Tzama Nafshi in English - Parshas Mishpatimפרשת משפטים
Transcribed
and translated from previous recordings of
HaRav
Eliezer Berland Shlit”a
“Six days you should
accomplish your activities and on the seventh day you shall desist” (23:12)
A child that sees
his father sitting calmly, singing and speaking words of Torah at the Shabbos
table will feel a profound sense of inner happiness and serenity…
“Rabbeinu says that
Shabbos is like a magnificent wedding at which everyone is happy and dancing
with tremendous joy. A person gets dressed up in his finest clothing and
quickly runs to take part in this joyous celebration. But [he doesn’t realize]
what an incredible privilege it is even just to be able to stand outside and
peek through a curtain, through the tiniest crack and to be able to watch what
is going on inside” (Sichos HaRan 254).
When Shabbos
arrives, there is a wedding in heaven. It is 26 hours long, from the beginning
of kabbalas Shabbos until Havdalah, and one must participate in this wedding,
with the songs and dancing that are taking place in heaven. When we recite
Lecha Dodi at the beginning of Shabbos, HaKadosh Baruch Hu immediately enters
Gan Eden and dances with the tzaddikim. All Shabbos long, c’viyachol, Hashem
dances with the tzaddikim, with all the angels in Gan Eden, and everyone dances
around HaKadosh Baruch Hu and says “This is Hashem to whom we hoped; let us
exult and be glad in His salvation” (Yeshiah 25:9). And everyone will look at
Hashem face to face, and everyone will be nourished from the clarity of the
bright shining light (from the clear lens - אספקלריא המאירה). Everything that we have on Shabbos, the
whole joy of Shabbos, is drawn from the joy of the dancing and music of
HaKadosh Baruch Hu with the tzaddikim in Gan Eden. The simchah in heaven
filters down to our world.
The Rebbe said that
Shabbos is literally like a wedding—a unique wedding. It’s a grand and
important wedding where everyone comes and dances. But the problem is that not
everyone is able to get into the hall. The hall will not hold everyone. Just
like the weddings of Admorim in which 30,000, 40,000, even 50,000 chassidim
attend—some climb on the windows, some stand on the rooftops with binoculars
watching the great joy of the chuppah or the dancing of the chassan. Everyone
is looking for some kind of opening or crack to peer through—from some rooftop
maybe they will be able to see some of the joy of the wedding. Maybe they’ll
catch a glimpse of some of the dancing.
The Rebbe says that
Shabbos is like a wedding, but who knows who will merit seeing the joy of
Shabbos? Who will merit seeing the wondrous joy of Shabbos, the infinite joy of
Shabbos? “…what an incredible privilege it is even just to be able to stand
outside and peek through a curtain, through the tiniest crack and to be able to
watch what is going on inside!” Because Shabbos is only for dancing, singing
and joy. When Shabbos arrives a person should be happy, and he should dance and
sing. The holy Shabbos is unending joy, limitless joy. It is forbidden for a
person to have even a fleeting thought of sadness or worry on Shabbos. The
essence of Judaism depends on this. The more a person is happy on Shabbos, the
more he dances on Shabbos, this is what determines how much G-dly light he will
merit during his week. The G-dly light enlightens a person through the joy that
he has on Shabbos. A person is not allowed to be miserable and depressed on
Shabbos. He shouldn’t worry—“as if he had completed absolutely everything that
he had to do” (Rashi on Shemos 20:8). Baruch Hashem that no one is in jail. No
one has been taken captive. Everyone has, Baruch Hashem, two challos and a cup
of wine for Kiddush.
When a person says
“Vayachulu” he is saying the ten ma’amaros. Vayachulu includes everything, all
the accountings, all the worries, all the plans. When Shabbos Kodesh arrives,
it is forbidden for a person to make any plans about what he might do during
the coming week. He should have no thoughts about what will be during the week.
When Shabbos arrives, let Hashem take care of everything. If a person thinks on
Shabbos, “What will be?” then they say in heaven, “OK. Let it be like he
thinks.” Why are you doing Hashem’s accounting? You are ruining all the plans
of Hashem Yisborach. Hashem has infinite potential, an infinite ability to
bestow good upon a person. He wants to give you everything. He wants to
overwhelm you with good. Hashem wants to give a person all the bounty in the
world. But if a person thinks on Shabbos, “What will we eat? What will we
drink? What will we eat on Sunday? What will be on Monday? What will we eat on
Tuesday?” Then they say to him, “OK. Whatever you think, that’s what we’ll give
you. You will receive according to your own understanding.” But if you don’t
think and you don’t ask “What will be? What will be on Sunday, on Monday…” but
rather, fortify yourself with joy, then you will have such bounty, such
salvation—things you never even hoped for. Things you never expected. Salvation
you never even dreamt of. You cannot imagine what bounty Hashem has to give
you. But you must rejoice on Shabbos Kodesh and to really, truly be filled with
unlimited happiness, an unending and boundless joy. Of course, you shouldn’t
lose control. But you can only draw the holiness of Shabbos and the G-dly light
of Shabbos down through the vessel of joy.
Shabbos arrives.
Everyone is singing. Everyone is dancing with their children. Everyone:
Admorim, Rabbanim, Rashei Yeshivos. Everyone is sitting for three to four hours
at the Shabbos table and singing with their children. And the children give
over divrei Torah, chidushim. Children feel the oneg Shabbos, feel desire to be
frum yidden, desire to be yireh shamayim. The Shabbos table is the opening to
everything in the world, all the salvation. When a person sits with his
children and sings with them, that is where the children get their desire for
holiness from, their desire for Torah, for prayer and yiras shamayim, also
their love for their mother and father. You don’t sing? Then your Shabbos is
not Shabbos! If a person doesn’t sing the zemiros, then what will you do if
your son goes of the derech, chas v’shalom? If a family doesn’t sing the
Shabbos zemiros, then the kids start wandering around because they don’t have
anything to do, and then they go outside and hear not nice things and they go
and meet bad friends and they themselves then ruin other friends. The child
sees that his father isn’t praying, isn’t happy. He doesn’t sing the Shabbos
songs, and so the child goes and does aveiros. When Shabbos arrives, a child
must see his father singing and yearning and delighting in Shabbos, and then he
too will get a taste for Shabbos, a taste for life. Now is the time for
zemiros, singing. We sing zemiros for an hour and then the children are
enlivened. They laugh and are happy. If a child sings for an hour with his
father on Shabbos, then in this merit he can hold out for the whole week. Then
if he happens to meet a bad friend, he will say, “Get away from me. What? Do
you want to destroy me?” If a child sees his father sitting peacefully, singing
zemiros, he will have such a good feeling in his heart and he will be so secure
that this is his life, this is his joy, and then he won’t be interested in the
street and all its emptiness. What more does a child need than this? The
minimum requirement of Judaism is to sing the Shabbos songs. Without this one
hasn’t even begun!
They asked the
father of Rebbe Duvid from Lelov how he merited to have such a great son. He
said that when he would come to the line of the Shabbos zemiros that said “You
should merit seeing your children and your children’s children fulfilling the
Torah and mitzvos” he would sing it over and over with tears in his eyes, with
such a deveikus, for at least half an hour, that he should merit to see his
children and grandchildren going this way. A father wants that his child will
not cut off his payos! Why shouldn’t he cut off his payos? What does he see his
father doing? His father sleeps on Shabbos, eats and sleeps and eats and sleeps
again... If he would see his father singing with a lot of enthusiasm and
dancing with his children and getting them excited, then no child would cut off
his paos, no child would look to the street, because even children want to
serve Hashem. It’s just that they don’t see any avodas Hashem. So if a person
will sing with deveikus, and sing, “I should merit seeing my children and
children’s children” then he and his children and his grandchildren will go
with payos, study Torah and do mitzvos.
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