Shabbat Prayers-Blessings of Morning Shemah:-Illuminate Our Eyes

“Illuminate our eyes in Your Torah.” The theme we are using this Shabbat is how Shabbat is an experience of the World-to-Come (See: “Kabbalat Shabbat-A Single Utterance”). The Talmud offers two powerful examples of the Special Light of the World-to-Come:

“And it shall come to pass in that day that there shall not be light, but heavy clouds [yekaroth] and thick [we-kippa’on] (Zechariah 14:6),” what does yekaroth we-kippa’on mean? Rav Yochanan said: This refers to Nega’im and Ohaloth (The laws of biblical ‘leprosy’ and the defilement of tents through a dead body), which are difficult in this world, yet shall be easily understood in the future world. 

While Rabbi Joshua ben Levi said: This refers to the people who are honored in this world, but will be lightly esteemed in the next world. As was the case of Rabbi  Joseph the son of R. Joshua b. Levi, who became ill and fell into a trance. When he

recovered, his father asked him, ‘What did you see?’ ‘I saw a topsy-turvy world’, he replied, ‘the upper [class] underneath and the lower on top’’ he replied:

‘My son’, he observed, ‘you saw a clear world (In which people occupy the positions they merit).’ (Pesachim 50a)

Application: Requesting the Light of the World to Come to Shine on this Shabbat

Kavanah: “We ask that God shine the Light of the Future World on our Torah study; the Light through which even the most difficult subjects will be understood.” Spend extra time studying Torah topics and books that are usually difficult to learn with after using this Kavanah.

Shabbat Before the Tenth of Tevet Kavanah: “Illuminate our world so that people occupy the positions they truly merit,” so that we can choose those from whom to study, as we Battle the Siege.