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Monday 1 April 2019

JEWISH RITUAL — 5 (Sabbath)

Shabbat Candles
OBSERVING THE SABBATH
Remember the Sabbath to sanctify it.
Keep the Sabbath day to guard it.
THE BASICS
by Rabbi Kerry M. Olitzky

Maybe it is middle age, but I can actually feel my body beginning to shut down as I make my way home each Friday afternoon in anticipation of Shabbat (the Sabbath). I can push all week long – early mornings and late nights – but, come Friday, I am ready to completely unwind. It isn't just the bodily rest that I crave; it is the deep spiritual nourishment that the Sabbath provides. By separating myself from the frenzy of the world that surrounds me all week long, I can focus on the needs of my soul throughout Shabbat. It is an island away from secular intrusions on my spiritual world.

Shabbat is unlike any other day. For starters, it is twenty-five hours long. It begins on Friday afternoon eighteen minutes before sunset and goes through Saturday night after the stars have come out. Because the start of Shabbat changes each week with the changing time of sunset, I am forced to admit that I am not in control of the world around me. So I consciously let go and let God lead the way to holiness for me.

The Sabbath begins with the lighting of candles and the short blessing marking the time as sacred and special. This is followed by a kiddush prayer (over wine or grape juice) to sanctify the day, the blessing of children and spouse, a festive meal with singing, and Birkat Hamazon, a prayer of thanksgiving or Grace after Meals, as it is sometimes called. The basic elements are repeated, in a modified form, at Shabbat lunch on Saturday and at a third meal (known by its Hebrew translation, seudah shelishit) that takes place in the late afternoon or early evening depending on the time of year, as well as with worship and study along the way. The Sabbath concludes with a ritual called Havdalah, as explained on a following post.

The primary goal in observing the Sabbath is to limit the intrusion of the workaday world so that we can focus on the more important issue of spiritual renewal. The Rabbis (that is, the Rabbis of ancient times—with a capital R) established prohibited activities from the various tasks that were required to build the ancient Tabernacle. In this way, they transformed the idea of building sacred space into building sacred time.
Prayer Book
BROAD STROKES OF SABBATH OBSERVANCE
by Rabbi Daniel Judson

My friend Rachel and my ultra-Orthodox cousins both observe the Sabbath, but they do so in different ways. My cousins in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, observe the Sabbath by following a vast array of rules as to what they can and cannot do. They spend all Friday cooking and cleaning, readying themselves for the Sabbath when they will not use electricity, the television, or the computer, and they will not spend any money. Rachel observes the Sabbath as well. She wakes up on Saturday morning and goes to the gym to work out. When she gets home, she spends time with her husband and then heads for her favorite bookstore, where they have wide comfortable chairs, good coffee, and don't mind people spending a few hours reading. She believes that the Sabbath is about giving oneself joy in life, and few things bring her as much pleasure as an afternoon browsing through books.

My cousins in Williamsburg would never acknowledge that Rachel was observing the Sabbath by working out and going shopping at the bookstore. On the other hand, Rachel would hardly equate her Sabbath ritual with my cousins' extensive Sabbath preparations. But the Jewish observance of the Sabbath runs the gamut from my cousins' all-encompassing Shabbat to Rachel's jogging and caffellatte.

For my cousins, the observance of the Sabbath is anchored in traditional Jewish law. The laws concerning Shabbat were laid out in the Mishnah (part of what is called the oral law). The Rabbis of the Mishnah tried to define what constitutes "work". In various places in the Bible, we are told that we should observe the Sabbath as rest because God rested on the seventh day after creating the world. But the Bible does not detail precisely what "rest" or "work" encompasses. The Bible does tell us about the poor laborer who was caught gathering wood on the Sabbath and summarily stoned for working on the holy day. But besides gathering wood and lighting a fire, we are given no further information about what constitutes work. The Rabbis of the Mishnah thus attempt to spell out "work". They take their lead from the work that was required to build the Tabernacle that the Israelites brought with them during their desert journey from Egypt to Canaan, and deduce thirty-nine categories of work, what they call melaka.While we might not consider them part of our daily work, these categories include planting, tearing, putting two letters together, building, and mixing. Most of the activities on the list are agricultural tasks that reflect the farming society in which the Rabbis lived.

The traditional Sabbath my cousins observe is rather stringent. Following the categories of prohibited work (and later work-related activities that were added to the list), you are not permitted to drive or carry anything outside of your own private space – that means the home (although the Rabbis allowed for private space to be expanded artificially by stringing a wire called an eruv around the area – similar to the way power lines are strung – to expand the area in which an individual could carry objects outside the home. You are not permitted to use the phone, to go online, to watch movies, or to shop. You cannot cook, write a letter, or garden. While the list seems overwhelming, the goal is simply to ensure that you separate yourself from any activity that could potentially be work or lead you to work. Thus, you can't even touch certain items, even if you have no intention of using them.

They may appear burdensome, but these restrictions are merely an attempt to help create holy space, by keeping you from the ordinary, the everyday, and elevating you to a more sacred and spiritual plane. By limiting what you are permitted to do, traditional Shabbat restrictions force you to give up the illusion of "control" over your life. Instead, you strip down to life's essentials by getting together with others to eat and talk and celebrate just being alive. If you can't rush off to the shopping mall or work just a little bit more, you can create sacred space in your life to linger over conversation, or to be intimate – physically and spiritually – with your partner. You are able to enter into what Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, considered one of the great rabbis of the twentieth century, calls a "sanctuary of time." This is a period in which you stop trying to change the world (an important part of Jewish ethical life) and simply strive to be in harmony with it.

Unlike my cousins, Rachel does not believe that such strict rules are necessary to experience the Sabbath. For her, observing the Sabbath is much simpler. The Rabbis must have anticipated her attitude when they wrote, in a well-known midrash (a rabbinic legend that explains passages in the Bible), "Shabbat was given only for pleasure." For Rachel, the Sabbath is about doing things that bring her pleasure: working out, reading, drinking coffee. She believes that as long as she is mindful that the activities she is doing are connected to Shabbat, then she is indeed observing the Sabbath.

My cousins and my friend represent two opposing ends of the Sabbath observance spectrum. Rachel sees the Sabbath as being primarily about bringing joy to your life without any specific rules or regulations; my cousins, by contrast, see the Sabbath as a way to set apart one day of the week for complete rest from the world, which, to them, can be accomplished only by following a specific set of guidelines.

Since most of us live somewhere in between, both seem right to me. I try to do things that bring me joy while simultaneously recognizing that withdrawing myself from daily activities frees me to experience inner peace in a profound way. Practically, I observe two primary rules to separate myself during Shabbat from my regular days. First, I do not spend any money. This keeps me away from movies, shopping malls, and restaurants. Second, I do not turn on my computer, which keeps me from the temptation to check e-mail, pay a bill online, or finish up that essay or lesson I am preparing.

Franz Rosenzweig, the great Jewish philosopher, said, "The Sabbath is a world revolution." It may seem odd to call the Sabbath revolutionary, since nothing seems less "revolutionary" than a three-thousand-year-old idea. But even if the observance of the Sabbath in our time is not revolutionary, it is, indeed, subversive. There is something subversive about consciously withdrawing from worldly preoccupations. While much of our culture is engaged with commerce, Shabbat is an opportunity to choose not to take part in that world—even if that means just spending Shabbat evening drinking wine with the one you love, reading Harry Potter with your child, or being still by yourself and enjoying the solitude.

 For some people, it is almost incomprehensible to spend Friday night or Saturday not going out or working. Occasionally, when I see a listing for a concert or a show, or I am invited to a friend's party on a Friday night, I momentarily regret my decision not to participate in these activities on the Sabbath. But, for me, the spiritual discipline of not spending money and not socializing in ways not related to the Sabbath provides me with benefits that transcend the transient joy of a party or a movie. In consistently observing the Sabbath, you can feel an "intuition of eternity," as Heschel calls it. For me, this is not about a magical or mystical experience. Rather, this feeling of Shabbat – set apart from the other days – suffuses me with a profound appreciation for slowing down, for resting, and for appreciating the blessing of time itself.
Artwork by Marc Chagall
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  • On the Sabbath, see also all other relevant posts under the label "SABBATH" below.