Take the day off: reclaiming the Sabbath

RECENTLY, at a used bookstore, I came across Nail Fink's memoir Stranger in the Midst, the story of her conversion to Judaism. She describes the preparations she and her soon-to-be-husband made for Shabbat:

      On Friday afternoon, at the very' last minute, we'd
   rush home, stopping at the grocery to pick up supplies.
   Flying into the kitchen we'd cook ahead for the next
   twenty-four hours. Soup and salad,
   baked chicken, yams and applesauce for
   dinner, and vegetable cholent or lasagna
   for the next day's lunch. Sometimes I'd
   think how strange it was to be in such a
   frenzy to get ready for a day of rest.

      Shabbat preparations had their own
   rhythm, and once the table was set and
   the house straightened, the pace began
   to slow. "It's your turn first in the shower,"
   I'd call to Michael. "Okay, but it's
   getting late," he'd answer, concerned
   about starting Shabbat at sunset.

      In the bathroom I'd linger at the mirror,
   examining myself stroking the little
   lines on my face, taking as much time as
   I could to settle into a mood of quietness.
   When I joined Michael and his son
   for the lighting of the candles, the whole house seemed
   transformed. Papers and books were neatly piled, flowers
   stood in a vase on the table; and the golden light of
   the setting sun filled the room....

      Shabbat is like nothing else. Time as we know it does
   not exist for these twenty-four hours, and the worries of
   the week soon fall away. A feeling of joy appears. The
   smallest object, a leaf or a spoon, shimmers in a soft
   light, and the heart opens. Shabbat is a meditation of
   unbelievable beauty.

I was sitting with a cup of hot chat in a red velvet chair at the Mudhouse, a coffee shop in Charlottesville, when I read that passage. It was a Sunday afternoon. I had attended church in the morning, then cleaned out my ear, then read Those Can-Do Pigs with my friend's two-year-old twins, and eventually wended my way down to the Mudhouse for chat and a half hour with a good book. It was not an ordinary workday, and I did feel somewhat more relaxed than I would on Monday morning. But it was not Shabbat. Nan Fink nailed it: Shabbat is like nothing else. And Shabbat is, without question, the piece of Judaism I miss the most.

It is also rite piece I should most easily be able to keep. A yearning to, say, observe the Jewish New Year, or a desire to hear the Torah chanted in Hebrew: those things might be harder to incorporate into a Christian life. But the Sabbath! The Sabbath is a basic unit of Christian time, a day the church, too, tries to devote to reverence of God and rest from toil. And yet a Sunday afternoon finds me sitting in a coffee shop, spending money, scribbling in the margins of nay book, very much in "time as we know it," not at all sure that I have opened my heart in any particular way.

God first commands the Sabbath to the Jewish people in Exodus, with the initial revelation of the Ten Commandments, and then again in Deuteronomy. The two iterations are similar, though not identical. In Exodus God says, "Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy," whereas in Deuteronomy God enjoins us to "observe the Sabbath day and keep it holy." Elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible, Cod elaborates upon this simple instruction, noting in Exodus 35, for example, that no fire should be kindled on Shabbat, and in Isaiah 66 that on the Sabbath, the faithful should "come to worship before me."

There are, in Judaism, two types of commandments (mitzvot): the mitzvot asei, or the "Thou shalts,'" and the mitzvot lo ta'aseh, or the "Thou shalt nots." Sabbath observance comprises both. You are commanded, principally, to be joyful and restful on Shabbat, to hold great feasts, sing happy hymns, dress in your finest. Married couples even get rabbinical brownie points for having sex on the Sabbath.

And there are, of course, the mitzvot lo ta'aseh. The cornerstone of Jewish Sabbath observance is the prohibition of work in Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5: "You shall not do any work, you oz" your son or your daughter, your male or female servant or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you." Over time, the rabbis teased out of the text just what the prohibition on work meant, first identifying 39 categories of activities to he avoided on Shabbat, and then fleshing out the implications of those 39 (if one is not to light a fire, for example, one also ought not handle matches or kindling).

It's easy to look at the Jewish Sabbath as a long list of thou shalt nots: Don't turn on lights; don't drive: don't cook: don't carry a pair of scissors anywhere at all (for if you carry them you might be tempted to use them, and cutting is also forbidden on Shabbat); it's OK to carry a stone or a sweater or a scarf, but only inside your own house, not out onto the street and then into the house of another; don't plan for the week ahead; don't write a sonnet or a sestina or a haiku; don't even copy down a recipe; and while you are allowed to sing, yon shouldn't play a musical instrument, and of course you mustn't turn on a radio or a record player.