Paradoxes of a Late February Sabbath

Not My Synagogue, But Someone Else's in Greater Boston

So already, last Saturday morning I was en route to Sabbath services when a voice on my car radio reminded me that it was the National Day of Hate, the effort organized by an Iowa-based neo-Nazi to disrespect and intimidate Jewish people and institutions across the United States. 

As I got closer to my synagogue, I hoped a police cruiser would be stationed outside of it. I also hoped a police cruiser wouldn't be stationed outside of it. Sabbath is supposed to be a day of peace, an intimation of eternity. Police cars just aren't a good fit with my mental images of either.

Not that I've ever had clear mental images of what an intimation of eternity would look like or feel like. But for the first time, I was considering a conception of Sabbath as something other than a day of rest--another concept I'd always found elusive--thanks to an Ezra Klein Show  podcast shared with me by a college classmate who recently became a friend. Since we "talk Judaism" from time to time, he thought I might enjoy listening to Klein's conversation with Judith Shulevitz, author of The Sabbath World: Glimpses of a Different Order of Time. 

I was fascinated by it, and even more important, I was encouraged by it. So often when I try to observe Sabbath, I experience myself as "doing Sabbath": in other words, working very hard at not working. Technology-facilitated communication is as unrelenting on the day of rest as it is the rest of the week, and with an elderly mother in the equivalent of a nursing home, I don't dare ignore ringing phones. 

Furthermore, when I'm not at home, the day can easily become too much about coming and going, about watching the clock to be on time--for services at my synagogue, for meeting up with my sister for our afternoon visit with our mother, for meeting up with some friend or other whom I haven't seen in a while, and who does not "do" the Jewish Sabbath. Not that I do all of these things every Saturday. But last Saturday, I did do all of those things.

And the truth is that some of my "busy Saturdays" are among my most peaceful and restful, despite their complicated logistics. 

First of all, I always feel anxiety-free, warm (though the sanctuary did not exactly warm up on this past Saturday!), and accepted when I'm at my synagogue. Even on the days when none of the prayers particularly resonate with me, I am glad that my presence contributes to there being enough people for public communal prayer.

 One of the things I appreciate when I'm at synagogue is the Lev Shalem Siddur that we use. It offers not only Hebrew translations, but additional readings in the book's wide margins that seem to anticipate the range of prayer experiences, comfortable and uncomfortable, that worshipers might be having. For example, the words on p. 202 of the prayer book, seen in the adjacent photograph and addressing the very common human experience of ceasing to focus on the prayer at hand, offer a sage's reassurance to the person praying by emphasizing God's omnipresence, even in the wanderings of a human mind during prayer. Similarly, four pages earlier, next to the blessing recited at the beginning of a new month, a Marge Piercy poem, "A New Moon: Rosh Hodesh," offers another route into the spiritual possibilities suggested by the concealment of the moon at the new month's start.

Second of all, I love the relaxation of driving to my mother's place while listening to  "Guest Mix" or "Mountain Stage" (on WUMB, UMass Boston's public radio station), and of heading away from it while listening to "A Celtic Sojourn" (on WGBH, Boston public radio). Those shows have become old, reliable friends over the years.

Third of all, there's the peacefulness of my younger sister's and my Saturday afternoon visits with our mother. Our times with her are necessarily in the moment because, as someone in the late stages of Alzheimer's, she is either alert and communicative, sleepy and quiet, or a combination during our visit. Happily, she knows us, knows we're there, and seems to enjoy listening to us talk to each other. Visiting her is generally about being, not doing. My sister and I "be" together in her presence.

So this is all to say that even when I'm putting lots of miles on my car and running a little late, there's something "different" and calmer about Saturdays these days, something definitely good.

But does that mean my Saturdays are holy? Because that's what the commandment prescribes: "Remember the Sabbath, to keep it holy." I'm not sure when restful and peaceful are holy and when they're not, but I have to think that intentionality and understanding must play important roles in keeping things and making things holy. 

Since both Ezra Klein and Judith Shulevitz referred often to Abraham Joshua Heschel's book The Sabbath,* I decided I should start by reading it. Fortunately, I already owned it--it had been sitting on my bookshelf untouched for years. 

So I was surprised when I I picked it up to realize that I had read it before--and could recall none of it: the underlinings and notes in the margins were definitely my own!

Now, however, I had a different purpose for reading (I think!), mainly, to read Heschel's own words about our human tendency to engage almost exclusively with space and things, as opposed to with time. As Heschel explains in his book's prologue,

"Our intention here is not to deprecate the world of space. To disparage space and the blessing of things of space, is to disparage the works of creation, the works which God beheld and saw 'it was good.' . . . Time and space are interrelated. To overlook either of them is to be partially blind. What we plead against is man's unconditional surrender to space, his enslavement to things. We must not forget that it is not a thing that lends significance to a moment; it is the moment that lends significance to things" (6).

I was glad he talked about not disparaging and thus dismissing space and things as lesser or inherently polluting because of my own tendency, upon confronting juxtaposed concepts, objects, or ideas, to assume that one of them must be inherently "better" and more desirable than the other. 

 

In light of this, Sabbath is simply different and to be set apart. As Heschel explains a few pages later, 

"It is, indeed, a unique occasion at which the distinguished word qadosh is used for the first time: in the Book of Genesis at the end of the story of creation. How extremely significant is the fact that it is applied to time: 'And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy.' There is no reference in the record of creations to any object in space that would be endowed with the quality of holiness" (9).

How interesting to consider when the terms "good" and "holy" are assigned, to begin to contemplate the situations in which they're not interchangeable!

Ilya Schor Wood Engraving Before Heschel Prologue**

And how interesting to encounter the paradoxes and ironies to be found in what Heschel himself said. How ironic it seemed to me that Heschel was trying to get us to understand hallowed time by comparing it to hallowed space. Furthermore, how ironic it seemed to me that the kind of hallowed space he chose was a significant kind of Christian hallowed space: "The Sabbaths are our great cathedrals; . . . (8)

 

Related more indirectly to what Heschel said was the irony connected to the fact that the National Day of Hate was scheduled for Shabbat: my congregation's communal attempt to hallow time by safely attending Shabbat services required the protection of our physical synagogue space by a police detail.

 

Obviously, there is no way to separate time and space completely, to sever completely the ties between our daily lives and Shabbat lives, to live on any day completely beyond the reference points that orient us most days. But how much do these challenges and ironies matter when it comes to "keeping" the Sabbath holy? How much of a challenge should it be to keep the Sabbath day holy, even if holiness does require effort? At what point does the challenge of holiness banish joy and further distance us from holiness?

 

Last Saturday was a bitterly cold day. I left my house early and returned late, having gone from synagogue to my mother's (with a hot coffee stop beforehand to warm my still-chilled hands), and from my mother's to the home of a friend and former colleague who drove us to restaurant for a reunion dinner with other friends/colleagues. By the time I got home, I was exhausted--and very peaceful and happy. It had been a great day, even though it had begun with the radio announcement of the National Day of Hate. But had I managed to keep the Sabbath holy?

I will write again once I finish reading Shulevitz's book. Maybe I'll understand more by then. From paradoxes may arise possibilities.

* Heschel, Abraham Joshua. The Sabbath, Its Meaning for the Modern Man. Noonday Press Paperback Edition ed., Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1997. 

** The Siddur Lev Shalem Committee. Siddur Lev Shalem for Shabbat & Festivals. Rabbinical Assembly, Inc., 2016.

*** Ilya Schor woodengraving screen shot from https://www.invaluable.com/auction-lot/ilya-schor-the-sabbath-58-c-c4145a8a33