Today is Day Six of Week Three of
the Omer. That is Day Twenty of the
Omer. The theme of the Week is Happiness.
So it’s Thursday evening. The time of the week when Jews are already
saying, as they take leave of one another, Shabbat shalom. If you live in Israel, Friday is for most
people a short work day as people scurry about, making preparations for
Shabbat. Here in the diaspora, if you’re
working you’re less likely to be able to adjust your schedule in such a way. So you must plan further ahead and start
making arrangements for Shabbat earlier.
That is, if you’re even worried about Shabbat.
I know you know that I, because I’m
a Rabbi, see Shabbat as the centrepiece of the week. But if you’re not at all Sabbath-observant
yourself, exactly why probably isn’t clear to you. Of course, you know that I have certain
duties on Shabbat, to conduct prayers for my community and provide at least
some informal teaching during the services.
And you may know that Clara and I host our community in our home every
Friday evening, not only for the service but also feeding them a hot
dinner. So you would be forgiven if you
thought that my biggest concern regarding Shabbat is precisely about the planning
and execution of these programmatic evolutions.
But my concern – and my advocacy of
going as far as you can to make Shabbat special – is far deeper than that. And it really comes back to our theme of the
week: Happiness.
As a Reform (Progressive) Rabbi, I was trained
in a way that encourages the student to challenge and question. When I began serving student-pulpits in my
second year of school, I began to question the emphasis on Shabbat. The prayer book liturgy – the script of our
service – focuses more on the qualities of Shabbat, than anything else. And yet I understood that, of all the Jews in
the room for the service, very few were able to internalise this message. For most, Shabbat is a burden; after a long
week and a long Friday, they have to somehow get the kids fed and cleaned and
dressed to get them to shul on time, and then keep them reasonably calm
during the hour or so of the service.
And Saturday mornings? Fuggedaboudit! (That’s Brooklynese for ‘forget about it.’ I’m half Brooklynite on my mother’s side.) Not only do we have a long list of things we ‘have’
to do, but the kids have all their sports activities then. So looking at the reality of my congregants’
lives, I felt I was simply shouting into the wind: offering a message that was lost in the
clutter and would be simply ignored even if heard. I began to ask if we could somehow change the
emphasis of our message, to make it more relevant.
Well, I have to tell you that I’ve
gotten over such thoughts. Not because
age and experience have made me more conservative, although to be sure they
have. Rather, because I realise more
than ever how much every Jew – really, every human being, needs Shabbat. For pragmatic, if not religious reasons.
Shabbat memorialises, at once, G-d’s
creation of the heavens and the earth, and also our liberation from Egyptian
slavery. If G-d Himself could rest and
repose and consider the results of His work after six days, why can’t we? We know – because when our annual vacation
approaches we often feel as if we really need it! – the importance of a
rest from the routine, of a time out with no need to be productive. Yet, if told we should stop for one day out
of seven, and not feel responsible for saving the world, we tend to look at
that as an imposition??! Sometimes, it
is difficult to appreciate the value of a rest until we allow ourselves to have
and enjoy it. And I don’t mean only physical
rest. There is incredible freedom in the
message that I don’t have to constantly produce, that I don’t need
accomplishments to justify my life, that my life is an end in and of itself.
Regarding Egypt, a slave isn’t free
to rest. Even if slaves are free of
duties for their masters on every seventh day, they are busy from sunrise to
sunset taking care of their own needs.
A Sabbath of true rest from chores and all other responsibilities, is
something only a free man can enjoy.
When we truly savour Shabbat, we celebrate Yetziyat Mitzrayim –
our departure from Egypt to freedom. It’s
too important a reminder to be left for Pesach once a year.
So Shabbat, and how we approach it, is
definitely an element in the quest for Happiness. Even when viewed strictly from a pragmatic
angle. If we can’t take a rest – a physical
rest but also a rest of our brains, of our creative impulses – then we can’t
truly recover from the stresses that test us every day, every week.
Yesterday I encouraged you to take
some time to clarify the Core Values that motivate you. Once you’ve done that, you can devote some
energy each day towards realising those values in your life. That brings congruence to one’s life, and
helps one to weather the storms that can and do beset us as surely as the sun
rises every morning. But you need time
to contemplate as well. Each one of us,
to the extent that we’re able to clear the decks every week for Shabbat, gives
him or herself a chance to breathe – and to look back on the week past, think
about what worked and what did not, and plan to do better in the coming
week. All the religious ceremonies that
we Jews do every week to mark the Shabbat, are primarily for the purpose of
helping us to draw a fence around that time, to guard it from the intrusion of
responsibilities that will rob us of the rest we need.
And if you’ve already transcended the
pragmatic need for Shabbt rest – that is, if you’ve already accepted the idea
that G-d desires for you to observe and keep Shabbat in its fullness – then of
course that adds an important imperative to not just talk about Shabbat
but to do it. Not as a weekly
chore, but as a weekly joy. As a sublime
gift.
Whether done solely for practical
reasons, or for the practical as well as in response to a Divine imperative,
Shabbat is an important tool for us as we reach for Happiness. Let’s avail ourselves of its healing embrace.
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