Sometimes, I Wish I Could Put up a Sign Like This

Elevator Not Working

Don't we all need "time outs" to recharge our batteries?

I think I'd be worn to a total frazzle if I didn't have Shabbat.  For those who don't know, Shabbat is supposed to be very different from other days of the week.

According to Jewish Law, halacha, we're supposed to tune out from the busy, technological, creating, financial part of life.  Food is cooked in advance and can be heated by indirect heat.  Most of us keep water hot for coffee and tea.  We don't travel, and even the distance permitted to walk is limited.

There are three sets of prayer times, like all days, but the prayers are longer, and there's a prayer added to the morning one.  We read from the Torah.

We function on a different speed, different gear.

I wasn't raised as a Torah observant aka Orthodox Jew.  I was introduced to Jewish Law and Life as a teenager in NCSY and YU Seminars.  It attracted me, felt right, like a comfortable shoe.  When I was young I didn't fully appreciate the full value of Shabbat.  I was too full of energy.  But now, well into middle-age, I really feel that there are physical as well as spiritual benefits to keeping Shabbat.

A friend of mine has a very high-powered/pressured job.  On Shabbat that job is totally put away.  She has twenty-five hours of rest from it. On Shabbat she has Shabbat and family, friends, etc.  Work never impinges.  She credits Shabbat and the rest from work with her surviving that difficult job she has.  Non-Sabbath observers who work with her at the same sort of job wonder how she can get all of the work done in six days.  They need the full week, including Shabbat, to finish.  Shabbat makes it possible.  They would get it all done in six days if they kept Shabbat, too.

It's so important to just take a real break.  You must have noticed that I don't blog on Shabbat.  I don't talk on the phone or go near the computer.  It's wonderful.  My day, my Shabbat is full.  I'm never bored.

Try it, but don't try it alone.  It's best with a community.