FEATURED JOBS
On Sunday, I had the pleasure of visiting Congregation B’nai Israel in Easton, MD. A gem of a shul, we celebrated a Tu B’shvat seder that was built around the kabbalistic symbols of four cups of wine whose color deepened from white to red as the seder progressed, and four kinds of fruit with edible and inedible centers and skins.
After the seder, I spoke about the need for us to imagine a new narrative, one that moves us from what-we-do to who-we-are; one that can transform our bundle environmental deeds into body of purpose.
Shabbat, it seems to me, is such a narrative. Our entire week (and hence our entire life) is framed by Shabbat. The rabbis tell us that just as a person cannot go three days without water, so we are never more than three days away from Shabbat.
We are told that the essence of Shabbat trails into the beginning of the week, that we can do havdalah, the ritual ending of Shabbat, as late as Tuesday. And on Wednesday, we begin preparing for the coming Shabbat.
Shabbat, then, is not just a day. It is the frame of our days and our lives.
And what is the essence of Shabbat? Abraham Joshua Heschel explains it this way: “There is a realm of time where the goal is not to have but to be, not to own but to give, not to control but to share, not to subdue but to be in accord.”
This vision of Shabbat the rabbis call: a taste of the world to come.
Shabbat is, in essence, the perfect world we seek, where there is no want, no possession, no lack. We rest on Shabbat not so much to recover from the week past or to prepare for the week to come - though those are blessed benefits of Shabbat. We rest on Shabbat for all is - symbolically - done. We have arrived - the fullness of our quest is realized. We don’t need to own anymore for all that we have is sufficient. We don’t need to work anymore for all we sought is accomplished. We don’t need to fear for everyone has all they need.
But the commandment to observe Shabbat has not one part but two: “Six days shall you labor, and do all your work; but the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord. You shall do no work.”
The Shabbat commandment teaches us not only about the quality of our “rest” but the quality of our work. We get to enjoy Shabbat because we earn it through the work of our week, the work of our lives.
Ortega y Gasset said: “Living is nothing more or less than doing one thing instead of another.”
Living in the light of Shabbat helps us choose what to do: to live in a way that leads to a world of fullness and contentment, a world of Shabbat.
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