Turn Friday into Erev Shabbos #52 - Everything L'Kavod Shabbos

Description

Tune in on Fridays as we get inspired together through music and powerful teachings. The gemara (Shabbos 25b) tells us that Rav Yehudah bar Ilai would wash his face, hands and feet in warm water on Erev Shabbos. The Rambam quotes this and says one should wash with warm water and wrap themselves in tzitzis in anticipation of Shabbos. What is the deeper meaning of specifically washing face, hands and feet and why in warm water? R' Avraham Schorr explains that the panim, the face represents the pnim, who we are inside. When a person embarrasses another, we call it malbim pnei chaveiro b'rabim, one has challenged the panim, the pnim of the other in public and stripped them of dignity and honor. Our job on Erev Shabbos is to wash our face, to review our pnim, who we are and who we want to be. We specifically use warm water which is reminiscent of the hot water we use to kasher to purge the contaminant from a vessel. This washing should cleanse, remove and purify what imagine, idea or behavior has been absorbed into our pnim of the previous week. Erev Shabbos is not just a time to prepare physically, but we have to wash our panim, we purify and cleanse who we are in order to enter Shabbos holy and to experience it to its fullest. For more content, visit http://www.rabbiefremgoldberg.org.