Recently in Revisioning Shabbat Category

This month, the URJ's Eilu V'Eilu online publication, a point/counterpoint dialogue between two scholars providing for active participation from readers, focused on Shabbat, and attempted to answer the following questions:

What does Shabbat mean for today's Reform Jews? What Jewish values, perspectives and language define and describe our commitment to Shabbat observance? When observing Shabbat, how do we incorporate both individual experience and building relationships within our communities? How might Reform congregational culture change to accommodate both individual and community practices?

Check out the wonderful 4 part dialogue between Michelle Shapiro Abraham and Jim Ball by clicking on the links below.  After you've read them, we'd love to hear your comments!

Part 1 - Opening Statements
Part 2 - Responses
Part 3 - Response to Readers
Part 4 - Closing Statments

"The truth is we can talk about the joys and meaning of observing Shabbat until we're blue in the face and it won't really make much difference. It's like trying to describe the taste of chocolate to someone who has never eaten chocolate. Or in Jewish terms: na'aseh v'nishmah - we will do and [then] we will understand. Shabbat has to be experienced in order to be understood. Shabbat is not an intellectual pursuit; hence the challenge for us who are inheritors of a great intellectual Jewish heritage."

- Rabbi Sue Ann Wasserman
Director, URJ Department of Worship, Music, & Religious Living

A few weeks ago, many of our colleagues and friends participated in the Riding4Reform, a fund-raiser for the Israeli Reform movement. Cantor Ross Wollman, of Congregatin Sukkat Shalom in Wilmette, IL was kind enough to share part of his experience, which he describes as "five shabbatot in a row" with us:

It seems like everyone is talking about Shabbat these days (which is great!)!

A friend called our attention to an article entitled, Many Ways to Celebrate Shabbat on MyJewishLearning.com. Now we're calling it to your attention.

We hope you'll check it out.
Enjoy!

As you head into Shabbat, we wanted to call your attention to this month's issue of Reform Judaism Magazine featuring an article by Rabbi Eric Yoffie entitled, "Reimagining Shabbat".  For those of you who missed out on Rabbi Yoffie's speech at Bienniel, this is a great recap.

Enjoy and Shabbat Shalom!

Rabbi Edwin C. Goldberg of Temple Judea in Coral Gables, FL shares this story:


A number of years ago I took a two-month sabbatical.  Ironically, this sabbatical enabled me to miss our usual Friday night 6:00 p.m. services and therefore one Shabbat, as 6 p.m. and sundown approached, I found myself in an uncharacteristic place: on a baseball bleacher with other parents, watching my son, Benjy, play baseball.  Because I was there (and not at the synagogue) I saw him make an outstanding catch.  Nevertheless, it felt strange not welcoming the Sabbath.

Sitting nearby were some temple members.  One of them, Jill, said to me, "Rabbi, the sun has gone down, shouldn’t we be celebrating Shabbat?"  I thought she was teasing me so I thought quickly how I might respond.  But before I could say anything, she took out of her bag candles, candle-sticks, wine and challah.  And before I knew it our little group were watching a baseball game and welcoming Shabbat.

I learned two important things that night.  First, sometimes we lead our congregants; sometimes they lead us.  I would never have thought of bringing Shabbat to the baseball field.  But Jill did.  And second, Shabbat can be celebrated anywhere.  All you need is some advanced planning and the desire to transform the ordinary into something holy.

I felt joy when I saw my son catch the ball.  And I felt gratitude when I realized that normally I would not have been there to see him.  But when I joined with my friends and congregants in welcoming Shabbat, I also felt the presence of God.  And I realized that, with some forethought, I don’t need to choose one joy over another.  We can have both our busy lives and our Shabbat.  It really is portable!

Last week,
published an article about one journalists foray in the world of secular sabbath.  You can read the article and then let us know what you think. In what ways is this "secular sabbath" the same as our Jewish understanding of Shabbat? In what ways is it different? If you adopt a "secular sabbath", are you also fulfilling the mitzvah of Shomer Shabbes, keeping the sabbath?

What do you think? 

 

When I work with Bar/Bat Mitzvah students on their D'vrei Torah, I often ask a parent to sit in. I find that the students are often challenged by the complexity of the ideas we are discussing. It can be hard to think and take notes at the same time, so I ask the parent to be a silent note keeper. Of course, it doesn't always work out that way. Sometimes, we wind up having a three way discussion. And occasionally, there is a parent who is so aggressive that I have to tell him, "Let's let your son write this one. You can come back and give your own D'var Torah next year".

But last week was a first. I have a student who is writing out Behar, the Torah portion that describes the Sabbatical year. My student decided that the Sabbatical year was a way of reminding us about Shabbat, and he began talking about his own feelings about Shabbat. Suddenly, he stopped, and he said to his father, "Wait a second, Dad! We don't keep Shabbat. We play sports and sometimes you work!"  The two of them turned red.  How could the boy write a D'var Torah about Shabbat when the he perceives his family as not keeping Shabbat?  The three of us talked for a while about what Shabbat meant to them, and we decided that ultimately, sports might be OK. The father, a busy physician who is recently divorced, told me that more than anything else, what Shabbat means to him is spending time with his children.

Friday morning, my student sent me a draft that said this:
What about Shabbat in our own lives? I spend my Friday nights and Saturdays, on Shabbat, hanging with my friends, playing sports, and going to the synagogue. This allows me a break from my busy week of school, and Hebrew school and gives me a chance to rest and rejuvenate as well. And by going to the synagogue and gives me a chance to reflect on my religion and to think about God and my purpose in the world.

...The two of them came to services on Friday, and the father told me, "This D'var Torah has changed me. I'm not working tomorrow. I'm spending the day with my kids."

More that Israel has kept Shabbat, Shabbat has kept Israel.

- Art Grand
Chair of Joint Commission on Worship, Music & Religious Living
President of URJ Pacific Central West Council

Our family started looking at Saturday as Shabbat.  One of the most interesting thigs that we got from the experience was the recognition of how much using the word "Shabbat" changed everything.  Before then, in our house, Saturday was Saturday.  But we started to think about what it meant that Saturday was Shabbat and suddently my three and a half year old asked questions like, "Mom, I think the people who work at CBS are Jewish."  I said, "Ezra, why would they be Jewish?"  And he said, "Well, because they play all their cartoons on Shabbat morning."  It changed the way we looked at the world.  And then suddenly other questions started to come.  Like, "Mom, I can't do that, right? - because I won't be home in time for Havdallah and we talked about how we are going to do Havdallah from now on."

"Okay, that means your friends need to come over here and do Havdallah with us"

It is a shift to say that we as Jews don't have Friday night and Saturday, we have Shabbat?  Suddently, when we use the word, how much it changes everything and the way we look at it.  We do lots of things in our house where we will say, "Oh wow, it is Shabbat, but so and so still has his birthday party and it is with your friend and we are still obligated...", or "So and so's performance for public school is that afternoon and we need to figure it out."  But all of a sudden we are having conversations we never had before.

 

In contrast, another woman, in another conversation about Shabbat said: "My kids will tell you that Shabbat is Friday night."

What messages are we sending to our children about the importance of Shabbat?  What are we teaching them?  Are we modeling Shabbat for them in a way that will stay with them throughout their lives?  And if not, how can we do so?

Dr. Carol Ochs, Professor of Jewish Thought at HUC-JIR in New York shares her thoughts about Shabbat and the individual:


Shabbat has two major aspects: communal and personal. There have been very instructive remarks about the communal aspect of Shabbat, so I'd like to focus on the personal.  Once a week we are told we belong to ourselves and to God. In a society focused on nonstop communication, connection, obligation, it comes almost as a revelation to turn off all the noise. For twenty-five hours we take off our wrist watches, turn off our cell phones, close the lid on our laptops, and enter into silence and peace, giving us a chance to meet our own deepest nature. When the only requirement is that we not do anything that is required, what do we find ourselves drawn to? When we stop worrying the past or planning for the future, how do we experience the present? We won't live here all the time, but weekly we are reminded that we are more than all the roles we play. We are valuable before we are contributory. And we are told that we are worth getting to know. How little we realized that we were only on nodding acquaintance with ourselves.