Q&A: Spiritual & Physical Pleasure on Shabbat - Rabbi Dovid Gottleib

enjoying shabas as an in relationship to own shabas and as you're quite right own shabas refers to things that are physically pleasurable and then the question is whether there's such a thing as somehow enjoying chabas above and beyond the individual physical Pleasures that are programmed into the context of the day um and I think part of your question was is there what's the difference between enjoying food on chabas which is called only chabas which is a Mitzvah and enjoying food during the week which isn't called a Mitzvah in that way how does the enjoyment of the food change its character so um let me give you first of all an analogy to think about I want you to imagine two meals one is a meal that you made for yourself at home when you happen to be home alone and the other meal is where the King has has come to your town and is having a celebration and you and let's say 25 other selected people have been invited to join the celebration and the menu for the two meals is exactly the same and the food is spoiled not unhealthy but it's just you know poorly done poorly done how much does the poor state of the food damage the event or the experience I think the difference is gigantic if you made supper at home for yourself and that's the meal you're going to eat and now you're stuck with this stuff it's going to be awful you'll manage it but it's going to be awful if you're sitting there with the King and you've been invited with 25 other people out of let's say 10,000 you've been honored and the evening is discussing matters of state and they interested in your opinion and as this is going on they're serving you this dish and this dish and this dish and the cook just doesn't have it you know it will have a very very minor effect on the quality of the experience the case of the of the of the repass with the King The Good Taste of the food contributes to an otherwise very meaningful and very inspiring and very enjoyable event it accompanies it it's part of the celebration of the event in the other case the food is the whole thing it's just food and if the food is spoiled then it's awful you know the whole experience of eating supper becomes a sour experience a rotten experience so the idea is that you're you're sitting down the shabas meal and you're doing so in celebration of something um I don't know I really haven't done a study of how people's eat chabas meals I learned from my ratel and we most of us following his in his footsteps each shabas meal takes two and a half hours each shabas meal takes two and a half hours usually a six course dinner and there's singing and there's discourse and Torah um sharing throughout and it's an event it's a real event of course the soup is the soup and the chicken is the chicken and the potatoes the potatoes so enjoying the food under the condition where the whole tenor is this elevated event is an entirely different kind of enjoyment then when it's Wednesday night and you're making supper for yourself at home so yes there's a difference between enjoying the food in the context of chabas versus enjoying the food same food know in the context of being at home um alone for for weekday weekday supper that's one part of the answer another part of the answer is this and now we need is int introduction of a different term there only CH on has a physical connotation on shabas is the meals basically Sim is joy joy can have physical components and can be divorced from physical components I guess it depends a little bit on how you Define physical but the joy of great music or the joy of a great idea or the joy of coming to finally understand the piece of Torah which connects you to your creator through the ways that he revealed for that purpose they're all exciting and they're all thrilling and they're all inspiring but in different ways shabas has an element of sim this is actually a verse in the Torah as the oral tradition interprets it and usually Beyond saying the or interprets it it it's really pretty clear on the the verse itself I think I've told you this that there's an instruction to make trumpets silver trumpets and the Torah tells you when to blow them and it says so it means on the days of your joy your and on your holidays and on the beginnings of your months so now let's see what could that be there's Q holidays and the beginning of the month well beginning of the month is below holidays so it looks like it's a decreasing uh decreasing list now what is there that could be above holidays nothing left over holiday shabas so that's way understand it me and that means chabas is being described in the Torah as the day of sim so the time has that quality of sim now you ask well where does the s come from s comes from the fact that manifests himself at that time in ways that he doesn't manifest himself at other times I say well you never tapped me on the shoulder you know I never saw it I never heard it that's true that's true you close your eyes you won't see something if you're colorblind you won't see colors if you're very distracted you won't see what's in front of you you do have to focus you do have to perceive you do have to be receptive that you do have to do if you don't get that it'll pass you right by but it is there so the joy is in the connection with and the meals are part of celebrating that connection um and it's done in a particular way so as to express those things you look at the songs we sing many of the vers the songs were composed by rishonim that means medieval great authorities great Torah Scholars great sadikin and they composed this they calling it po is a little not quite right because the the Western con of poetry on the one hand and what we have is is literarily different but I'm not going go into that now uh it's words that Express and describe certain aspects of of Jewish experience and when you sing them to the tunes that Express their their content their their feeling um it becomes a very spiritual experience and physical enjoyment is integrated into that the final point that I want to make is that it's a Jewish theme that that you don't leave the body behind I heard something I I love well-crafted State um models or statements and sometimes I'm I'm overly impressed by the way how it's crafted I don't think carefully enough about it about its content and one that took me in for a couple of years was shouldn't say I have a soul you should say I am a soul I have a body doesn't that sound clever yeah does sound clever but it's wrong because you are not a soul you are a soul plus body you're a creature with two components and the Very fact that you're built out of two components makes you unique you are the only creature in the whole universe that's built out of two components and being built out of two components makes your free will possible and your free will is the essence of your purpose of your existence so there are many sources which have the main the the general theme of don't leave the body behind don't leave the body behind the spirituality that you are experiencing must include the body that's why there's only only shabas only also