by Senator Joe Lieberman, 2011
Rediscovering the Beauty of the Sabbath
Shabbat Shalom! Shabbat land
He is a devout Jew and he observes the Sabbath every week from Friday sundown until Saturday sundown and 3 stars visible. No TV, phone, computer. Every light they want on gets turned on before the Sabbath and stays on so they don’t have to turn on a light. He also makes it so the refrigerator light stays off when you open the door. Thirty-nine categories of forbidden labors including, “lighting a fire and by extension, lighting an electric light or using a combustion engine like the one that makes your car move. Handling money is forbidden…Cooking is prohibited…” Food is prepared ahead of time. “Challah” is the specially braided bread of Shabbat.
Vacuuming, dusting, mopping, buying food and wine, gardening, boiling water for coffee and tea (keep it in an electric urn), gathering special reading material. Preparing the whole week in anticipation of Sabbath. Friday afternoon introspection – thinking about the past week – “Did I do right by my family, friends, co-workers? Did I do right by God?”
Lighting 2 candles 18 minutes before sundown on Friday night; the last creative at.
Preparing:
- Get your house ready for Sabbath
- Plan ahead
- Invite friends or family to share the meal
- adopt a favorite dish or two
- During the week before, try to do something in honor of the Sabbath; buy a food delicacy or a special bottle of wine. (He buys flowers every Friday afternoon.)
- Set aside enjoyable reading for the Sabbath
- Read from the Bible – Song of Songs is what he reads.
Friday evening service – 45 minutes – at the Synagogue: Opening prayer, say or sing Psalms 95-99, and 29. Then, a Love Song, then the closing prayers: Shema and Amidah. Then, home to dinner.
- Turn off the TV, computer, phone
- Light 2 candles
- Review the week – was it good, what can you do to improve?
- Go outside – thank God for the day of rest.
The Shabbat Meal – Friday night at home: Bless your children, “May the Lord bless you and protect you. May the Lord make His face shine on you and be gracious to you. May the Lord turn His face to you and grant you peace.” Numbers 6:24-26. Bless your wife: Proverbs 31:10-31. Hymn welcoming the angels of Sabbath, Kiddush the wine – bless the wine, washing hands, blessing over bread – 2 loaves to commemorate the manna that fell every day but Saturday. On Fridays, a double portion fell – God will take care of us.
Sexual intimacy – Friday Evening: “As with Shabbat in general, we need to give the pleasures of Life, which sustain life, the care and priority they deserve.” Saturday morning – wake up and thank God. Make instant coffee with preboiled water form the urn. Linger over the paper. Shabbat morning service – 2 to 3 hours: Prayer – including the Shema (“Hear”), Deut 6:4, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God; the Lord is One…”
- Walk to church
- Pray with others
- Read the Bible and talk about it, go out of your way to interact with people
- Consider what is God’s plan for me?
Bible Study – Story about the Rabbi and the skeptical student. Rabbi invites student to his home where there is a beautiful landscape painting of flowers, trees, people, mountains, streams. Student asks who painted it? Rabbi says a house painter spilled his paints and it just happened. Student says, “That’s impossible!” Rabbi says, “You find it impossible to believe that this beautiful painting happened by accident and yet you nevertheless argue that our much more beautiful world was created by accident.”
Pray for the sick. The weekly sermon.
- Make a regular time for Study of the Bible
- Be open to the possibility that the passage you study today will have meaning for what is happening in your life that very day.
- Make your Bible Study a ritualized act.
- In studying the Bible…Consider the uniqueness of the Scriptural text and, of course, its divine origin
Saturday afternoon: Kiddush – Social hall for congregational gathering for all sorts of food and whiskey/bourbon/single malt scotch. Simmering stew – cholent. Saturday lunch – long and relaxing. Concluded with singing grace preceded by Psalm 126. Saying grace before and after a meal.
“Pleasing God with our rest.” “With our labor during the week, we seek to change and improve the world. With our rest, we seek to change and improve ourselves and to renew our relationship with God, family, and community and truly feel how much we have to be grateful for.”
Saturday afternoon at synagogue (again!?) Look to redemption, then social hall for 3rd Sabbath meal, or if not in town they have a Shabbat group, 10-40 people, meet in people’s homes.
Sabbath End Service
Wine, candles lit, spice box – the Havdalah Cermony. Red or sing Psalm 23.
-The six days of labor: working with a purpose, good, hard work for six days, meaningful rest and hallow the day on the Sabbath.
-Earning wealth as a worthy calling.
-Seeing work as your mission
-Work – a partnership with God
“Both the Sabbath and work are commandments and gifts from God – each reinforcing the other…”Rest without work would be meaningless. Work without rest would be purposeless.”
“The Talmud contains a wonderful teaching that if everyone observed 2 Sabbaths in a row, the Messiah would come and preside over the redemption of humanity.”