by Art Grand
During Shabbat morning services at the URJ Board meeting in mid December three Board members were asked to share their personal Shabbat journeys, to speak about how they celebrated Shabbat and how they have thought about Shabbat observance as part of their lives. Art Grand is a member of Temple Or Rishon, Orangevale, CA, President of the Pacific Central West Council, Chair of the Joint Commission on Worship, Music and Religious Living and a member of the Board of Trustees.
(Originally posted as part of Ten Minutes of Torah)

I have a 25-year old son who became Bar Mitzvah before I began my Jewish journey.  He's a lot like the person I used to be - a workaholic with very little connection to Judaism. Two years ago, he called me up in a very agitated state. He was working too hard, he told me, and he was getting burnt out. Graduate school was just too hard. I listened for twenty minutes as he told me all the reasons why he couldn't possibly slow down, and then he got to the payoff:  "I take time to watch the NFL every Sunday", he told me, "but it doesn't help. I've got to change my whole life around. Instead of watching the NFL on Sunday, I've got to watch college football on Saturday".

I suddenly realized that this wasn't a conversation about the pressures of graduate school. In his own tentative way, my son was asking me for permission to choose his own Shabbat practice - a practice very different from my own. It was so hard for him that he couldn't even use the word Shabbat. All he could talk about was the importance of resting on "Saturday".  So I gave him my blessing. "It's OK", I told him, "lots of Jews rest on Saturday".

My son regards that conversation as a turning point in his life - the day he switched from the NFL to college football. A few weeks ago, I called him on a Friday afternoon and I asked him if there would be any good games on. "No", he told me, "but the important thing is to rest on Saturday".

My daughter is 7 ½ years younger, and she went to shul with me during all the years of my Jewish journey.  My daughter is a guitarist who just started college. A month before she left for school, she told me that she would be giving a final concert at a local coffee house. "It's the last Friday night before I leave for school", she told me. "It's the only night they would let us perform". My daughter was testing me, as she had many times before. What was more important to me, her or my beloved Shabbat?  But this time she added a kicker. "I'm going to miss my adult friends in the congregation. Could you invite them?"  So I emailed all of my friends, the board, the Torah study group, and the Sisterhood. "Jenny is having a concert", I told them. "Could you please come?"  And then I added, "This is the only time in your life that I will ever tell you not to go to Shabbat services".

There were forty people in the coffee house that night, including the president, the immediate past president, senior citizens, a two year old, and people who had known my daughter since she, herself, was two. One of the board members brought Shabbat candles. We didn't actually light them, but we knew that it was Shabbat, and the Shechinah was present.

Since she's gone off to school, my daughter has developed a habit of calling me on my cell phone just as our Oneg starts. She talks to me for a few minutes, and then she says, "Who else is there?"  I pass the phone to someone else, and it can be an hour before I see my phone again. My daughter has moved away, but she is still a part of the community.

My children's Shabbat practices are very different from mine, but they are just as important to them as mine are to me.  More than Israel has kept the Shabbat, the Shabbat has kept Israel.

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