Happy is the Jew, the Kabbalists say, who can prepare for Shabbat a complete set of garments that he wears only then. A coat, a belt, a pair of shoes, a hat — all different from the clothes of the workweek. The body, like the soul, should know that the seventh day has arrived.
Once dressed, he is to recite the Shir HaShirim, the Song of Songs, attributed to Solomon. If he does not know the whole of it by heart, he should at least say four specific verses: Song of Songs 1:2, 2:10, 2:8, and 5:1.
Why these four? Because the first word of each verse begins with a letter that, taken together, spells YAAKOV — Jacob. The Kabbalists arranged the verses in this order so that the Sabbath liturgy would inscribe the name of the third patriarch across the soul of the worshipper.
After the Song, he is to recite portions of the Mishnah, then turn to the Zohar — first published c. 1290 CE in Castile, Spain — or to another Kabbalistic work, and let his mind climb from the body to the letters, from the letters to the names, and from the names to the radiance behind them.
This is how the mystics wove the day together: new clothes, old verses, a hidden name of Jacob threaded through four lines of love poetry. The Sabbath, they teach, is not merely time off. It is a dressing for the soul.