Stipple portrait of the Rebbe during morning prayer.

Traditionally, many parents bless their children on Friday night. Here I’ve included both these blessings, and an additional prayer from the children regarding their parents.

Blessing to the children:

To girls: May you be like Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah.
To boys: May you be like Ephraim and Menashe.
To all: May G‑d bless you and guard you.
May G‑d show you favor and be gracious to you.
May G‑d show you kindness and grant you peace.

Prayer from the children:

Our Father In Heaven let our parents be healthy and serve you with joy.
And let our hearts listen to our father and our mother and respect them always.
Our father and our mother will guide us and teach us the Torah and good deeds and will be successful in health and prosperity. Fulfill all their wishes.
Our Father In Heaven, save us and all Israel and we will praise you and respect your name and honor the Torah always.

We are commanded to teach our children the mitzvot, and how to live by them, for they are our life. When you teach someone you become like a parent to him or her. This teaching of the written and oral Torah has been the ongoing link to our survival as Jews throughout the generations.

The holiness of Shabbat illuminates and elevates the entire world. The woman of the house ensures that light and harmony prevail in her home by welcoming the Shabbat through lighting the Shabbat candles and prayer.

This painting attempts to express the basic Chassidic principle that every material item contains a spiritual spark. When we use the material goods to enhance and assist our spiritual pursuits, we elevate the sparks, as indicated by the Hebrew letters rising heavenward.

I invite you to experience this painting which explores the theme of Shabbat, one of the crowning jewels of Jewish experience. Thank G‑d for Shabbat!

Breathe in as you gaze into the painting and access the incredible tranquility, peace and power available to us during Shabbat. Breathe out and explore the undulations, the flowing water-like movement, the vibrating structure of G‑dliness and the tiny dots of silver, red, and gold. The 36 actions of creation and destruction that we do not engage in on Shabbat free us to see the perfection of the world that G‑d is creating for us in each moment.

Notice all the tiny white, blue, and silver dots which allude to the dynamic structure of this world, which is reborn and sustained moment to moment. The oval space in the center of the painting represents our perception, with which we can align ourselves to perceive the light of G‑d sustaining all things. Our consciousness is the movement of paint flowing outwards and inwards into the oval, as perception is the lens through which experience everything. The white of the canvas, which can be seen beneath the color, is an expression of G‑d. G‑d is a foundational level which is behind everything we see. The blues represent the shechina, the female aspect of divinity, which comes down and envelops the world on Shabbat. Manifest the light of Shabbat inside you, in your perception, and in your soul. Shabbat shalom!

My thoughts are for peace in Israel.