Shabbos: Liberate Yourself | Turn Friday into Erev Shabbos #245

Oh Today is not Friday. Today is Arab Shabas and we're here to turn our Friday into Arab Shabas. A big thank you to our gen generous series sponsors Mandy and fish in memory of Rabbi Jonathan Saxs of Yakov Ben Ary and in memory of Mandy's father should have an aliyah. We are in the parios of gullis and gula. The kutskarb is said that when we read these parots we're not reading about a piece or a part of the past. We're reading about the prescription for our own story, our own destiny, our own redemption. that we all experience mates are constricted, restricted, closing small space and the gula, the redemption, the liberation, the freedom from and when do we have this? No time more than shabas. Shabas is the gula. Shabas is haba. Shabas says that all week long we're in the gullus of having to have a job and work. We're bound by other people. We have the master called work and money and responsibility and bills and invoices and tasks and tuitions and inboxes. All these things are our master. They're our gullus. All week long we face and we navigate and we confront the gullus of not really owning our own time, not really owning our own ability to have freedom. Comes Shabas. Shabas liberates and emancipates. Shabas sets us free. Shabas gives us not just that taste of gula. Shabas is gula because for Shabas you put everything else up on the shelf. There is no answering the inbox and the WhatsApp and the texts. There are no to-dos to check off. There are no bills to pay. For Shabas we're shal Shabas we're whole. We're complete. We're free. And therefore, it is a taste of exodus, a taste of freedom, a taste of liberty. Expands on this extensively in shalom in several essays. He has in one called Shabas. He talks about that we are only redeemed in the merit of Shabas. Shabas is a day of Shabas is a day of connection and faith and in the merit of our ability to disconnect from this world and connect to the world of eternity. It's in that merit that we were first redeemed. But in an earlier essay, in an earlier mime, he talks about that chabas is shabas is shabas. All the days of the week is gullis. All the days of the week, we have messages and inboxes and errands and places and wash and laundry and dishes. Shabas. Shabas comes, put it all up on a shelf. Shabas comes, shut it all down. Shabas comes disconnect in order to be free. All week long we have worries, we have anxieties, we have fears. All week long we have legitimate things that we have to tend to. And therefore, all week long, we're also in the throws of the Sahara, particularly because of the access and use of technology. But for so many other reasons, our temper is short because we're our days are so full and we have so little time and we're hangry and we're running and all week long the we find ourselves in its grasp in its throws and we're like the Mosha was telling them I'm here to set you free but they couldn't hear me. We feel so breathless. We feel so run down. We have so little vision and perspective and ability to believe it can be different. And come Shabas takea restore that nama and put on pabas. We put on the shabas pim and now we're a new person and a different person. All week long we're the gulos Jew and Shabas comes and we're the gula Jew. Shabas is a taste of that world of that future. We're Shabas. We enter Shabas and Shabas enters us. We shake off all the things that we are weighed down from all week long and we liberate ourselves. All four of the languages of we experience over the course of the four stages of Shabas with of course being the highest level of connection. So here's how we are going to turn Friday into Shabas today. Think about today. What's weighing you down? What's holding you back? What's making you feel the mit the mar making you feeling restricted and constricted in your own life? What's making you feel helpless and hopeless? What's making you feel so anxious and worried? And now make a conscious effort to liberate to step out to set it aside to put it down. It may still be there shabas could be after havdala. You'll have to return to it. Whether it's work, whether it's health, whether it's financial, whether it's relationship, whether it's the world of the the news of the world. For 25 hours, we have a cocoon, a city of refuge. For 25 hours, we can disconnect from it. For 25 hours, we are transported to a different place called Shabas. And in that place called Shabas, everything's great and amazing and whole and complete. And for those 25 hours, we lack and miss nothing. For those 25 hours, there is redemption. But it doesn't happen by accident. And it doesn't happen passively. You have to actively contemplate and think and strategize and focus. So today, turn Friday into Shabas by identifying. Maybe it's the notifications on your inbox. Maybe it's how many voicemails you haven't returned, how many errands you still have to run. Maybe it's the bills that you're not sure how you're going to pay. All of us have that thing which is our gulas. And make the conscious effort and decision to liberate to spend a shabas to spend a shabas a taste of a shabas. a Shabas where we're not thinking about and weighed down by those things and in that way be able to be transported in the of that Shabas to come out of Shabas and to be able to have a gula that lasts in fact all week long. Have a wonderful Shabbas. Stay happy, stay healthy, and stay