obviously right before you get too excited over here what's the idea the idea is really it's really something absolutely incredible it really is that a person gets up says yeah you 120 right and and God is going to say to that person okay listen you know on such and such a day you had the opportunity to have a piece of chocolate cake and you didn't have it how come oh good right so if you say to go what can I do I want to dye it right so hopefully God will say okay good for you all the other chances are he might say are you kidding you're 300 pounds overweight you know like what did you think that one piece of chocolate cake was gonna make any difference and anyway you never lost any weight anyway right so who are you kidding it's tell you what the problem is up up there you know one of one of the names that the rabbi's give to up there is alum hey Amit it's a world of truth and it's a bit of a downer because there's no you can't really wriggle your way out of things out there the way that we can over here it's a lot simpler over here yes imagine in the OL of our net so here everyone's got to give an accounting it's interesting but really what you said is one hundred percent accurate actually it's not that God's going to God's not going to you know go to punish you for every single pleasure that you could have had that you didn't partake off he just he wants you to give an accounting that's all which means if you say look my doctor said that eating chocolate cake was bad my cholesterol level right then good fine then you're not supposed to be having that piece of cake that's good right but if you didn't need that piece of cake simply just you know to cut off your nose to spite your faces sometimes people tend to do then our cottage grove was going to say that's a problem ask the pinay moisture which is one of the classic commentaries on the jerusalem talmud why what's the big deal why would that be so fine so you didn't meet the chocolate cake so what so explains the plane motion something very beautiful because the most of the physical pleasures that we have in this world come together with a blessing so when you come to eat that piece of chocolate cake you're going to make a blessing over it you're revealing another another layer of God's Majesty down here in this physical world and that's why God one should have given accountant that's why God wants to know why you didn't have that piece of chocolate cake speaking of blessings I just have a question slightly off it's a freaking choco cake very quick question so you're super blessing over some food yeah but you forget what it is can you just do the purgatory Oh team you just do like the beginning part oh no you your bracha needs to have something it's got to have some substance to it as well however what you can do even though it's only it's you know there are two different ways of doing things why does it look at Peter when you do it properly the way that it's supposed to be done the other one is buddy evered which is when you you mean in most cases but the evan is really defect over you did something wrong but if you did it that way it's okay right so and there is a broker there's a generic blessing that we've got which you shall call me a bit Varro the broccoli you make of a drinks a broccoli you make over you know chocolate that kind of stuff right cecconi a boudoir is a pretty generic blessing it doesn't define what you're eating all the other blocks of blessings that we have they define things so you know bori priya aids you're eating something from a tree for a PR dummy or eating something that came out of the ground borrowing my name is or not you're eating something with grains in it right share how coal is really that you know God just created all this stuff now if a person really does not have a clue what the blessing is for what he's supposed to be eating then he can but he ever he can make the blessing she had called me a bit virile and that way he's at least he said a blessing wasn't the right blessing but it's a blessing which pretty much second umbrella you know like covers covers everything if we're already on the subject you know that's just it just finish it up quickly that there's you know very often people have uncertainties that I think what not the most uncertainties people normally have with blessings whether it came out of a tree or whether it came out of the ground so for example a banana even though it grows on a banana tree isn't hard amma because according to that locker the tree is really a bush and you know it gets complicated right occasionally some things are obviously what they are there's a there's an interesting halacha which is like this if you're uncertain about whether what you've got in front of you is AD dama which means it came out of the ground or eight that it came off of a tree so you can make a hard dama because a tree grows out of the ground as well which was it indirectly you're gonna you're going to cover yourself right by saying how Dumber when you're not sure what it is it is supposed to be saying over this particular thing the difference that made it need something that aids is when it grows on a branch of the tree actually the things that make the differentiation over here Oh to do this to do with way that the tree grows some things are perennials summer annuals it's it's all a little bit complicated I don't remember if you want at some point we can go through their lockers and try to work out what's what what's a bush and what's a tree even though something may look like a tree and it's really a bush and something mate something may look like a bush and it's really a tree and very midst of shame i don't i don't remember the helices of my heart right now so berries the other boys summer some of these SAT right some of these things some of these things are a little bit complicated what do you say over them what you don't say over them whatever I mean it's a shame you know what maybe that's a good idea maybe at some point we should just maybe we should go through the definitions of what what after blessings were after blessings are a lot less complicated Baraka Shem and it also nice crisis in a zone us right rice is he right here you've chosen the other one which is complicated yeah right is the only one we make up as a lot but really at the end you don't make an alum if you make a boner fossilize that's because the rice ice interestingly enough rice is a little bit difficult to define illogically this is a catch-all one yeah here charcoal everything Nia came to be big viral through his word so if you if you you know if you just just follow what you're saying you're not you're not saying anything which is defining what you're eating or drinking biscuit I'm all for it I think it's a great angle it what it is made great oh my i would say that eighty percent of biscuits are made of grains you would have to make them as onus over it some some biscuits are not rice biscuits for example with a little bit complicated again make Amazonian somebody make a bo di dama at the end ever make a born of flashlights at the end but whatever I mean there are certain things you know people people that suffer from from people that eat gluten-free diets very very rarely same as or not because the only thing that they can eat normally is what's it called oat flour is the lightest I think of all the various flowers that there are there are five different five different grains right and I think oats are the lightest of them all and what I'm rather you know you think things to take into account if you suffer from these things there's Chris biscuit how do you fear is that of course is an al amigo very much so couscous is missoula's nanamica because it's made out it's made out of flour oh can you walk Cano Cano is an interesting it's added as an interesting thing that I like about what it is exactly most people of the opinion that Kim Noah is not designers yeah I mean I try to stick here that I've been told by I've been no seriously I've been told by nutritionist I've been told by nutritionist of his healthy so I try to stay away from there huh I like my healthy things to have chemicals in the viewer who doubt you know food coloring and just just to reduce a little bit you know how much health can a person have for goodness sakes of any way back back to shovers so we've got we've got this we've got this incredible combination on shabbos where we take the physical and we elevated and we turn into something more spiritual and there's a beautiful beautiful commentary on that on the morin shovers by somebody called rebellion listen was called the run for short who who writes like this what's the last thing that you do on era Shabbat good okay if you want to listen to the question then you might be able to answer it a little bit more accurately like the candles right the last thing that a person does on irisha but before shabbos comes in is that they like the candida Shabbos candles says the run the most beautiful idea he says the candles represent the physicality of the week the flame represents a spirituality of Chavez my fire flames are very spiritual things so he says that what's the last thing we do when it comes to error shabbat is that we take the physicality we take the power the energy of the physical days of the week and we turn them into spiritual energy by turning them by putting them on fire right now everybody here understands right that you can't you if you don't if you don't have a candle you won't have a flame right and if you have a flame right if you have a candle without the flame each one is lacking they need each other in order for them to reach what they need to reach so that the beauty of the idea of what the run is saying over here again it's reinforcing the same idea that the days of the week are fundamental to Chavez if you don't have the days of the week then you don't have shovers but if you don't have a shovel end of your week then your days of the week are lacking a dimension they're lacking the dimension which is going to turn into something of significance yeah is there any shabbos traditions that we've added on over the generations that weren't originally held on campus yeah sure first of all pants and I was basic one of all is kabbalat shabbat a beautiful series of prayers and and specifically lakad ID local Dodie was written only 500 years ago by somebody call rush Loma Elka bats and it was it was introduced and it became you know it's fascinating you know anything about if you know anything about different communities and how they pray what is fascinating about lakad ID that beautiful song that sung on kabbalat shabbat is that it was accepted by everybody and it's only 500 years old which means that the fillers that we've got that i prayed by everybody i normally till as it go all the way back to the men of the great assembly were going back to the destruction of the first temple right we're going back a long long way and and all of a sudden the long comes you know rush Loma Elka bats living in fat five hundred years ago introducing a new prayer which the Ariza incorporated into his kabbalat shabbat and that's what caused everyone else that incorporated into theirs and all of a sudden you've got every as far as i know every single jewish community has luck on Jodi inside of the Kabbalah sure but it doesn't matter where they come from and that's something pretty unique actually because again you have to understand that even the five hundred years may sound like a long time but fighting five hundred years ago the different communities and their different customs were very very much established already and to have a new custom introduced and accepted by everybody that's a quite a quite a unique occurrence actually uh slow mo Elka bats anyway so that that's that's the beauty of Shabbat the day sure but what is the function of Shabbat the shut the function of Shabbat is to draw us back to God the spasm is one of the great Hasidic commentaries at one of the great custody Grevy's the second gear ever says that the word Shabbat comes from the word lush of to return which means what are we doing on Shabbat we're returning to our natural state natural state doesn't mean after two balls of challenge others afternoon being comatose that's not that's know if it needs right but our natural state sorry about that yeah a natural state means that we are we are connected in a very clear in a very obvious way to god it's not like the rest of the week and the rest of the week it's hard to find God with a busy caught up inside of you know everything that we do inside of the week and it's difficult it's not so easy on Shabbat the whole function of Shaban is to draw us closer to our shame right and that's why I always always mentioned my wife's grandfather was yeah the mud machine was a shtikel still called southern Kings like a very righteous man and he had a little phrase whenever you asked him how shabbos was he said shabbos is always good it took me a long time to realize if you just stop and listen to what he's saying shabbos is always good which means that if shabbos was lousy it's not because Chavez's dad the problem rests with us not not not wish others right chagas is always good it's a prize a present that has been given to us by God and we need to learn how to tap into its incredible potency really is something extraordinary and there's a rabbi actually right from monsey Rabbi Israel Talbert do you ever come across him yeah so I remember hearing from him years and years and years ago when he said that he had been in the Far East for business and he was supposed to get a plane out of there in time to be home for shabbos and there was a delay of some kind and he ended up being you know stuck in wherever he was I can't me where it was if it was Singapore maybe it was Hong Kong I don't remember and and you know he added that the airline booked him into a hotel room and it was like half an hour before shabbos and he suddenly realizes in his hotel room he suddenly realizes everything is electronic nowadays that seems to be the case in a lot of places but in those days you're going back you know 30 plus years it was quite a novelty you walk in the lights come on right you move around the air-conditioning you know if you open it open the window the air collision goes off right you know all these all these various things and he said he suddenly realized that if he left his hotel room to go to daven on Friday night so he was going to come back and we're going to get back into his room because the minute he would open the door the lights would come on you know so you know what to do so he went down to the reception and he asked if they maybe they had boobs that weren't so technologically advanced and they didn't have and he said you know he was happy I think he was staying in some fancy hotel like the Hilton or something he was happy to sleep on the you know honor on our couch in the in the lobby over there somewhere but they weren't very happy and having somebody sleeping over there so he realized that he was going to have to spend shoppers by himself in his hotel room right a prisoner locked in to his own room because if he went out that he won't be able to get back in again and he said it's wife always sent him whenever he went traveling is wife always sent him with it you know shabas just in case something went wrong with a few so he had a couple of rolls and he had a little bottle of kiddush wine and yet he had he had the the weather was a big bowl of fruit in the room as well so he wasn't going to stop to death but he was concerned you know he was very upset and he said the fright of the Friday night was horrible so it was mummy horrible said he was stuck in that room didn't want to be in there he'd wanted to go to show and is there they know in the show they had like a communal a communal dinner as well it was going to be something very nice and there he was stuck in his own couldn't do a thing he says shabbos morning he got out of bed and he realized that he said you know he said that he doesn't there's no other alternative he's stuck here anyway so he should really make the best of it right and not not sort of walk around depressed and moping around and he said that he managed he said he'd avid he doesn't every single word out loud and he said he had the most unbelievable chavez day heem Amish felt like he was connected to God because the only reason he was in that room was because our College Balkan says to keep shoppers right and he said that it was like a turnaround for him he said it was most incredible experience to just to be just you and I Shem and nobody else it reminds me of a story I have a friend who's from Australia and he was traveling from here back to Australia and he ended up also getting stuck he was in Singapore stopped over over shabbos in order to get to Australia cut you can't learn no direct flight the long way and he said he was there on Chavez and he was up on the seventeenth floor of the hotel that he was staying in and he says it's Shabbos morning and he's climbing back up he's finished surely he's climbing back up the stairs to you know get back to his room and he said on the twelfth of the 13th floor a watchamacallit like a waiter came out of a service lift the service elevator right and he sees my friend like puffing and panting his way up to spiff and he says to him what are you doing so he says he says says it's all it's our Sabbath today it's sense other fella says well why don't you go on the elevator no he says it's forbidden for us to do any work on the Sabbath let me see it can hardly breathe and he's climbing up Alisa it says until today this guy's probably thinks he's completely and absolutely certifiable which I'm not suggesting he's not but not not for that reason anyway so that's that's what shabbos is all about right Chavez is the idea of joining back together with God to come from the La Jolla sure to return to our share I teshuva by the way he's also coming from the word of lush of to return so it's interesting that the idea of repentance is the idea of returning what what is it you know what is a function of repenting is to return you back to where you're supposed to be and the function of shabbos is really also to realign ourselves and put us put his back in the position that we're supposed to be in so that we can recognize that I cottage bar who is there you