Shabbat: The Day to Restore Sanity
22 Heshvan 5771 / 30 October 2010
Rabbi Daniel Cotzin Burg
Jon Stewart is not in shul today. I am not saying this because I am particularly knowledgeable about the Daily Show host, his religious observance or his shul-going patterns. I honestly don’t know if he attends synagogue at all. And this is also not intended as a guilt trip of any kind. Just because Jonathan Stuart Leibowitz used to carpool with Adina Amith as children to Hebrew school is surely no guarantee that he would attend her daughter’s bat mitzvah. And, I am not trying to make him, or anyone else for that matter, feel guilty for having a little gathering in Washington D.C. this Shabbos. That’s right. Jon Stewart is not in shul because as of now he is on the National Mall for his much touted “Rally to Restore Sanity.” Truth is, it’s an intriguing idea: a chance for those of different perspectives to come together, to find common ground and eschew partisan posturing and petty bickering. I would like to applaud Mr. Stewert’s effort to put his “funny” where his mouth is. Our country could use a good strong dose of sanity right now.
But there is another reason why the Rally to Restore Sanity is relevant to us here today, in Synagogue. Though this was likely not his intention at all, Jon Stewart chose the perfect day of the week on which to tout the value of sanity. Today is Shabbat – the Day to Restore Sanity. The rally may be a fresh new idea, but Shabbat, that’s ancient. Jews have been keeping Shabbat as long as there have been Jews. And of all the mitzvot it is perhaps Shabbat that has had the most profound effect on maintaining not only our sense of people-hood and purpose, but of groundedness and perspective. Do an exercise with me… think back in your life to your most positive Jewish memories. What are those moments from your childhood or adulthood that have stuck with you? They could be recent memories or experiences from decades ago. Perhaps you remember a Passover seder or spending time in your grandparents’ sukkah. Perhaps you are thinking of a family trip to Israel or even a historical, cultural or Jewish culinary tour of that other promised land, New York. My guess, though, is that each of us has at least one powerfully positive memory from Shabbat. Whether at home with family and friends, within the walls of this synagogue or another, upon the undulating stone streets of Jerusalem or Tzfat, in the hills of Pennsylvania or the mountains of Nepal, we all have a Shabbat story to share. Ehad Ha’am taught that more than the Jewish people have kept Shabbat. Shabbat has kept the Jewish people. We depend on Shabbat. It is the day from which we derive renewed energy and strength to go forth into the rest of the week and the day for which we prepare and yearn. It might be labor, construction, production that moves the world forward. But in that world it is Shabbat that has been and shall always be our “day to restore sanity.”
If I were to ask: what is the first word that comes to mind when you think of Shabbat, my guess is that many of us would say “rest,” and this is understandable. We all need rest, sleep, a vacation, a break from the vicissitudes of life. But I have a secret to share: Shabbat is not really about “rest,” it is about renewal. And these are not entirely the same thing. The Torah tells us: “U’vayom hashevi’i shavat v’yinafash, on the seventh day God ceased from work and was refreshed.” Joel Grishaver, the venerated Jewish educator, points out that one need only look, of all places, to Club Med to understand this word “va-yinafash.” Club Med understands the difference between ‘leisure’ and ‘recreation.’ “Leisure,” writes Grishaver, “is just time available; recreation is a process through which one’s essence… is renewed.” The word va-yinafash, contains the word “nefesh” or “soul.” Shabbat is not simply a day of rest, it is a day on which we return to the moment of creation, a day on which, our tradition tells us, we are granted a second soul. It is, as Heschel says, a day to turn “from the world of creation to the creation of the world.” It is, quite literally, a day of “re-creation.”
So how might Shabbat help us to restore our sanity? Are we insane? Some have argued that it is not work but Shabbat observance that is “insane,” that observing the fine details of Shabbat is in fact the very definition of insanity. Haven’t we heard the famous line, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results”? (This quote is often misattributed, but it seems originally from the novelist Rita Mae Brown). The cynical among us might witness the meticulous observance of Shabbat, the hours of preparation, the abstention from daily chores and responsibilities to be a sort of compulsion, bordering, even, on insanity. And yet, I want to suggest to you that this is a grave misunderstanding of what Shabbat is really about.
The story is told that the Ba’al Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidic Judaism, would encourage singing and dancing, joy and fervor. Many other rabbis, those who would come to be known as Misnagdim, opposed his approach and couldn’t understand emphasis on the emotional, even ecstatic, experience of Shabbat. These critics claimed that the Ba’al Shem was desecrating Shabbat by not taking it seriously enough. But the Besht (as he was known) was quite serious – no one was more serious in his love for God and humanity. He loved not just the Torah, but he loved deeply the people who loved the Torah.
His students once asked him why he was so demonized by those Misnagdim. The Besht offered the following parable by way of explanation: There was once a good family who held a great wedding festival. As any good family would do, they invited their friends from all over the village to attend and join in their merriment. In one corner of their large house they set up a place for musicians to play. Soon the entire house was filled with music and dancing. As they were dancing, a deaf man passed by the front window. He could see people leaping about, whirling, and waving arms in the air, but he could not see the musicians or hear the music. And so, the deaf man declared to himself: “look at all that commotion; this must be a house full of madmen!” And the poor man went on his way, unable to take part in the celebration, for he could not hear the music that animated the wedding guests.
The truth is that the “Shabbat observance” that the cynics reject is the same one the Besht rejected, the ascetic over the aesthetic, details devoid of passion. The Ba’al Shem scorned those who would claim that joy and seriousness are mutually exclusive. But insanity is not rejoicing in God or Torah, the meaning, value and even the pleasures of life. Insanity is a life of things without these things, without meaning, or when the purpose of our work is the fulfillment of the self to the detriment of the other. Insanity is Buber’s I-It without the redemptive and restorative I-Thou.
Rabbi Harold Shulweis claims that much of our perspective on work and the Sabbath is based on fear. “We are afraid not to work.” Shulweis writes: “We fear the Sabbath as slaves fear freedom. If I have free time, with what shall I fill it? With whom shall I spend it? How can I live without schedule, without deadlines, without orders? We complain, of course, of insufficient time for family and friends, but left with twenty-four hours of unstructured time, we become ill at ease.”
But, hevre, the rest that Shabbat offers is not the rest that we fear. Leisure and vacation, important though they may be, are not those things that prepare us to be creative, constructive and contributive once again. The great misconception is that work is the enemy of Shabbat. Nothing could be farther from the truth! The fourth of the ten commandments reads: “Sheshet yamim ta’avod v’asitah kol melachtecha, Six days you shall labor and do all your work, V’yom hashevi’i Shabbat L’Ado-nai Eloheicha” – it is only the seventh day that is a Sabbath of the Lord! Work is a good thing, indeed a great thing – we are commanded to do it six days out of seven. But, too much of a good thing is not good at all. “The Sabbath,” says Rabbi Shulweis, “challenges us to break our addiction to work.” It is, in his words, “a cry for sanity.”
One of the ways that Shabbat succeeds in being a day, not just of leisure but of re-creation, is that Shabbat gives us permission to focus less on the realm of space and more on the realm of time. Too often, we feel oppressed by time, by minutes and hours ticking away and our inability to finish our work, the tasks we have to accomplish. Shabbat is a once-a-week “get out of jail free” card. It says to us not ‘stop checking things off the list,’ but rather ‘there is no list!’ For one day, from Friday at sundown, until Saturday night when three stars shine in the sky, we create a psychological fiction where there simply are no longer “things to do.” The great challenge of Shabbat is to free ourselves from what Heschel calls, “the tyranny of things of space.” Shabbat, he says, is a “palace in time.” And if we do it right, we emerge from that palace refreshed, rejuvenated and arguably a good deal saner than we were when frantically we entered it the night before.
But it takes a good deal of courage to walk through the doors of that palace. Ours is not a society that orients itself naturally to the Sabbath. That’s why stories like Leah’s are so inspiring. We listen to her and understand not just the courage of conviction to say no to gymnastics lessons on Friday nights, but we envy the meaningful family dinner that she gets to enjoy because of that choice. Shabbat reminds us of family, community, study, good food and prayer. It is, above all else, time to reconnect with the music that animates our souls.
So where do we begin? How might we deepen our connection to this great “Day to Restore Sanity?” The most important thing to remember is that it does not have to be all or nothing. If Shabbat is simply not a part of your weekly existence, start small. Make a point of lighting candles on Friday night. Take a moment to breathe in and out, to let go of the to-do list, the patient list or the client list. Power down the iPhone and see if you can experience even a taste of that additional soul, that palace in time. If Shabbat for you has been only on Friday night, see if you can carve out some time on Saturday afternoon: time for taking a walk or reading a book or playing with your grandkids. If Shabbat for you is primarily something you do in shul, see if you can challenge yourself to invite the music into your home. Be like the characters in the Ba’al Shem Tov’s story. Too often, I think, we don’t sing in the car or dance in our living rooms because we worry about who’s staring at us through the window.
My friends, perhaps the greatest thing about the Sabbath is that even as Shabbat helps us to re-create ourselves, Shabbat itself needs no creating – it just is. It was there from the very beginning – inherent to the formation of the universe itself. We don’t make Shabbos, it makes us. We don’t keep Shabbat, it keeps us! And in a world were there are so many things to do, it is immensely freeing to enjoy a fixed time dedicated not to doing but to being. Later tonight, after Shabbat is over, I intend to cue up my DVR and watch a bit of Jon Stewart’s Rally to Restore Sanity. I’m glad it’s happening. I hope it makes a difference. But surviving and thriving in a sometimes “insane” world is a constant struggle against certain societal pressures and against our baser human instincts. Thank God we have a day, every week, 52 times a year, where we can re-boot, return to ourselves and to one another. The Torah says “Ot hi l’olam.” It is a symbol for all time. Rallies come and go, but Shabbat is eternal.
Shabbat Shalom