Stop, Look, Listen: Celebrating Shabbos through a Spiritual Lens

Shabbat imposes the same structure onto the larger arc of our life, so that we understand that we participate in it, both in the moment-by-moment rising up and falling away of our lives with each breath, and in the fact that we ourselves will fall away one day. We were born and we will die, and this is the natural order of things and not something

For observant Jews, it’s a rest day. No work, no travel, no computers or phones or TV. The way I heard it once, the idea is that for six days we exert our energy to change the world. On the seventh day the objective is simply to notice and enjoy the world exactly as it is without changing a thing.

The Torah therefore tells us something simple and practical. Give, and you will come to see life as a gift. You don’t need to be able to prove God exists. All you need is to be thankful that you exist – and the rest will follow. That is how God came to be close to the Israelites through the building of the sanctuary. It wasn’t the quality of the wo

Second, Shabbat can help us fight consumerism, materialism, and workaholism.