Why Your "Digital Shabbat" Will Fail

Many young Jews do not know of Shabbos in the biblical sense – as cessation, as full stop, as committing to one particular place – even as an outmoded vestige of a distant past. They have simply never heard of it. When introduced, it comes as a revelation.

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.

You refrain from melachah to free your mind from the mental work of getting things done.