Shabbat

Service Schedule:

2012-2013

include a Bar or Bat Mitzvah 

Shabbat is God’s gift to the Jewish people and the Jewish people’s gift to the world. However, many of us hear the call to observe Shabbat as a call to orthodoxy. We fear that Shabbat with its cumbersome rules, and we have not yet found a way to observe Shabbat meaningfully in our day.

The eclipse of Shabbat is just another sign of the eclipse of personal/family time. The hurried pace and unceasing interconnectedness of modern life makes the observance of Shabbat even more important. How one does that is deeply personal. The critical thing is that Shabbat be a day apart from the ordinary, a special and unique time. 

Just as Shabbat offers us a moment for renewal, perhaps Shabbat itself needs renewal, a new set of simplified instructions. Perhaps instead of a list of don’ts, we need to develop a list of dos.  Here are some suggestions for a start:

·         Begin Shabbat amongst a community of friends at services (which so many of us already do) and/or celebrate at Shabbat dinner.

·         Set that time aside and sanctify it with candles, Kiddush and motzi.

·         Read something that will enrich and challenge you that isn’t related to the everyday things of your life.

·         Take some alone time. Check in with yourself, review the week past and plan the week to come.

·         Don’t feel the press to run and do.  Try a hobby, a craft or something creative, or perhaps do something radical -- nothing.

Rabbi Elijah of Vilna asked why the climactic act of creation was the act of stopping. The answer he tells us is that God stopped to show us that what we create becomes meaningful only once we stop creating and pause to think about why we did so. 

Shabbat is without value unless it teaches us to revere the rest of time. Rabbi Arthur Green reminds us that it is the “tangible experience of holiness on Shabbat that inspires us in our ongoing task of redeeming the everyday and uplifting the world.”