Rabbi Nachum Chaimowitz - Laws of Shabbat: Shabbat Meals

welcome the topic for today is sud shabas Shabbat how do we properly fulfill the requirement to have Elegant meals on chabas the gamor and chabas 119a this is a beautiful story yesu there was once a Caesar a king who said to RAB yesu why is it that the scent of the food of sh has such a strong scent to it we have a special spice the name of it is shabas because we had the spice of shabas that's why the scent of the foods is so strong so said the king well give it to us give it to my chefs now cook it for me he answered him only someone who keeps the shabas can actually enjoy the spice so the question is what exactly is this spice sounds very nice the story we have shabas and okay is shabas experience is added to the food how does that cause the taste or the smell of the foods to be any stronger the prophet isi says you shall have pleasure on the day of shabas we know that according to T all that's required of us on chabas is just to pronounce announce that the shabas is here at the beginning and then to Pro refrain from 39 prohibited acts throughout shabas we don't really have any obligation to sit down to a meal to eat to sleep to have any physical pleasure on chabas comes the pro and says you shall have physical permissible Pleasures on shabus and the question is why how does having physical Pleasures on chabas help us any more to enhance our experience of a spiritual day if it's true that chabas really is the most spiritual of the week so it comes out that shabas is a spiritual day like it says in the it's a day of the Soul so why should we spend time with physical Pleasures the rash 31a saysa ratina reveals to us the world is here for 6,000 years that means at the present world world as we know it is here for 6,000 years afterwards begins What's called the the 7,000th year in the 7,000th year we then receive reward for all of our actions during the 6,000 years so we worship hasem we keep the Mitzvah we keep the Torah during 6,000 years of the world as we know it during the 7,000th year the reality of the world as we know it will change there's not going to be any more bad there not going to be any more difficult it's not going to be any more coverup there will just be reward and the reward will Express itself through ultimate levels of pleasure shabas is called a little bit of what's going to take place in the future when is that going to take place in the future in the 7,000th year in the 7,000th year will experience ultimate pleasure there's not going to be any more difficulties not going to be any more or troubles but a little bit of that Hashem gives us as a gift each and every week Hashem says just like the 7,000th year is the time for reward so too every seven days you'll have a day that corresponds to the 7,000th year six days of the week correspond to the 6,000 years of this world the seventh day of the week corresponds to the 7,000th year during that time God will overwhelm us so to speak he'll fill us he'll satisfy us totally with ultimate levels of pleasure and so therefore if we even have a Minute Taste of this experience it's going to include pleasure comes the Novi and says therefore on the day of shabas you should be having pleasure as well if you want to have a little bit of that experience you want to experience a little bit of what's going to be in the 7,000th year have pleasure on the day on the 7 day of every week but the question becomes at that time in 7,000th years certainly it's going to be on a spiritual level it's not going to be physical Pleasures as we know them as the r says according to our belief the future world that 7,000th year doesn't include anything physical as we know it there's no physical eating or drinking or sleeping or engage in any of the physical activities as we know them so if it's not physical why would physical pleasure have any importance on the day of chabas it would seem like we should be getting pleasure from all types of spiritual things we should go and listen to a to we should go and listen to a Torah discourse we should study Torah we should sing We should have spiritual types of Pleasures why would it be a special requirement to have physical Pleasures on on the day of shabas so the great kic leader the founder of the approach of kidus the bmov of blessed memory who lived approximately 200 years ago said the following Parable Imagine a King who had a son who was very dear to him and the son unfortunately was taken captives he was taken captives by an ation and here he is sitting in jail he's in some cell in some foreign country and really alone with people who we could call nothing else other than low lives here is a royal child who has brought up his whole life on the highest level of Education of Elegance of royalty and he's stuck somewhere far away probably seemingly never to see his father again among the low lives of the world one day he gets a letter and the letter is written in a special cryptic language that's only known to the Royal ambassadors at the palace and the son of course is familiar with the language and he starts to read the letter and it's from his father from his father the king and his father notifies him don't worry my son I know where you are we know exactly the location of the cell and I'm planning an attack I'm planning an attack in a couple of months and I will come with my entire Army to free you we're going to attack from the south side of the city and it won't be of any danger to you and we'll very quickly overtake the entire jail jail area and the cell and you will be freed don't worry my son just wait for the day son finishes reading this letter he doesn't know what to do with himself he thought that he was doomed for his whole life in this cell and he would never be able to get out and now his father the king is going to come to save him his Joy knows no bounds he's come alive again he doesn't know what to do with himself he has to express himself but if he would really Express himself the way he feels that people around would think he's crazy thinks for him and he has an idea oh he has with him a bottle of an alcoholic beverage he takes it out he goes over to one of the GU next to him to one of the people who's sitting on the floor half asleep shakes him hey you want maybe something to drink oh drink yeah okay sure fills him a cup gives him a little to drink he goes over to the next person says maybe you want a little bit to drink yeah yeah sure third person and he gets them old to drink a little bit a little more a little more a little bit more a little bit more and certainly during this whole time they're waking up and they're becoming very excited at one time he stands up and he grabs the hands and he breaks into a dance and they're dancing in a circle and then the Sun starts to jump up and down and sing ecstatically and all the people around him are also jumping up and down and singing ecstatically says the bmov they're singing about their drink the son of the king is singing about his father who coming to save him this is the idea and the pleasures that we have each and every F each and every shabas the idea of having physical Pleasures is really just to allow our soul to have the full pleasure of shabas shabas really is a day of the Soul our soul that's the son of the king our soul senses the king the king of the world is coming to save us from this dungeon of a life that we feel trapped by the king says I'm going to come 7,000th year don't worry but he sends us a message every week don't worry I could tell you for certain I'm coming and the Soul senses that but the soul doesn't know what to do with itself because it will be jumping up and down as it really feels when shabas enters then the body's the body's just not going to not going to participate so therefore we have a unique requirement to find physical Pleasures on chabas try to do every type of permissable physical pleasure that's possible on chabas why so that your body should become ecstatic so your body should have something to be happy about and then when they break into song together when the body and soul start to sing together the body's going to be singing about all of its physical Pleasures but the soul will be singing about the king of the world who ultimately is going to come to save it so we wanted to talk about how to fulfill this requirement of having elegant meals on chabas and having the pleasure in food that was required of us on shabas the first point that we need to know is that the meal Hally are based upon bread in olden times the main staff food was bread and the definition of a meal according to was to eat bread and so since we're required to have three meals on shabas each meal has a requirement of bread what's the required amount so rather than telling you the number of grams I'll just tell you practically how to measure it if you take an egg and you have your bread you have an egg on one side the average size of an egg that we have today and you have your bread on another side the amount of bread that we need to eat is the size of volume of a half an egg approximately the amount of bread that would be the amount of that's not very much at all but watch this the air pockets in the bread don't contribute to the volume so therefore we have to eat more bread than actually a half a size of an egg in order to reach that level of volume it's almost as if if you would have bread and Crush all the air pockets and see how much how much bread would actually fit in the size of half of an egg that's the minimal requirement to eat at the meals of chabas if we wash and customarily we wash for shabas we say a br so then there's an additional requirement for washing that requires us to eat the amount of bread that's the size of a whole egg and so therefore ideally a person should eat at each meal the amount of bread that would fill in volume a whole egg you could try to measure this before shabas but it's essentially approximately a half or 3/4 of one slice of bread if you're eating kala like we do on chabas so you have to figure figure out that it should be at least the minimum requirement of what's required and that needs to be eaten within 3 to four minutes so once again the amount of bread the amount of Kal necessary to eat by each meal is the amount that's minimally a half an egg but really the volume of an entire egg that's necessary to eat within 3 to 4 minutes the second thing that we have to know in order to fulfill the pleasure on chabas at the meals is that a person should choose to eat those meals that he individually enjoys the most everyone has different tastes everyone has a different nature ideally on shabas we should eat those foods that really speak to us the most and therefore if a person goes somewhere during the week and he sees a unique food item that he hasn't had for a long time and he would love to have it it's appropriate to acquire it and save it for shabas have those foods that you enjoy the most on chabas and the foods that you choose for the chabas meal should be those foods that you enjoy the most the third point of how to experience the pleasure on chabas through eating is that Hally we're told that the Day meal should have even more importance than the night meal we eat one meal Friday night we eat one meal chabas morning a second meal shabas morning the meal shabas day should have even more importance than the meal Friday night that means that if we have all these special foods to choose from and I'm not even sure what meal to eat it at better that you leave more special foods for the day of shabas the idea being is that shabas does not remain on one Plateau level chabas does not remain on one single plane throughout chabas from the time that chabas enters until the time that shabas complete it's constantly going up in levels it's elevating spiritually and so therefore when we start out on Friday night shabas is at its lowest point spiritually afterwards we continue to go higher and higher once we reach the day we're on a level of ascent and so therefore the Day meal should have even more than what you have at the night meal many people if they have similar types of foods they make an extra special food that they set aside just for the day meal so let's review what we learned today we want to get practically what to do in a very clear way number one is that the minimal requirement for a meal according to is to eat the amount of Kala that's ideally the size in volume of one egg or at least a half an egg number two is that the foods that we eat at the meal should be the most elegant and delicious and enjoyable foods to us personally that we have the whole week thirdly is that we have an extra if we have an extra special food we should leave it for shabas day if we have a choice between shabas day and Friday night we'll just finish up by mentioning that customarily there are certain foods that Jewish people have engaged in making throughout the generations we'll go over a few of those foods and bring out some of the messages behind them because each and every food that people that Jewish people customarily eat on chabas has a certain meaning to it one of the foods that Jewish people customarily make for the chabas meals is fish fish has a special importance as already mentioned in the time of the gar and the Mim and what fish represents is blessing fish have a tremendous amount of Offspring at one time it's blessing as your children should multiply as fish number two fish have special protection they're underwater they're protected underneath another surface and so when we eat the fish on chabas if we have fish and we eat the fish on chabas we can actually have in mind extra blessing Extra Protection another food that Jewish people customarily have on chabas is a food called cougal what cougal is essentially is some sort of round type of side dish that's eaten at the meal special to COV chabas it could be made from potatoes it could be made from apples it can be made even from flour cougal is a very special chabas food what does it represent it represents to us how the world goes around we're in a circle there's a starting point and there's an ending point there's the point that God created the world and there's a point where God will reward us at the end of days and then we're in the middle so everything goes around the cougal represents how the world will ultimately come around to the 7,000th year the cougal also represents the special Mana food that the Jewish people had in the desert why because when you bake cougal it becomes hard on top and hard on the bottom and the middle is more loose more soft that's just like the Mana that as we know was covered with two coverings there was one cover on the bottom then the Manana fell and a cover on top so what koug represents to us number one is that the world goes around and as difficult as things are ultimately we're going to come around to that special time of reward to that ultimate time of closeness with God as well kuga represents the special Mana food and the special sustenance and livelihood that God gives us at all times the parosa that God gives us at any point even when we're in a desert the Third food that's commonly eaten by Jewish people is something called farful farful is a certain food that's made a mix of flour and water and is ground up into small particles almost like small grains commonly known as farful what's the idea of farful the yish word farful comes from the idea farf Fallen forget it and what it represents is it what it comes Friday night it's a time to go back and think back not only to the good moments during the week but even those moments that might have been difficult now through the pleasures of chabas through the special experience of chabas we can see those moments in a more positive light it's almost as if as we say start again for fallen whatever was already was forget about it now we restart now we start again so what farful represents to us what a person can have in mind when it eats the farful is all those difficult moments are not going to stop me from moving forward in my upcoming week I'm going to continue to grow I'm going to continue to come closer to God and at the same time I can face those difficult moments and maybe view them in a more positive light may God help and we be able to fulfill the elegant meals on chabas in the most pleasurable way in a way that reminds us very clearly of the pleasures of the future and in the Merit of us keeping the shabas properly in our reality today may we Merit ultimately that yabas the 7,000th year when God will reward us with the ultimate pleasure of closeness to him