Good Erev Shabbos

3:37 PM - Prepping for Shabbos.  Water boiling for cauliflower. chicken and asparagus in oven, chicken based, grain free cholent on, Pandora on, thinking about first Yahrtzeit of dad, which was yesterday, condiring the cold war that I seem to always be fighting or at least keeping troops mon the borders for, thinking about Nesivos Shalom and how he tied in Galus and Shabbos.  He says that we, sadlt get ibnto our own Galus every week and Shabbos is the Geulah that pulls us out.

4:06 PM - Thinking about Nesivos Shalom: he speaks of the don't dos of Shabbos - the negative rules, and the dos - the positive rules, and sdds that this parallels shamor and zachor respectively, as well as sur meirah and asei tov.  He addresses a contradiction concerning if we need to keep one or two Shabboses.  He explains that it's one Shabbos that has two aspects, the seemingly negative aspects of abstention, and the more active, seemingly more positive elements - the shamos and the zachors.  This brings to mind for me the idea of Rav Hirsch that every mitzvah has a shamor and zachor side.  As Rav Hirsch sees it the two sides of the coin are the philosophical and spiritual element on the one hand and the technical rules element on the other hand.  He says that sadly proplr often picj a camp, there are th halachic types who sometimes err by moving away from the spirit of the law.  And then there are those who mistakenly think there can be a true spiritual experience without the element of keeping every part of G-d's word.

4:19 PM - Going to sign off now.  Wishing everyone a wonderful Shabbos that is as whole as I wish for your life to be.