The Seventh Day: God rested (how about you?)

Today is the Seventh Day of the week, the day God rested in Genesis 2:1-3. Today is the Sabbath in Judaism.  Sabbath is a word that means "the seventh day, a day for rest," and it is a word that comes directly to us from Hebrew (Genesis 2:3):

"So God blessed the seventh day, and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation."

Yet in our culture, we've made Saturday into a day of intense activity, or a day to sneak into the office. Sabbaths are what college professors get to take every few years.

We call Saturday-Sunday the "weekend," but that is our own recent cultural creation.  We've all but lost the idea of sabbath as a weekly gift from God. Sunday becomes for many a day of collapse at the end of their week before the grind begins again on Monday. Can we find a way to think of Sunday as the first day of the week, a day of worship and celebrating the Resurrection? And Saturday as the last day of the week, a day of rest?

How about you? How about easing up on Saturdays? God rested on Saturday, can you?

Here is the Collect for Saturday, on page 99 of the Book of Common Prayer (and how good is that? The prayerbook has a prayer for Saturdays!). Do enjoy your Saturday:

Almighty God, who after the creation of the world rested
from all your works and sanctified a day of rest for all your
creatures: Grant that we, putting away all earthly anxieties,
may be duly prepared for the service of your sanctuary, and
that our rest here upon earth may be a preparation for the
eternal rest promised to your people in heaven; through Jesus
Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Sabbath Manifesto: Shabbat, unplugged

My friend Ilana DeBare, who you may recall is studying for her Bat Mitzvah as a middle-aged adult, posted an item last week that I don't want you to miss. Today is a good day to read this because tomorrow is Saturday.

Ilana wrote about the "Sabbath Manifesto" to get off the grid for sabbath (and Saturday is the sabbath), and refraining from some other modern addictions. See what you think, maybe give this a try. Ok, in all honesty, I'd like you to read my blog tomorrow because it is about Holy Week, and then get off the grid.

Here is Ilana's item from her blog:

Shabbat, unplugged

March 19, 2010 by Ilana DeBare

A few weeks ago my dear hubby Sam wrote a guest post about how he tries to observe Shabbat — no email, no meetings, and no work-related reading, but lots of biking, napping, and socializing.

This weekend a new national group is encouraging everyone — Jews and non-Jews — to celebrate Shabbat with a National Day of Unplugging. The idea is to “slow down lives in an increasingly hectic world.”

Sabbath Manifesto, a project of a group called Reboot, has suggested that from sundown on Friday March 19 to sundown on Saturday March 20, we:

Artist Jessica Tully designed this cell phone "sleeping bag" to tuck away your electronics on Shabbat.

1. Avoid technology. (Yep, including this blog!)
2. Connect with loved ones.
3. Nurture your health.
4. Get outside
5. Avoid commerce
6. Light candles.
7. Drink wine.
8. Eat bread.
9. Find silence.
10. Give back.

Here’s a little insider’s tidbit: The person responsible for publicizing Sabbath Manifesto (including getting a write-up in the New York Times!) is my friend Tanya Schevitz, another emigrant from the land of the downsized Chronicle. This was her first big foray into the world of public relations. Way to go, Tanya! More proof that there is life after newspaper journalism.

Meanwhile — and totally independently, I believe — my synagogue is organizing a cool 25 Hours of Shabbat celebration this weekend.

Temple Sinai is asking members to get out of their work/shopping/household-chore routines, and offering a slew of Shabbat activities — from family nature walks and bike rides, to a challah baking lesson, to programs about Ladino music or the influence of Yiddish culture on Tin Pan Alley. And of course a variety of Shabbat services and community meals! You can find more information about it here.

Which activities will we be doing? Ironically, none — although I love the idea.

We have an opportunity to use our new beach house — which we bought with two other families — every third week. And this is “our” weekend there.

So we’ll be at Stinson Beach — Sam biking for some 40 miles or so, me walking on the beach for a much shorter distance, and Becca (most likely, being a teenager) sleeping late.

It sounds very unplugged, and very Shabbat.

Sabbath Saturday: A day of rest

My friend Ilana, who you may recall is studying for her mid-life Bat Mitzvah (and writing about it on her blog which you can read by clicking HERE), asked her husband Sam Schuchat to write about his observance of Sabbath on Saturdays. I love what he wrote, and it is reprinted in full below.

Incidentally, the Sabbath for Christians is also Saturday, not Sunday. Saturday is the seventh day, the day when God rested and therefore so should we. For Christians, Sunday is the day of Resurrection, the first day of the week, a day of celebration. So enjoy your Sabbath today, and please enjoy Sam's reflection:

I don’t work on Saturdays.

Okay, it would be more honest to say that I try not to work on Saturdays. From sundown on Friday night until sundown Saturday I don’t do e-mail, participate in meetings, or read anything that isn’t fun. I try very hard not to shop, although like any reasonably skilled Jew I am good at making fine distinctions. For instance, shopping for dental floss is not appropriate on the Sabbath. Sales at REI on the other hand clearly fall under the category of “recreation”. Generally speaking, I try not to do anything that in any way resembles what I do for a living, engaging instead in activities that are enjoyable and relaxing. Napping is high on this list, as well as bicycling.

Birdwatching - a form of Shabbat non-work at which Sam (left) excels

I started down this road several years ago for no particular reason other than to see if I could do it. Maybe because I wasn’t raised an Orthodox Jew, it’s much harder than I thought. It’s not just because we live in a work obsessed culture, or that we have the tools to work all the time, anywhere. It would certainly be easier to observe the Sabbath in an all-Jewish community. Several years ago I happened to be on a kibbutz in the Negev on a Saturday. Just for the heck of it, I went to the Saturday morning service in their chapel. Afterwards, I was quite surprised to see that the lunch included an elaborate and complete display of hard liquors. It’s not too hard to refrain from labor when you spend the morning in the synagogue and then have a few shots of whiskey at lunch!

Napping, another Shabbat activity at which Sam excels

Observing the Sabbath is way, way high up on the list of things Jews are supposed to do. The Sabbath is considered the most important holy day in the Jewish calendar, even though it happens every week. (Maybe if we rebranded from “the Chosen People” to “the Folks Who Invented the Weekend” we’d have more converts?) Jews don’t get married (or buried) on Shabbat; Ilana and I were married after sundown on a Saturday in October, and then only after the short Havdalah ceremony marking the end of the Sabbath was concluded. It is commandment number four out of ten, coming ahead of adultery, murder, and theft, and the seemingly simple commandment “you shall not do any work” (Ex 20:10) has spawned an enormous literature of commentary and custom dwelling on what, exactly, one is and is not allowed to do.

In orthodox neighborhoods in Israel and Brooklyn, for example, the elevators are programmed to run up and down all day, stopping at all the floors, so no one has to do the “work” of pushing the button and summoning it. Likewise one can, and a non-Jewish friend of mine just did, buy a “Sabbath ready” refrigerator whose light stays on all day on Saturdays so opening the door doesn’t turn it on.

Generally speaking, “work” is considered to be anything that uses, creates, or transforms energy. So no cooking, driving, flying, lighting fires, and so on. Sex, on the other hand, is encouraged. “Marital relations, ” as it is delicately referred to in Jewish legal commentary, is a positive duty on the Sabbath. It’s good to have something to do outside of the synagogue!

The longer I have persisted in trying to observe the Sabbath, the more I’ve realized the wisdom and utility of the practice, regardless of why we do it. It’s really about stopping and looking around at everything that is wonderful around us, and reconnecting with what we each, individually, are, rather than what we do. When you meet someone new, what do you ask sooner or later? “What do you do?” Are we only what we do for a living? Are we not more? Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote:

“The meaning of the Sabbath is to celebrate time rather than space. Six days a week we live under the tyranny of things of space; on Sabbath we try to become attuned toholiness in time. It is a day on which we are called upon to share in what is eternal in time, to turn from the results of creation to the mystery of creation; from the world of creation to the creation of the world.”

Although I am more likely to understand the creation of the world through science than through God, the hummingbird and the redwood tree are no less miraculous and beautiful. I can’t appreciate them, or my family, or my friends, or my community, or much else until I put down my tools, take a deep breath, and relax.

Give it a try. You don’t have to be Jewish, and it doesn’t have to be Saturday. Pick one day a week (furlough Friday for us state workers?) and don’t work, whatever that means for you. Spend the day with your beloved, take a hike, do some yoga, build a sand castle, go fishing. Do whatever it takes to take your mind away from your to-do list and towards a deeper appreciation of the world around you and your place in it.

If that doesn’t work, you can always go shopping. The REI midwinter sale starts this Friday!

Roadside shrines: Find them where you live and work

A friend of mine who lives in Southern California, and who regularly reads this blog, mentioned to me last night that this space reminds her of a roadside shrine, a place to pause for a few moments on the roadway of life for a bit of reflection and a touch of the Spirit.

I rather like that, though I am not sure this blog always lives up to that ideal. Maybe there is a little too much politics, a little too much church stuff here to be completely a shrine. But I like that idea of a shrine, and I hope it can be that now and then for you.

We live on a rural mountain road in Virginia, but I have not seen any roadside shrines upon it in our walks along the road. There are many trees along our road, and the trees are a living shrine to me. The deer meander through them, and the variety of birds seems endless. The tops of the trees seem always shaking with wildlife. The rocks and boulders along the road are covered with lichen, and they are something of a shrine to the tenacity of life.

The other day, our house guest, Anthony Ramirez, took a few photos along our country road. Today I share one I particularly like.

I hope you find a roadside shrine in your travels today, whether on a country road, or on the freeway during your commute, or in your home, or at school, or at your desk. May you find that place where you can pause, maybe say a little prayer, and take a few moments to hear yourself breathe -- a few moments of sabbath -- before the rush of business intrudes. May you enjoy your respite and a few moments at the shrine of the Holy.