Sabbath: The Lost Art of Holy Rest

"Shabbat is about harmony. It's about restoring balance – the balance between the masculine and feminine aspects of our own souls and the balance of power between women and men. It's about building community and remembering our interdependence with each other and with the Earth herself, taking responsibility for our habits of consumption and allowing ourselves to rest and recharge. Shabbat is about forging a direct relationship with the Shekinah, the feminine face of God. It's about taking refuge in her arms." Mirabai Starr

In Lent 2019 I set an intention to observe a weekly Sabbath through Lent. For one whole day each week I unplugged, desisted from work, and devoted the day to nourishing myself in body and soul. I found it to be the most amazingly restorative practice. But once Lent was over, I found it too hard to keep it up. At various times since then I have revisited some kind of sabbath observance and each time I do I find it more rewarding, as I go deeper and deeper into the many layers it has to offer. Keeping a Sabbath is perhaps my most rewarding and challenging spiritual practice. 

What do I mean by sabbath? The Sabbath or Shabbat in Hebrew, comes from the Jewish tradition, and is connected, in the Hebrew Scriptures, both with the creation of the world and the liberation of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. It is part of the Ten Commandments, the core of Jewish law, and in essence is one day per week set aside for rest from work – not just any paid work we may have, but rest from producing, labouring, and performing tasks. Orthodox, Reform and Liberal Jews all observe Shabbat in some form.

"Six years you shall sow your land and gather in its yield; but in the seventh you shall let it rest and lie fallow. Let the needy among your people eat of it, and what they leave let the wild beasts eat. You shall do the same with your vineyards and olive groves. Six days you shall do your work, but on the seventh you shall cease from labour, in order that your ox and ass may rest, and that your bondman and the stranger may be refreshed." Exodus 23:10-12

Baruch A. Levine wrote in The Jewish Study Bible, “Hebrew shabbat derives from the verb sh-b-t, “to cease, desist,” and its particular nominal form connotes regularity rather than a single act, that is: “a regular cessation.” It designates the seventh day of the week, from Friday evening through Saturday evening, as a day of obligatory rest, and overrides all other religious events. Its occurrence is never interrupted, and never has been since creation … the Sabbath is regarded as an original Israelite-Jewish contribution to world culture. It reflects ancient notions concerning the number seven, an important number in Semitic cultures, and seven-day units of repeated time. Unprecedented, however is the rule that all members of society are entitled to respite from daily labours, which is the essential message of the Sabbath.”

As a society, we no longer observe a Sabbath, and I think that is to our detriment. Now I have no wish to return to the days of everyone being forced to attend multiple church services with three hour sermons. Neither am I concerned about removing the cockerel from the hens to stop them copulating on the “Lord's Day”, as used to happen in some strongly Presbyterian areas of the highlands and islands of Scotland apparently. I am not interested in sabbath observance as piety. But I am interested in taking time out from daily work to reconnect with the sacred. 

Some Christian denominations, typically on the conservative end of the scale, such as the Seventh Day Adventists and the United Church of God, still observe a strict sabbath. But most Christian denominations have taken the words of Jesus that “the sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath,” to mean that sabbath observance is no longer a requirement for those who seek to follow Christ. Personally, that's not exactly what I take from Jesus' words – to me, he is saying that the sabbath is a gift rather than an obligation – and that human need should be more important than following the rules. Nevertheless, I value my freedom to choose when and whether to observe my sabbath rest. I value the freedom of the invitation that Mirabai Starr issues in her book, Wild Mercy, to take her ancestral Jewish practice and adapt it to what works for me. 

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote, “Six days a week we live under the tyranny of things of space; on the Sabbath we try to become attuned to holiness in time. It is a day on which we are called upon to share in what is eternal in time, to turn from the results of creation to the mystery of creation; from the world of creation to the creation of the world... To set apart one day a week for freedom, a day on which we would not use the instruments which have been so easily turned into weapons of destruction, a day for being with ourselves, .. a day on which we stop worshipping the idols of technical civilization, a day of armistice in the economic struggle with our fellow men.. is there any institution that holds out a greater hope for man's progress than the Sabbath?”

I have found it incredibly liberating to spend time consciously resisting participating in the constant production and consumption that our society demands of us, to unplug from technology and information overload as much as possible. 

I am also aware that my freedom in this regard is a privilege. There are many people for whom taking a break from work is simply unobtainable. Those working for minimum wage have to keep working more and more just to make ends meet. Slavery still exists today, not least in the guise of economic exploitation. As Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King famously said, “no one is free until we are all free.”

Taking time out to rest is counter-cultural. As such, it is not easy. It is not easy to resist the pull of the to-do list, the pinging of the email inbox and social media notifications, the advertisements inviting us to spend money on what we don't really need. Like Mirabai Starr, I feel that, by disengaging from the machine of consumer capitalism and intentionally practising simplicity instead, I am making a small contribution towards healing the earth and lessening the suffering of her people. 

The Hebrew Scriptural commandment to rest on the sabbath requires that the people apply it not only to humans, but to the animals used for working the land and to the land itself. Individual and collective rest, our rest and the earth's rest are intimately intertwined. The simple wisdom of letting the land lie fallow to recover was lost to us in the days of industrialised agriculture. We have already exhausted the earth in many areas, not just in the production of our food. What would it mean for us to recover that ancient wisdom?

A sacred relationship to food and drink, the produce of the earth, is central to the Jewish sabbath practice. The day begins and ends with the blessing of bread and wine, and includes several meals with family and/or friends. It is a time to appreciate the staples of life – simple food, hospitality, friendship – the things that sustain us on a day to day basis, that we may take for granted most of the time. Shabbat is an invitation to express gratitude for these things, to partake of the fruits of the earth in a conscious way, to acknowledge that the ordinary things in life are in fact sacred – light, bread, wine – to embrace the fullness of life as a gift from the divine – to eat the bread and drink the wine of life.

Sandy Eisenberg Sasso writes, “The commandment to bless this wine is a commandment to drink life as deeply as we drink from this cup. It is a commandment to bless life and to love deeply, to laugh until we are all laughter, to sing until we are all song, to dance until we are all dance, to love until we are all love. This is the wine that God has commanded us to bless and drink.”

As well as embracing the fullness of life, Shabbat also invites us to embrace its emptiness – to invite in the Shekinah, the divine feminine dove, who flies in on the wings of compassion and wisdom – chesed – loving kindness – and gevurah – discernment. In welcoming the Sabbath Bride we are invited to open the heart, to make space for and be receptive to whatever comes. In essence, Sabbath is a time to be rather than do – don't just do something, stand there! As the saying goes. 

Although I have focused here on sabbath as Shabbat practised in the Jewish tradition, carving out a palace in time for being rather than doing is something that can be practised by anyone and is found in all spiritual traditions in different forms. 

In his article, And the Earth is Filled with the Breath of Life, Rabbi Arthur Waskow writes, “Shabbat did not come to us because we were "the Jews"; we became "the Jews" because we heard the silence of Shabbat. We should be welcoming others into that hearing, even as some of us have had to relearn it from the breathing of yoga and the sitting of Zen and the meditating of Buddhists and the whirling of Sufis and the chanting of those who still live on Turtle Island. It is now the restful task of all the spiritual traditions, Buddhism and Hinduism, Christianity and Islam, Judaism and Wicce, to learn from each other how to rest. To catch our Breath. To dance another turn in the great spiral of I-Thou. Together.”

To carve out a palace in time to rest deeply is to honour ourselves as precious, sacred beings. As I have said, I don't always manage to have the discipline to observe a sabbath for a whole day every week. Sometimes it's just a few hours, sitting barefoot in the garden, reconnecting with the earth, being still and quiet, and breathing slowly. If you don't already have one, what might your sabbath practice be?

Sabbath Rest by UU minister Dan Lambert,

“Because the daily pressure of life weighs heavy on our minds, on our bodies, and on our spirits, we need a time of sabbath rest. Because the stresses of our culture often leave us feeling burdened and looking for hope, we need a time of sabbath rest. Because rest, fun, leisure, and naps help us cope and feel refreshed, we need a time of sabbath rest. Because we think more clearly, love more freely, and share more joyfully when we are well rested, we need a time of sabbath rest. Giver of Life, help us recognize when we need to stop and care for ourselves. Allow us to enjoy a sabbath as often as we need one. Allow us to rest without guilt so that we may work with more joy. We are thankful for the gift of sabbath rest. Amen.”