Joseph Lieberman, the Democratic Party’s candidate for Vice-President, has announced that he will not campaign on Saturdays. As an Orthodox Jew, he holds the Sabbath to be an altogether special day on which work is not an option.
“My religion is very important to me,” says Senator Lieberman, a sentiment that no one doubts is sincere. Of course, religion has importance for the other major candidates as well and they presumably make Sunday, the Christian Sabbath, a time for worship and some other activities different from the rest of the week.
For Orthodox Jews, many laws and regulations govern the observance of the Sabbath (Shabbat, as most of them refer to it). These rules are intended to safeguard the meaning of that day and to ensure that the tradition behind it not be lost. Keeping to these prescriptions enhances the value of that special time between sundown on Friday till Saturday evening each week.
The celebrated Jewish leader and scholar, Rabbi Abraham Joseph Heschel who taught at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, a few decades ago published a beautiful book called The Sabbath: Its Meaning for Modern Man. First appearing in 1951, this work later went through several editions and has since become a classic.
In this short but profound volume, Rabbi Heschel offers insight into the meaning of the Sabbath that brings out its many-sided significance. To read it is to develop a new appreciation of what the day may mean for Senator Lieberman and the millions of other men and women who share his faith. Words from this book quoted here make eloquent material for meditation.
Rabbi Heschel insists that Judaism is a religion oriented largely to time rather than to space. The Sabbath consecrates time and overturns people’s ordinary values. “There is a realm of time,” he writes, “where the goal is not to have but to be, not to own but to give, not to control but to share, not to subdue but to be in accord.”
And again: “Six days a week we wrestle with the world, wringing profit from the earth; on the Sabbath we especially care for the seed of eternity planted in the soul. The world has our hands, but our soul belongs to Someone Else. Six days a week we seek to dominate the world, on the seventh day we try to dominate the self.”
Many people would argue that the value of the Sabbath lies in its giving us a break so that we can return to the week’s work with renewed energy. But Rabbi Heschel rejects this approach. Standing this argument on its head, he insists “The Sabbath is not for the sake of the weekdays; the weekdays are for the sake of the Sabbath.”
Ultimately, the rabbi finds the worth of this special day, not in anything merely human, but rather in what it tells us about God. “The likeness of God can be found in time, which is eternity in disguise,” says this deep thinker. By focusing attention on time rather than space, the Sabbath reminds believers that God is not a thing. Because it is spiritual, this special time suggests that no definition can grasp God, that the divine eludes human grasp.
So a theology lies behind the Sabbath, a doctrine that begins with the Bible’s story of the creation of the world. After having made the world and all that is in it during the first six days, God put the finishing touches on the final day by taking three actions: God rested, he blessed, and he hallowed, says Rabbi Heschel. That means that the Sabbath is a time for abstaining from work, it is a day that has received the divine blessing, and it is a day filled with holiness.
I asked one of my readers, Phyllis Reichart, a 42-year-old single mother, what Shabbat means to her. Her answer seems in beautiful harmony with Rabbi Heschel’s views and, for all we know, with Joseph Lieberman’s as well.
“I think that we need to have time to stop and listen inside,” she answers. “I hear my connection with God, I get a sense of direction in my life’s task, and clarity in my relationships with myself, with my loved ones, and in my work. I remember (a lot of it’s about remembering) to feel from the deepest part of myself.”
Richard Griffin