 Hi, this is Ruth Guggenheim and welcome back to GPS for the Jewish Soul. I'd like to welcome back Ruth Gamakka-Perlman from Wow in Baltimore, Maryland. Love being here. It's always great having you. You know, last time we met, we were actually talking about God and the greatest gift that God has given us. And that's really Shabbat. I was wondering if, you know, what is Shabbat to you? My favorite day of the week. I hear that. Yeah. Yeah. No, Shabbat. It's like, wow, let's talk about Shabbat. What is Shabbat? So, sometimes people say, I don't observe Shabbat or I go to the temple or I don't go to synagogue. This is all nonsense. Let me tell you what Shabbat is. Shabbat is a greatest gift ever given to mankind. Everything needs to recharge, you know? Your phone. You've got to plug in it. It's not going to run forever. Your car needs gasoline. Everything needs to recharge. We think that we can go, go, go, go, go, go, go. And you know why? Because we think we're in control. If I don't do it, it's not going to get done. We have this greatest gift called Shabbat that says, hang tight. I got you covered. You need to take care of yourself. Go home, have a meal with your family, invite a couple of friends over, sing some songs, get back connected in here, unplug your phone. No cell phones at a Shabbat's table. Not going to be, right? Not just that. Just like by any special day, prepare for it. Give it respect. Don't just like slide into Shabbat. It takes a lot of preparation to get into Shabbat since you don't want to overwhelm you or anything. But you know, to do it, it takes thought and effort. You want to buy the khala and the wine and get the candles ready. And then you have the gift. And the gift is peace, connection, friendship, and just a serene feeling that you cannot beat. You know, I hear a lot of times we talk to people and thank God we have a lot of guests for Shabbat. And people think, oh my gosh, I have to stop doing this and stop doing that. I'm saying, don't even worry about that. This is for us no matter what. You know, one of the most beautiful things I love about Shabbat is I personally like to light Shabbat candles at the beginning. And you know, usually you light two. And it's symbolic of an Isha, man and woman. You know, I don't know if you're familiar with the idea that in the Torah, the Hebrew word is Ish is man and Isha is woman. And they have the same letters, alif and shin. So in Isha's alif, you're shin and a woman is alif, shin, hey, you know, what's the connection? Yeah. You know, so if you take it apart, each person has alif and shin. Alif and shin is fire. And it says, you know, when we light those Shabbat candles, we, our heart goes on fire. A man can also light Shabbat candles if there's no woman around. So the whole idea is like the spark within us, that ish, that fire, you know, and when you put the other two letters together, the yud and the hey, it's God. It stands for God's name. So whether we're one or two, a family, we all have the fire within and when we light those Shabbat candles and we're ushering in Shabbat, we're bringing in the fire of God into our hearts and homes. Yeah. Yeah. The flame represents the soul that's always yearning for more. Everyone wants, don't you want more? We all want more. That's the source of, it's the secret source of ambition is we want to be our best selves. We don't want to make the most money. We want more like the flame. That little flame we light is the flame of our soul. It's my tradition to light one light, one candle for each of my children, because they have their own special light that they bring into the world and the world is not complete without their light. So you know what my favorite is? What? Go ahead. I love to bake khala. Okay. Sometimes people get intimidated. Until they eat it. They love to eat khala. No, but baking khala is the best. There's so few things that you get to do that are so elevated, but so grungy and so hands-on and so deep and you're pounding. Could use a mixer, but I love to pound the dough and to put my blessings in there. I try to sink when I make the dough and I don't know the khala in it. It's got magic. I got to try it on show. Well, you know, you're reminding me. Yes. Doing the khala, doing the candles, preparing Shabbat meal. It's, you know, Judaism is the first interactive religion. Yeah, hands-on. We're all talking about interactive games, doing things interactively with our children. Shabbat is that experience. You can make it as interactive as you want. You can braid it with God. And you know, the whole braiding of a khala is actually symbolic of unifying ourselves with God. So again, the choices are ours. Do we choose to integrate? Do we choose to be interactive with God? Once we start opening that door of interactive activity, it's just a matter of God walking right through it for us. And we'll be there. He'll be there. We'll have this great relationship. You know, in that I really would love to issue a Shabbat shalom this week. Shabbat shalom. Shabbat shalom. That was great. And everyone, thank you so much for joining us again on GPS for the Jewish Soul.