The Secret to a Peaceful Erev Shabbos | Turn Friday into Erev Shabbos #250

[music] [singing] [music] [singing] [music] We are here to turn our Friday into Arab of Shabas. Thank you so much for joining and thank you to our generous sponsor many fish for men's fathers and for memory revel Jonathan Zach Yakot Ben David Ary smile whatever you're doing right now smile shabas Friday er of shabas rather is a time that many people struggle to smile there's so much to do and so little time and it's a time of frazzle time of time of tension it's a time of often can be feeling overwhelmed sadness anger Any combination of feelings can come on shabases and a person has to know that that test is not something which someone should resist or fight back against or be resentful of. The test itself is part of what gives the gift of the light of Shabas. I want to share a holy teaching of Shabas specifically of Shabas. He says in Islam that we resist, we wish. Why is it so hard? so much shopping, so much cooking, so much cleaning, so much setting a table, so much scheduling, so much preparing, so much to do to get ready for Shabas. It can rob us and it could deplete us and it could steal and take from us any sense of joy, any sense of happiness. But that dava is our mission and our mandate. That's our purpose. That's what we need to overcome. It's to smile. It's to smile. Specifically this time of year has started. We have to be we have to smile. He writes Unlike the that makes us want to believe that we wish we didn't have these tests. We wish we didn't have these challenges. We wish it would go away. We need to know that after the darkness comes the light. And after the test comes the success and the breakthrough comes the greatest joy. When you don't get angry, you don't raise your voice, when you don't react, and you don't lash out. Okay? So, your husband didn't come home the time he said he would. your kids didn't get ready, get in the shower, set the table, do the things they said they would, but you don't give it. You don't get angry. Stay calm, cool, collect. Even if there's disappointment, even if you're entitled to communicate it, but how we communicate say we're not sad and we don't get into a state of despair or misery or exhaustion physically, spiritually, but we rise to the moment and rise to the occasion. We put a smile on our face even when we don't feel like it. Even when we're exhausted and have nothing left for it. The thing that makes us feel like is our fall is really our success. That is really the breakthrough. That's where the light comes that follows that sense of darkness. Shabas. No. The test of Shabas. Because when a person has faith and belief, when a person knows they are what we're meant to be, when a person knows that with all their initiative, all their planning and all their best effort, the things will fall the way they do and you have to accept it, lean into it and recognize that it all comes from above. That is successfully passing a test. That puts a smile on our face. Shabas is the quality of we have to be a brisk thisa this peel this cover comes on Friday and that or in that light the endless light of God in us runs the risk of getting covered it has an oral a covering inside us is an inner joy but it doesn't show itself because there's so much to do in so little time and so many people relying us and maybe they're failing us and so much to scramble and so much to get done and so much to have to pay for and find the money and so that light that's inside us there's a kipa there's a layer there's a peel there's a covering there's a shell but we have to remove that kipa and let the light burst through that's the mid of is to circumcise the ora of the heart to let the joy and the happiness of shabas shine through and it's davka davka of it's davka in the time of tests when we pass. When we come out the other side, we come out better. It brings us the greatest joy to feel that joy, to feel that happiness, to feel that success. So that is your homework. That's today. We're turning our Friday into Shabas by smiling even if we don't feel like it. To recognize that, okay, the dry cleaning, I guess it's not meant to be in our house. Table's not meant yet to be set. Don't get angry. Don't get frustrated. Speak calmly. Speak cool. collect. Don't throw away the baby in the bathboard. Don't throw away the peace and harmony in our home, but rather to stay calm, to stay focused, to remember what matters, and to pass that test. And when we do, there's no bigger sim to go into Shabas with that light, the greatest light burst through. If we can peel back and remove that layer that's blocking it, if we can dig deep inside us and find that will and ability to smile even when we don't feel like it. So this Friday we turn our Friday into Shabas by putting a smile on our face even if we don't feel like it. When the month of comes we make ourselves greater. How? By being be bigger be huge be who we could be. How? By choosing to be. Happiness is not an emotion. Happiness is a choice. Make the choice to be happy. Put a smile on your face even if you don't feel like it. and you'll bring such a light into your home and into your life that I'll have you greatest Shabas ever. Wishing you a happy, a healthy and a holy sh. [music] >> [music]