Mikvah of Shabbat

First the bathing before.

This is a lesson to learn in general about cleanliness.
Cleaning the body restores purity to the soul; and when the body is unclean some blemish will certainly reach the soul. (Rabbenu Yonah)

Why do we wash with hot water Erev Shabbat? This is parallel to the immersion of the soul in the River of Fire to remove the stains of its sins. So when you bathe in hot water Erev Shabbat the stains of your sins are removed. (Taamei ha-Minhagim, p.119)

You should have as your intention that you are doing this to wash away and cleanse yourself of the stains of all your sins and of the filthiness of the the unclean spririt.(which your sins have caused to rest on you)Afterwards(men), go to the mikvah. (Minhat Shabbat)

Its one thing to go during the week to the mikvah, but to go before and on the holy shabbat!!!

When you are in the mikvah (erev Shabbat), confess all your sins of that week. (Imrei Kodesh,#14,p.27)

The reason why we go to bathe in the mikvah Erev Shabbat is that it is a matter of spiritually taking off one soul-garment and putting on another. We have to have a different spiritual aspect altogther on shabbat, a different soul-garment. So we go to the mikvah, remove our weekday cloths, go through the transforming experience of the bath and put on the Shabbat cloths. All this being duplicated with our spiritual garments. (Peer l'Yesharim,p.22a #248)

When you rid yourself of your weekday garments, intend to rid yourself of all vices-do teshuvah and examine your actions and intend to cast from you the other side that rests on you. When you put on your Shabbat cloths, intend to draw an additional holiness on yourself and accept on yourself all virtue and good conduct. (chok l'Yisrael)

A chassid asked his father about his Rebbe, Reb Chayim of Tchernovitz.
I asked my father if there was emes to what they say about Rabbi Chayim, that from Erev Shabbat, after he was in the mikvah, until the holy shabbat ended, he was a full head taller then he was on weekdays. He answered me, "Son, you know that it's not my way to exaggerate, and of course I didn't measure his height. But this I can assure you, with clear testimony, that I saw him every Erev Shabbat when he walked to the mikvah and as he came back and I can tell you that the man who came back was not the same man. He looked like a completely different person. His face, his height, and everything about the look of his holy body was changed from what it had been. (Shaarei Orah, p.9)

It was the tradition of the holy Rabbi Yechiel Michal of Zlotchov on Erev Shabbat immediately after noon to go to the mikvah to immerse in honor of Shabbat. Then he would lock himself in his room for a good while to spiritually prepare himself for Shabbat. (Toafot ha-Rim, p.162)

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