Preparing the Body on Erev Shabbos - Rabbi Michael Shlomo Avishid shlita

00:02 Speaker 1 You’re listening to the “Lema’an Yishme’u” podcast from Machon Halacha Chabad.

00:09 Speaker 2 Okay, we’ll have a class on sections 260 and 262. As you’ve noticed, these aren’t complicated subjects, but it’s still worth talking about what to do in practice and emphasizing the practical points. So we’ll keep it short. Among the things we need to do in honor of Shabbos, as we already learned in the Rambam, are honoring Shabbos and taking pleasure in it. Honoring Shabbos means entering Shabbos clean—bathing. So there’s a mitzvah to bathe in honor of Shabbos. Even though, as the Alter Rebbe says, it isn’t such a strict obligation and you aren’t punished for failing to do it, you still receive a reward. Nowadays, that’s almost taken for granted. What, is there a day when you don’t shower? But it wasn’t always taken for granted. People didn’t bathe every day; they bathed once every two weeks. If you came back from a journey with mud on your feet, you’d wash your face, hands and feet, and every so often you’d wash your whole body. There wasn’t a shower readily available at home, either. You’d go to a well for water, or to a stream, and so on. It wasn’t an everyday thing. That’s why it was very important to say: Folks, bathe in honor of Shabbos. Even if you normally bathe only once every—I don’t know—ten days or two weeks, Jews need to bathe on Erev Shabbos. That’s one point. Today, of course, it’s obvious. Even if no one asked us to do it, we would. What’s more, it says that someone who can’t manage to bathe on Friday should bathe on Thursday. Nowadays we bathe on Thursday and on Shabbos—yes, and on Friday too. And some people go to the mikveh in the morning, shower, and then go to the mikveh again before Shabbos and shower again. So these are—

02:15 Speaker 2 things we take for granted. But you never know—there might be a young man who neglects himself, or someone who’s a little depressed and hardly bathes. So it’s important to know: we bathe in honor of Shabbos. Now, if you can’t wash your whole body, then at least wash your face, hands and feet, and wash your hair too. Boruch Hashem, we don’t generally face situations today where a person can’t bathe, unless he arrives at someone’s home at the very last minute on Erev Shabbos and feels awkward asking to use the shower. Then he goes into the bathroom and washes a bit at the sink... Washing the face, hands and feet used to be absolutely necessary, because people would travel and get dirty. Today there’s less dirt. Some poskim say that in hot countries, where your feet sweat in any case, you should still wash them. But I believe 99 percent of people today will bathe. Now, there’s a point to note in the wording. Both the early authorities and later poskim say to wash your hair. You could just rinse yourself off without washing your hair, but it says to wash your hair. It doesn’t say to use hot water. When they speak about washing your face, hands and feet, or washing your body, the wording is “bathe in hot water.” But regarding the head, it only says to wash the hair. The Bach is the one who specified washing the hair in hot water. So, if you noticed, the Biur Halacha says: Well, that isn’t written in the sources. The sources don’t say the hair must be washed in hot water. The Alter Rebbe also saw the Bach, but doesn’t cite him. I think the Alter Rebbe just says to wash the hair, without mentioning hot water. But the later authorities said—and I think so too—that washing the hair means using hot water. That’s basic. You can wash your body in cold water, in a river, in lukewarm water, or in hot water. Halacha discusses this a great deal, including in the laws of immersion: washing in cold, lukewarm or hot water. But washing the hair—

04:20 Speaker 2 the term itself, as when a woman washes her hair before going to the mikveh—means cleaning your head thoroughly. That’s basic knowledge; it isn’t some new discovery, right? People have always known how to use soap. As we see in the Shulchan Aruch, in the laws of meat and milk, sometimes they would take meat and milk from the oven and make water from them to wash their hair. So clearly they knew how to wash hair. You do it to remove dirt and sweat, especially from between the hairs, where sweat and dirt cling. Hot water is what helps. Cold water, on the contrary, also makes the hairs stick and tangle together. That’s why it’s important for a woman not to wash her hair in cold water before going to the mikveh; it will only tangle her hair. That’s well known. So, simply put, we shouldn’t infer from the wording that washing the hair can be done even in cold water. They didn’t specify hot water because that needs to be specified for bathing: you can bathe in a river, in cold water, in lukewarm water or in hot water. Washing the hair was done with hot water. In any case, there’s hardly any point in discussing it—it’s just a detail of wording—because I believe everyone bathes in water that isn’t scalding, of course, but is warmer than lukewarm. That’s generally the case. Now, there’s something that isn’t discussed here in the Shulchan Aruch, but is brought in Shaar Hakavanos, where it’s very, very important. It’s even part of the process of receiving the Shabbos soul: going to the mikveh. Even before the Arizal’s Shaar Hakavanos, this is emphasized in the Zohar on Parshas Terumah, which says that Rav Hamnuna would always go to immerse on Erev Shabbos. It doesn’t merely say that he bathed. Chazal say in the Gemara that one should bathe in honor of Shabbos, but the fact that he immersed every Erev Shabbos shows that, according to Kabbalah, it’s very, very important. This practice really caught on.

06:37 Speaker 2 Why did it catch on so much? Because many poskim bring it. Among Sephardim, it’s brought in Kaf Hachaim and Ben Ish Chai. The Aruch Hashulchan brings it, and the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch brings it in section 72: there is a custom to immerse in a mikveh on Erev Shabbos. Among chassidim, of course, this isn’t such a novelty, since they go to the mikveh every day. Still, even if you went to the mikveh in the morning, there’s also the idea of going before Shabbos. Now, as for the time to bathe—and the time to go to the mikveh—the wording in halacha is “Erev Shabbos.” That could mean starting in the morning. But there’s a reason to bathe close to Shabbos. First, even according to the revealed side of Torah, so to speak: in the last halacha of section 262, the Alter Rebbe writes that there’s an important custom to put on Shabbos clothes after bathing in honor of Shabbos. There’s another consideration too. If someone puts on his Shabbos clothes at 11:20 in the morning, people might think he has a bris or some other occasion. Why is he dressed like that? When you put on Shabbos clothes close to Shabbos, it’s apparent that you’re doing it in honor of Shabbos. So the Alter Rebbe says—for example, this is how the Rema is understood—that since we need to put on Shabbos clothes, clean clothes, after bathing, and since it should be apparent that we put them on in honor of Shabbos, it’s preferable to bathe close to Shabbos. Otherwise, if you bathe at eleven in the morning or one in the afternoon, what happens? You’ll have to put on your Shabbos clothes, and it won’t be close to Shabbos anymore, when it would be apparent that you’re

08:52 Speaker 2 You put them on in honor of Shabbos. So that’s interesting. In other words, there’s no debate that after the mikveh you come out wearing Shabbos clothes. The only question is whether to do it close to Shabbos, because otherwise you’ll have to put them on early. Now, why put them on? There are explanations according to the revealed dimension of Torah and according to Kabbalah: when you immerse in honor of Shabbos, the lights, the sparks of Shabbos, are already beginning to reach you. You’re not yet prohibited from doing work, but aspects of Shabbos are already present, so the clothes matter. That’s according to Kabbalah. Here the reason isn’t based on Kabbalah; it’s very simple: it isn’t appropriate. Do you want to put on sweaty clothes? You put on clothes after washing, and washing is meant to make you clean. Everyone knows what it’s like to take an unclean undershirt that you’ve worn for twenty-four hours—and especially in the past, when people wore things longer and weren’t as clean as they are today. It wouldn’t have been appropriate to put your dirty, sweaty clothes back on. Even today, by ordinary standards, if you shower and put on the same underwear you wore yesterday, that’s not appropriate. It’s simple: you shower, so you should come out clean. So in honor of Shabbos, you need to be clean. It isn’t appropriate that after washing—and here we aren’t talking about the mikveh, but about washing in honor of Shabbos as required by halachah—you put unclean clothes on your clean body. So after washing, you put on clean clothes. And because it’s important that those clothes be associated with honoring Shabbos—that’s why you put them on—you should make it clear that you didn’t put them on for some other reason, because you had something going on today. You’re wearing them in honor of Shabbos. Now, according to this, when is

10:54 Speaker 2 the ideal time to wash? Close to Shabbos. But halachically, when siman 260 says to wash in honor of Shabbos, it means on Friday. Friday begins in the morning; it’s only because of the reason we just discussed that the timing works out this way. According to Kabbalah, though, there is a reason to wash closer to Shabbos. The Aruch Hashulchan mentions that washing should be after midday. Kabbalistic works also say that going to the mikveh should at least be after midday. So even though it’s good to get dressed close to Shabbos for the reason we mentioned earlier, at the very least don’t go to the mikveh or wash before midday. Now, the Kaf Hachayim cites a view, also based on Kabbalah, that in the sixth hour—that is, after the fifth hour has ended, or an hour before midday—if you’re in a hurry and so on, you can already do it in honor of Shabbos. So sometimes people rely on that leniency. Say midday is, I don’t know, twelve-thirty: you already see people going to the mikveh at eleven-forty, eleven-fifty. Yes, there is an opinion that you can go to the mikveh even after the fifth hour. Our practice is to be particular, ideally, to go after midday. And if we want to be especially particular, we do it as close to Shabbos as possible, for the reason we mentioned at the end of siman 262. But it depends. If you know that close to Shabbos the mikveh is in such a state that you have nowhere to get dressed, everything is dirty, and it’s packed with people arriving at the very last minute—you’re afraid you’ll leave wearing somebody else’s clothes! Yes. So, in short, you can understand someone saying, “I’m not going to go at three or four, when it’s already packed. I’d rather go at one-thirty and have some breathing room.”

13:08 Speaker 2 Fine. If you do that, you’ll have to put on Shabbos clothes then. Now, some have even said that today the concern in siman 260, section 2, is greater: if a person washes at home and gets dressed early, how does it look as though he’s doing it in honor of Shabbos? But when someone goes to the mikveh, even at one or two in the afternoon, everyone understands that the whole thing is in honor of Shabbos. And when you get dressed—certainly if you suddenly come out wearing a sirtuk or something like that, in Shabbos clothes—no one is going to be confused. So perhaps that concern no longer applies in this respect. When you wash in a public place where everyone is doing it at that hour in honor of Shabbos, everyone understands. I mean, if you see someone going into the mikveh at one-thirty on Friday afternoon, why is he going to wash? Nobody’s confused: he’s going to the mikveh in honor of Shabbos. And why has he come out dressed like that? Apparently he’s putting on his Shabbos clothes already. So this can also take some pressure off those who want to do everything by the book. They say, “No, that’s not what it says. The Alter Rebbe says explicitly, in siman 260, that ideally you should wash right before Shabbos.” But that’s unpleasant—the floor is dirty and so on. Yet the whole reason is what we discussed, and now there’s no problem with that. Nobody will misunderstand. That’s how I see it, too. You can go at a comfortable pace in the early afternoon, after midday, and that’s best. Now, there’s something the Arizal says. I remember a prominent mashpia we grew up with—I won’t say his name because I’m being recorded. He would always come out of the mikveh and get dressed just like that. No towels, no time: he went in, immersed, came out, got dressed, and dried off over time.

15:11 Speaker 2 But on Erev Shabbos, there is such a practice. Some chassidim don’t dry themselves at all. Why? Because the Arizal says that the mikveh water is very important for receiving the light of Shabbos and the light of the additional soul, and therefore you should let the mikveh water absorb into your body on its own, without wiping it off. Now, it isn’t so pleasant when lots of people have washed there and you come out like that. Perhaps in his time, when you immersed in the Arizal’s mikveh and its water was replenished by the rivers, that was one thing. But here, hundreds of people have immersed, so even the smell isn’t so good. Especially if you deliberately went very close to Shabbos, sometimes there can be an odor. So I remember a sicha I read in Hisvaaduyos when I was a young bochur. These were sichos in Yiddish—you remember the Yiddish ones from 5718? Sichos Kodesh. I remember a sicha there where the Rebbe discusses the Arizal’s custom and says that we shouldn’t insist on literally not drying ourselves at all, but should at least leave one part of the body. Leave one part without rubbing it or removing the mikveh water. So even for those who shower—and showering after the mikveh is a separate issue. What’s written in halachah concerns women, in the Rema, yes? But that’s not about us. Still, according to the Arizal, it’s also a problem: you’re washing off the mikveh water. And the same goes for drying. So what you do is leave, say, this part of your hand out if you shower again; and when you dry yourself, leave one part of your body without putting a towel on it. That’s what those who know about it do. The Rebbe

17:16 Speaker 2 says that you can do it this way, and you still retain the possibility of the additional soul resting on you through that one part of the body. It doesn’t cost much—just one part of the body. Are you familiar with this? Ah, it’s in the Shulchan Aruch, then.

17:33 Speaker 3 Forty-three.

17:33 Speaker 2 Ah, very good. I’m sure that—ah, you’ll find it in Sichos Kodesh.

17:37 Speaker 3 It’s in Yiddish, on page 43.

17:39 Speaker 2 Ah, okay, okay. Yes, okay. So, okay. Today, thank G-d, it’s all in print. So that’s regarding the mikveh. Haircuts and nails: there’s a very important principle that if someone’s hair has grown long as Shabbos approaches, he should get a haircut. Yes. And the same goes for nails. Now, we get haircuts much less often, right? We don’t get haircuts all that often, and sometimes it depends on what appointments are available. But in principle, once a person’s hair is untidy, it’s already considered long, and in honor of Shabbos he should get a haircut before Shabbos. Now, there’s no limit on how early you can get a haircut. According to halachah, you can get one on Thursday too. The Taz is the one who was stringent about this: he says that just as nails begin growing back after three days, which is not respectful, the same applies to hair. The Alter Rebbe rejects the Taz in the Kuntres Acharon and proves that a king would get a haircut every day, because each time the hair would start growing again. So there’s no problem getting a haircut on Thursday, and so on. With nails, though, there’s a very important practice of cutting them specifically on Friday, and many chassidim are careful about that. There’s even a procedure in Shaar Hakavanos, an order for what to do. Leaving aside the accounts of what the Arizal himself did, Shaar Hakavanos sets out a clear order. I can really attest to this. I remember the elder chassidim in Brunoy whom I was still privileged to see—Rabbi [unclear]—and I distinctly remember it from my days in the Temimim. I remember that they would actually follow Shaar Hakavanos, by the book. Rabbi [unclear], I think, once told me that he or his father followed it too; I still need to ask him. Anyway, in the afternoon they would go into the zal, yes, and cut their nails,

20:01 Speaker 2 and put the clippings in paper. It says, “A chossid burns them,” or at least makes sure they aren’t left lying around, so they’d throw them in the trash or into the toilet, right? But after cutting your nails, of course, you need to wash your hands. Then they would sit down to do shnayim mikra ve’echad targum. We learn right at the beginning here that the best time for shnayim mikra ve’echad targum is Friday after midday. So they would cut their nails and study shnayim mikra. I also remember certain bochurim doing this: they’d come back from mivtzoim and go into the zal. Those who knew the practice would cut their nails, do shnayim mikra ve’echad targum, and then go to the mikveh—specifically in that order. So even though there are differing views in Kabbalah, this is what Shaar Hakavanos says, and it’s the best way. It seems to me that, having seen some elder chassidim do it, this is the most recommended way. Now, when you’re a bochur—or a married man with children and a lot of running around—you can’t always just sit down calmly and do your shnayim mikra ve’echad targum, and do everything in exactly that order. But for someone looking to do it, or who has the opportunity, that is the ideal order. Now, about nails, very briefly: the Sephardim generally didn’t adopt these practices. Although many Sephardim followed the kabbalists in various matters, the Arizal dismissed both the practice of not cutting fingernails and toenails on the same day and the prescribed order for cutting nails. So most Sephardim generally didn’t follow these practices. But outside the Sephardic world, and particularly among Chabad chassidim, even though the wording in the text isn’t an instruction—it only says that some have this custom and some have that custom, not that this is specifically our custom—people are careful about it. In Chabad too, people are careful not

21:57 Speaker 2 to cut them on the same day. They also make sure to follow an order when cutting their nails. Now, it isn’t stated explicitly, but that’s the straightforward understanding. Piskei Teshuvos brings it as well. Don’t cut your fingernails on Wednesday night, which is considered Thursday, or on Thursday. But with toenails, what difference does it make if they start growing back? You don’t see what’s happening there, so it isn’t disrespectful if they begin to grow back. It’s specifically for Shabbos that you need to take care of this. So they were particular about fingernails, not toenails. That’s one point.

22:45 Speaker 4 Also in order.

22:46 Speaker 2 Now, since we have this rule and our custom is to be careful not to cut them on the same day, the example given in the Shulchan Aruch—even before it discusses the issue of three days—still applies. You can cut your toenails on Thursday, but not Thursday night, since that is already considered Friday, and cut your fingernails on Friday, as we said, following Shaar Hakavanos: after midday, before shnayim mikra ve’echad targum, and before the mikveh. That’s the ideal way. Huh? What’s that?

23:22 Speaker 4 There’s the order.

23:24 Speaker 2 Now, about the order—let’s take another minute and a half, because it’s time for Minchah. The Sephardim I mentioned were not particular about these halachos or about the order, because the Arizal dismissed it. That’s well known; generally, Sephardim are not particular about it. We are particular about both what we mentioned earlier and the order. Now, the order involves skipping nails. In the Rema’s words, he first discusses the left hand. He says that on the left you begin with the ring finger and skip nails, while on the right you begin with the index finger. Rabbi David Abudraham gave a well-known mnemonic: “Kashya.” You know it? It’s very easy to remember. Kashya: kuf is kemitzah, ring finger; shin is smol, left. Then yud is yamin, right, and alef is etzba, index finger. Okay? With that, you can manage. So he tells you what to do on the left—begin with the ring finger—and on the right you begin with the index finger. Then the Rema sums up, “It follows that...” He lays out the sequence of fingers on the left and on the right. But strangely, the Alter Rebbe, who is so precise with every word—his language is golden; as the Ibn Ezra wrote, [unclear], you have to examine his words as closely as you study the Rashba—writes like the Rema: begin on the left this way, and on the right that way. But then, when he sums it up, he says, “It follows that on the right...” and then “on the left...”—exactly the reverse of the Rema’s concluding order. And that’s confusing. At first you begin with the left, but when you sum it up, you start with the right and then the left. Now, the Aruch Hashulchan, the Eshel Avraham of Butchatch, and the Tehillah LeDavid say: why change the usual practice? We always start with the right, so start with the right. Since Rabbi David Abudraham’s older mnemonic was “Kashya,” it may be that this is why they spoke about the left first.

25:34 Speaker 2 But in practice, you begin with the right and then the left. So don’t read the Alter Rebbe’s wording as incidental: he deliberately reversed the Rema’s concluding order to tell you that, of course, you should start with the right and then the left. Who says that? The Aruch Hashulchan, the Eshel Avraham of Butchatch, and the Tehillah LeDavid. It’s not just a casual suggestion. Still, a great many people who are careful about this specifically start with the left. Why? Because the Maharil writes that, and the Eliyah Rabbah also says it in the name of the Kol Bo—that they would specifically start with the left. So both views exist, and there are customs in both directions. I lean more toward always starting with the right, because the Alter Rebbe didn’t change the Rema’s wording for no reason. In my opinion, he meant to convey something by it. And I’ll finish in half a second: regarding clothing, of course you need clothes for Shabbos that are fresh—I mean clean. In principle, it’s fine just to change your outer clothing. Still, according to Kabbalah, if someone can manage it, he shouldn’t wear anything on Shabbos that he wore during the week. You don’t need brand-new clothes, just clothes that have been washed; that’s the very best way to do it. The Rav Pe’alim, the Ben Ish Chai, wrote that people were not particular about shoes. He says shoes aren’t... Even though shoes are often considered clothing, well, people walked around, and in those days the ground wasn’t paved like it is today; it was muddy, so shoes were fine. These days, too, if someone has special shoes for Shabbos, that really is worth doing. And the very last thing is cleaning the house. Just to say that people often think, “I’m going to eat both meals at my father-in-law’s; he lives across the street, or...”

27:32 Speaker 2 You’re eating at friends’ house, and there are guests, so you don’t care so much about your own home. You say, “We’re not eating here,” so you leave your table covered in clutter and the couches in a mess. But there’s a halachah in the laws of Shabbos; you can’t just do whatever you want. It’s a matter of honoring Shabbos. The house needs to be tidy, and the table needs a tablecloth whether you’re eating there or not. Some are even careful to put tablecloths on the tables in every room, but that’s an extra hiddur. The table where you eat, and everything else, needs to be in order. The beds should be made. That detail is very, very important. I often speak about this specifically to young married men, who might sometimes take it lightly. They say, “What does it matter? We’re not eating here. Who cares? My mother-in-law isn’t coming to visit and see the mess.” But the Shabbos Queen is coming to visit. All right, we’ll stop here.