Turn Friday into Erev Shabbos #262 - No News on Shabbos

There are so many things that seem wrong.

And whereas I used to feel very attuned to want to check what's in the news, what's the latest, what's happening, certainly we've gotten spoiled with all the challenges of the last few years to check the news and see another enemy we set back, another enemy we wiped out, another enemy we defeated, another enemy that we were able to compromise.

Now we turn on the news and unfortunately, we don't even recognize and there are things that are so disturbing and frightening and we don't even know what was going to be.

And that... that is exactly where Shabbos comes in.

And that is my challenge to you and to myself this week, is that so often, so often we sit around our Shabbos table and we talk about, we analyze, we conjecture, we speculate about what's going to be.

But Shabbos has to be our cocoon, our Ir Mikla, our city of refuge.

Shabbos is the place that protects us.

Shabbos reminds us that Hashem is in charge and everything's going to be okay, and stop talking about and stop worrying about those other things.

Of course on Shabbos we still daven for our holy brothers and sisters, for the soldiers of the army, for Klal Yisrael and Am Yisrael in so many circumstances.

But those conversations that are speculative, that are debates, that are political, that are unsure of the future, they just bring us down and they just... compromise and contaminate our Shabbos.

Shabbos is that place of purity.

Shabbos is that place of escape.

Shabbos is that place of serenity.