Yom Zeh Mechubad - Zemirot L’Shabbat By Dr. Aaron Adler

so what you should have in front of you is either no you should have two sides of the the poem of Y that we sing on Shabbat with another poem which is the poem for hosana from Shabbat on sukot that we don't do the with the this a special poem that we have for for Shabbat and the page that says the source page for song so all of you should have it either you have it on one page or you have it on the stapled inside of um of the two-part okay let me just uh started off with [Applause] [Music] this they jazzed it up they have an orchestra there a quartet with jazz music I don't know when we sing it in our house it doesn't have that [Music] spunk okay so who wrote it so all these all the ventures that we have so you're going to be able to see very clearly the yud of Y right theet Y is the shin who is the is the Al and is the L and then there's you know what exactly is that but it does spell out Israel and the immediate knee-jerk reaction is to assign authorship to RAB Nar from the 16th century theat in the days of rabo inat in the days of R mosha Al in the days of r jakov there was a whole group of the 16th century including SCH Alat who authors the L this is a story in itself which we'll elaborate on when we do the L but Y naara is a interesting person because he's found in three locations one being spat but he was also in the besset in Gaza City there was a city there was a Sho there that was excavated many years ago there was a beautiful Mosaic that was taken away and brought to the museum Yim the Mosaic of the shul of Gaza and um in an apocryphal story of my family and I always say that because my kids will always say that never happened but nevertheless um that I believe that once uh my son was going into Gaza with the troops many many years ago and he's not to tell us that he's doing something like that but all he asked me was where exactly is the the Mosaic of the shul in Gaza I said what do you have to know he said well we might be dominaing Min there tomorrow oh now I think he's going to deny that that ever happen so it it shows my Keen sense of imagination but U but nevertheless nevertheless R Nara was there but where was Nar where does he his Fame actually begin in Aleppo which is kalab in Syria as a nightclub singer he was not religious and somebody saw him and was impressed with his inner talents his spirituality and somehow got a hold of him you know maybe some laaba of the 16th century or somebody from asiaa or some of these balua yeshivas and got him to brought him schlep him toat and he becomes a great great person with great spirituality in his poems very very talented and he composed many many of our uh Hebrew poems religious poems wrot and so on having said all that he's not the author of yam this is the spoiler it turns out that there was someone in the 12th century 400 years before Nara who was known as RAB Israel ha the convert so he was a convert of the 12 century and he spells out his name Israel like many of the medieval poets would use the apocryphal idea of not apocryphal the the across of of of of using the the his name and and weav it into 12 cury 12th century right and what's happening is that there are it's you have the ud the shin you have the r spells and what happens with that's a hay and what is that factor in and the answer is if you look at the page that I printed so hashamayim is a hay and then there's gum of course it's viam the gimmel was accentuated and the next line is ared it's ha he writes Isel ha so we know that this is somebody who did live and did exist I don't have exactly any other B graphical information but he's the author of Y but let's TR take it from the top it's the day that's most honored from all the other days why because God rested is a reference and we're going to see it at the end of the poem also the last line where does that come from where do we see that from right Vu now in a in a word that P is known as is to say something horrific happened and all we say is is there's nothing that you can say wrong with God sadiku it's it's somehow justifying justifying that the the the horrible situation and saying has a reason why he's doing it that's called and when we say this we say it at levas thead person is going to say this at the end of the so exactly why the author of Y and it's going to glorify everything we know about Shabbat is going to end with from from and he gives us an Insight on the second line that is going to refer to the The Rock means a rock means the foundation of all EX of the whole world of the universe of the whole creation he rested now that's precious right that's so fine so we understand that on Shabbat is doing the rest thing the word is is fascinating when it comes to because in 1948 at the writing of the Declaration of Independence um the M there was a big issue about whether kadh is going to have a presence in there or not and of course the religious parties the m and even the Auda they were very interested that there should be some reference to and the secular Zionist didn't want God in the picture of course Boran insisted that there had to be something about Isel and it's there it's there okay the the it was the the message of the prophets that the future would come that am would come back there it's yeah that's there but you know you can read the uh the with a secular eye so you know that's okay but they made a compromise now once you see that anybody who davens that's good is we say it every day in the morning right before she who's the is obviously obviously but if you want you can interpret Isel as the destiny of Amel you know giving it lacking some religious connotation and reading it in a secular way and they said okay is so they made a compromise you can read it the way you want to read it and and is there the only thing is that the first Rel minister of the of religious Affairs rmon he wasn't happy with that ra and and and Ravon when he signs his name he [Laughter] writes F you know so it was like part of his signature but he writes that you know he he was adamant that had to be there not just hiding on is but so there was a story there so here it's the day that's most why is it the most what could be behind that statement all the other days so is the most well just going to spell it out what's what's so M about it the thing is that I brought along a safer called This is just volume one of two volumes you see it's it's pretty fat and it was given to me by a distant cousin who no longer with us and and then he was not a youngster at my Mitzvah he gave it to me as a Mitzvah gift and I have the the inscription even he was a he was a r in the lowy side those who know the turf of the lowy side um it was a street called um um what's it there was Clinton Street and there was a turny street and there was the Lany the Lany was the most important but this is between attorney Street and and just blacking out nowor pit not pit keep going keep going okay but there was a SHO there was a Sho my grandfather had a milk restaurant there he lived on a Turner Street but was right around the corner of his no okay that's too far that's too far rington Stanton Stanton there we go Stanton Street T Stanton Street Stanton Street that's right Stanton Street the um so across the street from my grandfather's mil restaurant there was a Sho and this R yoseph singer was the r it was the r his father his name was ROV singer and I don't go the whole Mia was a a a a son-in-law of my great-grandfather and he became the r of the town that my great-grandfather was the p in in Poland and my father actually was named after this rer the son is R Zer and we were very particularly close to him and uh he gave me this B mitvah gift and I use this sparingly it's a type of anthology of pushim on the S and the problem is he doesn't give us Source material you know he just writes it as a you know it's all over the place but what I'm going to read to you now is most probably something that has for sure midrashic Source or cabalistic Zohar Source I tried my best on my Pro thean to to bring it up and get the original I still haven't located but it's still a f and that's why I'm reading it now secondhand uh but it's nevertheless an very very interesting thought and that was that the kav the intention of Y why was it so honored from all the other days that when a kadosh created the world he actually created six days and each day would have 28 hours now that's not exactly to break it down into six right they're going to be some extra hours if that happens or the day would have no the reason is the day would have 28 hours and there would be six days of 28 hours and then it would repeat six days of 28 hours somehow a phal thought but the uh days themselves were arguing who's going to be the leader who's going to be the leader so Kosh said what he'll do is take four hours out of each day and Shrink each day to 24 hours and create a seventh day of 24 hours so by taking removing four days out of the day of 28 days so now you have six days of 24 hours hours and a seventh day of 24 hours and the days agreed that this seventh day would be the leader of all and because each day contributed to the chabas by four hours they realized that they had a part in it they were part and it was it wasn't like an outsider coming wasn't that a kadosh took a seventh day and spped it in but the seventh day was actually born out of each of the six days days each day donated four hours for the creation of the Shabbat and they all bestowed the crown on Shabbat as being something very very special it's a wild idea obviously a nice story but it could be that the author of The had this in mind that the day was from all the days those it's it's cavod basically nourished from the fact that all the other days contributed something to the creation of the day of Shabbat again I'm not signing on the dotted line I'm I'm presenting it as an interesting thought you know that certainly does not have any halakic roots to it but most probably has midic SL cabalistic roots to it and now we get to the poem itself because that's the refrain we get to refrain right six days you do your work seventh day is dedicated to seventh day you don't to [Music] work made all the days on the six on the sixth day now the this stanza just flip the side you know on the on the page of sources again if you have the two page s I'm on the side that says we're not looking at the source page of last week of I'm on the side the flip side the sources if we just look at source number one that's and here I've highlighted basically what the poet did with lifted out of context but just abbreviated it somewhat just to squeeze it into poetic form but you can see that he's taking it out of these lines is precisely and then the next line in and the poem has it as well that's the end where he says in in in Shabbat where it says and so on you can see that the first stanza the poet has theer BR the fourth de the fourth say of the which is Shabbat and he's lifting it out of context and just writing it in Poetic form fine that's going to be easy then comes the next stanza meses now here we're gonna have to split because the first two lines are somewhat connected to the first stanza and the next two lines are going to be connected to the third stanza so if you just see the third stanza for the the they ation for a moment therefore every person is going to say on on wine he's going to sanctify the day over a cup of wine and on on two loaves of bread he's going to cut the word B has to do with slicing slicing bread we have the concept the laws of slicing bread it's in with regard to when you make when do you cut the bread before the and and with regard to Kal so if you're eating sliced bread at home during the weekday so you make your before you eat the bread but if you have a whole loaf or even a a whole roll so the question is when do you make the MIT do you make it before you slice it or cut it or rip it apart or after there's some halakic discussion about it so much so that you know what the custom is with the kalus on Friday night to take the knife and make a little indentation to recognize that there's a view that says that the BR should be made after the kala is cut so we accept the opinion that we cut the kala before the kala is cut and not the view after but to show that there's actually a view out there that says that we should be making the after the we make a little line in the Kal a little indentation and and so that maybe the view that the BR should be made after the kala is cut so I cut the kala how much did I cut not much because I'm actually I want to make the BR before I cut so it's a compromise it almost reminds me of the M how do you place the muuza on the door vertical or horizontal there are two different opinions whether it's supposed to be horizontal or vertical so what ashm do neither right we we do it vertic we do it diagonal we diagonal and and and but it's but the diagonal is more tilted to the vertical not to the horizontal we it's not supposed to be 45 degree angle where you know it's just in between supposed to be it's 60 de right supposed to be a little bit closer to being vertical than horizontal but but nevertheless it's diagonal to show that there is a view out there that says that it's not vertical that it's do just do vertical they decided how the M should be it's vertical and that's it [Music] yeah so if if uh if the parisher was put you know horizontal that's According to some opinion so you may be aware of somebody who's still hanging on to that view but most ashkenazim aren't doing that most ashkenazim are putting it diagonal but basically favoring the view of the vertical I'm just using this as an example so here we're not cutting the kala but we are cutting the kala we're making a little line in it that's it so that's called that's the word b is also used in the gar for compromise in in in in judgment the where the it says that the the um the the the should actually offer a compromise instead of making one side the winner or one side the absolute loser that compromise is a type of M shalom it's compromised but there's an element of Harmony because nobody is a total winner and nobody's a total loser and thear calls it B uses the same word so here too we're actually compromising with the with the with the dispute whether you should say the before the cutting or after the cutting so we make a little line on it but that's what is called here this can go two ways either it's a reference to the kalus that should be whole right you don't take a one and a half kalus that you only take on SED night when they haveon broken mat make a broken mat but during the year it's it has to be whole or is a reference to we just to flip again to the source page where it says Source number five it says from you are supposed to be whole whole means complete perfect and and and and doesn't mean naive in this sense it does not mean naive here you should be complete which should be wholesome and and and and and not in not incomplete but complete and the next Source says you should be connected and it seems that the poet is using these two because in the stza that I just read in the next stanza he's going to say you should eat fat food and drink sweet drinks God gave it to you who are also I'm is so the comes from the and the comes from is talking about and what's you do have the sources if you if you have the um you you rip the page there's another page that goes with this last week I gave you two pages yeah the um okay the the the poet in the second stanes I'm going to connect this with the first stanza but then he continues something about our meals of Shabbat Al we have on wine on two breads the will slice we good delicious luxurious foods and drinks sweet drinks gave to his those who are connected to him what did he give so this has all to do with food Foods so let's go back to the second stanza and read the first two lines again what exactly does this mean what is what does this mean what does it mean we sh whoes so now we're going to flip to the sources and look at source number two it's from parat in parat which we call which we call a it's in the delates all of the and all of the are and then continuing with and then and then Y and thenot and it ends with that's how it be ends how does it begin begins with right look at source number two speak to is and say to them mes here are the that are assigned the title mes they are called KES they are called Kesh who calls them KES who designs the fact that theim KES I'm Isel I'm Isel as opposed to shabbat as opposed to shabbat where it's withes who assigned holy status to shabbat rested on the seventh day and he assigned that it's going to be a day of whereas when we talk about the it's asss ites through the Mitzvah ofes and the Mitzvah of sanctifying the Moon monthly and seven times after n 19 years according to our prepared calendar we have leap years so we assign y status and that's why in we say we assign the day as Y and what strange is that the whole section begins with Shabbat very strange and how does it begin Shabbat it doesn't belong care we talking about the and the very next re takes a back step back and says so why is shabas here now Rashi says something there says come to teach you that if you don't keep the it's like you don't keep the Shabbat okay it's a nice vort it's a nice idea but that's not theat theat is that Shabbat belongs here it's also part of the scheme of theim but one second the scheme of is not cre sche of the is not creation it's it's the Exodus from Egypt so why is Shabbat here so if we ready glance forward to the second set of theer which is in so there in Source number three we have the other reason for Shabbat we all know that the second set of the as opposed to Z it says but we get to the reason of Shabbat if you look at source three where it says says the whole reason for Shabbat is and that's the reason that you have to keep Shabbat one second didn't I think that the reason for Shabbat is creation and that's how it is in the first set of a in Source number one God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh day that's why God Sanctified Shabbat well let's get it right is it creation or is it and what's the answer no that can't be you know the you can have a problem but not in the the answer is it's both it's both there two sides the Shabbat and the vraim source number two is playing on the second side of Shabbat is playing up the side that Shabbat has a place in the scheme of theim and in the it sayses what's first on the list shabat before p and that's why we say on Friday night in KES every Friday night we say it is first on the list of and even if you're saying it like that it doesn't say but it says it's first on the list of these this is the scheme of the of the that are and first on the list is Shabbat and that's what the pan does here when he sayses Shabbat Shabbat KES so you know what he did here he fused together the theme of Shabbat of the first and the second but instead of citing the second br he lifts it out of which is based on fact that Shabbat has another side to it it's also the side of and the one to give explanation to this and go back to the source page on number four it's the r in theplex the and the r says as follows means it's that's not Al means means there are exchanging or isolating isolating flipping back and forth back and forth the reason for Shabbat flips from creation God said and so on what is the nickname for and in it reads don't think it's a contradiction the whole story is true the reason so here R is saying it's maybe that's why the poet who may have had some of these ideas in his head said he may have even known this rambam he's the say he's a contemporary he's a contemporary of the ramban this Isel ha and he says Shabbat in as expressed in the first expresses the greatness and the glory of Shabbat because God created the world however there's another reason to shabbat when we think about the Isel in MIT for the hundreds of years that they served in MIT as slaves they never got a day off there was no as a vacation day and even the atheistic communist Russia understood that for proper and good and healthy productivity you have to give a worker a day off right Thank God It's Friday something to look forward to that the a day that you don't go to work so pure slavery is Nazi Germany when we were Jews in the in the camps there was no day off there was noes it was work work work work work and work the first thing anel receives after they come out of the yamu and here they're free they finally felt they were free you know why we glorify the seventh day of PES with the create yamu because until that happened they didn't think they were free yet because the Egyptians are running after them and they actually believe the Egyptians are going to take them back you know when they know that they're free when they see the yamu close up on the Egyptians and the medra says that wasn't even good enough the medra says that the yamu regurgitated the bodies and then on the on the yamu bank they say we're free now they know we're free now we know it because they're dead that's it so what does he give them so they walk three days in the desert and the water in the Jans are empty and it's a place that's called Mara they find a body of water but the but the water is contaminated can't drink it so they complain to mhu and they weren't out of line the out of line was the tone the rans taught us that it's not what you say but how you say it makes all the difference they didn't come to musheno and say you know the Jans are empty exactly what are we supposed to drink no they didn't do that they came to mha and they said what's going on here no water they panicked okay so take a bitter branch that there was something there in the desert and throw it into the bitter water and sweet water is going to come out and they called the place Mara and what's interesting was that at that place of Mara they received a tasting of Torah this is six five and a half weeks before they get the Tor five and a half weeks before so they receive something of a tasting of uh of of of Torah at that place one of the MIT that kazal say that we received was Shabbat one was Shabbat why because Shabbat is both a and aishat a the as a reflection of creation that's a says means it's civil law what was the civil law said that you're going to have a day off he didn't give them all of the and all of the details of what Shabbat is he gave them the concept that one day a week you are going to have off and how did that Express itself M started falling on and a Shabbat it's not going to fall you're going to get two portions of M on Friday and scoop it up mishna as it's called double amount of bread Mish and that's why we put two Kal on the table because we want to remember that on Friday we reive two portions of MTH and said what was considered work in those days opening the door and scooping up the MTH the med say is that if you were a sadic the mud fell on your doorstep and if you weren't such a sadic you had to walk a little bit to get it everybody got it but they had to work to get it it wasn't terrible work they had to walk out a few steps maybe a few more steps with a paale and a shovel scoop it up and that's breakfast and Shabbat they don't go to work they can sleep late in the midbar in the desert they don't have to open the door because breakfast is already there it was scooped up on Friday with the Mish and therefore K gives at Mar a tasting of Shabbat and the rambam says that was a rectification of a social injustice that you have to have one day a week that you don't work you're on you're on vacation and they got that vacation immediately after MIT after they got out that is the and that's theat of remember you were slaves and took you out and therefore you will pronounce the day of Shabbat just like you pronounce theim so the fact that aosh sanctifies the day of Shabbat as the day of remembering creation we have nothing to do with that that's God God Sanctified that but the part of shabat that is we have to participate in the sanctification of Shabbat so how do we do it with KES Friday Night by making kidish Friday night we sanctify the day yeah yeah so R asking a very very good question should be before saying before before the why The KES so we will understand that The KES and the leishna is all part of one and I'm going to prove this if you're a you know this you wash for the before Kish right and you make Kish and then you sit down after you drink the wine a little bit you make the together it's all one package deal and the truth of the matter is I think it would be nice to all of us to be Yas you know when when you invite a lot of guests Friday night right so so first of all you're SE you're seating everybody you make kidish then everybody's got to get up again to wash the Yas have it right talk what you you can't talk what was that yeah okay but also it's just wonderful when you have somebody who's a blab mouth and then have wash me let you him you want to wait with hit because you're getting squeeze another 30 seconds out of his silence yeah so okay I I know I know I know it it it certainly should be it should be and the Min of covering the kala is very strange not to normally you make is the first thing on the agenda and here here you're not you're making a Andes so in order not to embarrass the we cover that's one reason the other reason is that the man was covered with d so the covering of the kala is to remind us that the man was also covered but the Bal muser the muser people of Lita he went to town with this covering of Thea and saying if you train yourself not to embarrass aala how much more so not to embarrass a human being right it's like its character train building and training so in truth the Kal is part and parcel even though those who are not Y and will wash afterwards we make KES and wash afterwards the um and by the way it's a between and what to do in the E and somehow the tradition of the German Jewish Community was like so it's one of two things either they help like naturally but but and any case in any case to answer Rus question it it goes together it it goes together right the answer is that we've taken which is the source of The mitzah KES by the way so is the biblical source of Kes Friday night and according to the rambam it's to say words of Shabbat and only the added the cup of wine to it but the there were other the r and others who say that the kidish Friday night biblically is over a cup of wine doesn't say wine in that it's it's an oral addon just like the r also has an oral law addon that's is to articulate to spell out verbally something about Shabbat but ran believes that the cup of wine is is actually but then thear says that added or expanded to the morning because the morning k for sure is not everybody agrees with that and once that came over came over with the ride came over with the same package to show that it's really one package the the Kish on the on the cup of wine and the and the the is all part of our fulfillment the of and the r explained that normally starts a meal I mean that's why we wash and we make a and then it covered Hami now covers everything else that's going to be served even though you ate a little bit of of bread you know you didn't really want to eat a whole sandwich now but you're being served with five course you know five courses of of entree and and and and and and the man and soup and man with a lot of stuff on it and dessert and everything but Noami is g to cover cover cover your ground on chabas the Kish allows you to have a sud chabbat theen to use the the bris it's a m allows you to eat a sudat without kidish you can't eat your meal you so the Kish in the morning allows you to have a meal and the ram believe this or not but the yemenites still have this this very day begin sudit with a cup of wine also like there's a quasi Kish for sudit also for the same reason except the reason why ashm are a little bit LAX about that and don't have a cup of wine for sud is because sud you should eat it but you know if you don't have bread you can be y with with with cake and you can be y with fruits and vegetables and you can be y with a you know that people go to they physically don't eat and is the shear that they've had where does that come from it comes from a view of what do you do on a PES that comes out onab this year the big sh is you can't have bread anymore it's PES in the afternoon you can't have matah because it's the afternoon of it's PES we don't even so so one of the answers is fruits and vegetables that's all and the other answer is exactly exactly that's probably how why it came about they so but R's grandfather from brisk said don't rely on that view but you should eat sudit why he said because against a a Shear you can come up with a great Kasha that destroys the whole Shear but against a herring you can't ask kasas that's what he said that was R's idea sounds and he was a Class A litvak but he said against the hering he said against you can't ask okay so you have here in the poem itself meses this is all this the flip side of what Shabbat is it's the side of Shabbat that a mo it's a y and the mo part we fulfill it how do we fulfill it by making we assign the status ofat as a and there is a that even has a variant now we don't do that we don't do that our ises Shabbat and we show a vast distinction between theat and the rest of the but the fact is The KES that we're making on Friday night is not part of the the fact that made it kados that we simply say testimony in vulu so the peric was the Preamble for Kish where does KES start it starts with baren so why do we say we say testimony so some of us start with that's because the cabalists wanted the four letters of there a cute way of snicking in there so then some said well you can't start a PK at the end so we'll say by quietly because we want to emphasize those four words and then some said one second the doesn't start with it starts with okay you know that the tunisians have a custom we saw this in Beva when we live there they eat cuscus on Tuesday and Friday so why on Tuesday and Friday so one of the tunisians explained to me because on Tuesday it says kto twice and what could be better than cuscus and on Friday it says what could be better than okay but some say this in an undertone also in but loud that's the get but the the original custom was just to say by as testimony and that's why even people who sit for KES usually stand for vulu because testimony has to be said standing up and then they'll sit down for the and KES yeah right in the morning okay so these Customs are now outgrowths of Co of of compromises and merger and mishmash of different customs and so on let's speak halachically I say very publicly I don't do it according to because I do it the way my father did it my Granda father and grandfather which is the cabalistic way of standing for all the KES the is you're supposed to sit for all the KES but not for is but must be said why is where you eat that's why did the cabalist stand by KES so R explained it once because the cabalist added another idea to KES and that is to welcome aadh into the home and that happens Friday night not shabas morning so that explains this custom of sitting by chabas morning correctly but Friday night to stand because a is entering into our Abode and it wouldn't be right to uh be sitting you remember we just read right was sitting but then Rashi says say doesn't it's not written Yos we read it Yos he is sitting it's it's written it's spelled in the past tense that he was sitting yeah he was sitting but now he's standing why is he standing because came so enters you get up and stand up that's why the is that the is walking around we have to stand up it's not because of the cover sephra because the seph's movement reflects a moving so when the aresh is opened you don't have to stand up I didn't say anything hypocrit heresy now when the or Kish is open you don't have to stand up you have to stand up with the t is in motion so we generally stand up when they open the because we're gonna take the sa out but not always for or other times on on raship the it's a gab's nightmare of of having people open and close their Kesh N I always announced and show anybody that's weak and sit down during the whole n even though on is open you know when there's a problem during when people are dancing with the SE people are sitting on the side that's wrong they're not allowed to sit down when the SE is in motion so that's a that's a that's a real problem but um the the move the fact that there's awareness of's presence that demands to be standing that's where the cabalist came into the picture with the uh so so so in the poem itself it says it all goes together and as we explained is all forged together as one point and then the next stanza as we'll see it next week in mem the next stanza the um he goes over to the idea of of on Shabbat and kot Shabbat and there's still what to do on this page so you're invited to hand the page back to me and I'll be happy to bring it next week you want to bring it and please bring it next you want to keep it please bring it next week okay