A Day of Rest

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Thank you for joining me. I'm Rabbi David Lyon from
Congregation Beth Israel in Houston. Every day, the news is
filled with so many items and issues that cause us
concern and angst. I hear it from the congregation, I
hear it in the community. I read about it on
Facebook and other social media among my colleagues reform rabbis

(00:23):
around the country. Where we share a Facebook page to
share different ideas and thoughts and concerns, the tension rises,
The angst is deep, and very often we wonder, how
will we make it to tomorrow? What do we say
to the people who counted us? It was only it
isn't only for rabbis to share the concern. It's yours too.

(00:46):
Where you are parents to children, parents to each other, grandparents, bosses, employees.
In all the places where we are, we each carry
a certain burden on our shoulders and our hearts and
minds about the issues of the day. It isn't just political,

(01:07):
it's social, it's economic. It's all the ways that we
wish the world would turn, but doesn't seem to turn
the way we want. So what do we do? I've
given different advice here, and you've read other advice in
other places about how to handle each day. But it
occurred to me, especially as I was preparing to share

(01:28):
this message with you today, that there's one particular recipe,
one special moment each week that our faith tradition commands
us to observe, and it is the Sabbath. In Judaism,
the Sabbath begins on Friday night and goes for twenty

(01:49):
four hours until Saturday evening, because, as the Torus says,
that God creates a day that begins in the evening
and end in the evening. There was evening, there was morning,
a first day, a second day, and so on, and
at the end of God's creative acts, God created and

(02:11):
sanctified the seventh day as a day of rest. We
read it about it in the Book of Exodus, beginning
in chapter twenty, where it says remember the Sabbath day
to keep it holy. And what does it say there
to refrain from any manner of work. The thing is
that the tour doesn't tell us what is work. That

(02:34):
explanation and that definition come later in the Tumult and
commentaries in other places where rabbis and over the course
of centuries have wrestled with the question, how do we
keep a Sabbath day? And what is work? What is
not work? What fits the mold and definition? To be
sure that we're keeping this mist for this commandment, to

(02:57):
honor this sacred day that God has made up. But
let's take a step backward for a moment. You see,
when God finished creating, just like you and I might
finish creating something too. Very often today people celebrate the
conclusion of their creative acts by posting pictures on Facebook,

(03:19):
or sell it on Etsy, or put a blue ribbon
on it when they win an award for it at
the state fair or the county grounds. But what did
God do after creating six days and the earth all
around us? Even if we don't believe in it literally,
it is still a literary piece of work from which

(03:40):
we can learn. Because God didn't create a mountain or
a moment, a statue or anything else that God called holy. Instead,
it had nothing to do with a physical world or
physical achievement at all. God sanctified the Sabbath day, a

(04:01):
day disconnected from the cycle of the moon or from
anything physical on Earth, a day a twenty four hour
period of time, not space, not something physical, but something untouchable,
intangible time, and God sanctified it and made it holy.

(04:22):
By making it holy, we set it apart for special purposes.
We set a boundary around it to be sure that
it is unlike any other day of the week. And
so for six days, as Tora commands us, we do
all manner of work, everything that we need to do
to create, to sustain, to provide. But on the seventh

(04:45):
day we step back from all of those acts of
creation to reflect on the beauty and the wonder of
the world of creation, the creation of the world around
us that God made possible. And we appreciate in what
we see and experience in nature, what we feel in

(05:05):
our hearts, between us and our family members, and in
the community with friends, how we spend our time in
recreation and refreshment so that we don't apply ourselves through
work as we do during the days of the week.
That simple definition of what is work and what is
not helps us to begin to identify what the Sabbath

(05:27):
day can be for us, Even if we just begin
with the word holly, It leads us to ask ourselves
the question, what is set apart for this seventh day
of the week that it can be different from all
the other days. Now, in Judaism, Saturday Sabbath is our
seventh day, our sabbath rest. In Christianity, Sunday is the

(05:47):
day of rest. In Islam, Friday becomes a very special
sacred day. And for others, even if you don't adhere
to a rhythm of religious life, I often say, even
to teenagers, take a day off from all the things
that occupy you. Give your mind and body, soul and

(06:08):
spirit some time off. In my own world, we're teaching
and reading, studying and counseling, providing answers, and leading groups
fills my week. There's something that happens on Friday evening
that is quite automatic. Because I'm connected, obviously to many
Jewish organizations and the rhythm of Jewish life. All of

(06:30):
a sudden, come Friday evening, my email stop, text messages cease,
the phone stops ringing, And I know that all around me,
in the Jewish world, close to home and far away,
everyone is keeping the Sabbath in some manner. But at
least I know they're not reaching out to me unless

(06:52):
it's something urgent. And I can count on the fact
that my phone and email will be quiet for at
least twenty four hours hours. So what do I do
in my own life? I certainly come to synagogue to
lead services where I should, to teach torus study, and
to respond to emergencies when they come up. But I

(07:12):
also know that when I come home from the synagogue
after Sabbath services on Saturday, it truly is a day
of rest. I read, spend time with my wife, catch
up with my children and grandchildren. As a reform Rabbi,
I do use my phone for FaceTime or zoom to
see my grandchildren. I don't use it for work. I

(07:34):
don't use it to respond to emails. But I do
use it to make the connections that technology, such as
we have it today allows us, so that we can
connect a family that is far away. What a privilege
it becomes. We elevate it for a sacred purpose to
keep in touch with family, but to use it for
any other purpose reminds us of what the rest of

(07:55):
the week has been. And I don't want to remember
what the rest of the week has been, and probably
you don't either. So the Sabbath becomes something special, and
we have to decide what it is the work that
we do during the week so that we don't do
it during the day of the sabbath. For example, somebody
who digs and plows and edges and landscapes all week

(08:21):
and it's a good job and it helps many people
might not use the sabbath day to do the very
same thing. But somebody who manages at the desk or
in an office or in other ways during the week
might come home on the Sabbath and want to spend
quiet time in the garden. But I'll tell you that
among the Orthodox planting, edging, landscaping in the yard is

(08:45):
not sabbath rest and is not permitted. But for a
liberal person, for one who says, wait, my work during
the week was at the desk, and it was about
spreadsheets and about aunt and all these other things, then
my sabbath might very well be spending time in the garden, pruning, planting, sewing,

(09:10):
all kinds of things. In a beautiful day, even in Houston, Texas,
can be a real celebration of what it means to
tend to the earth and tend to one's heart and
soul in the garden. So we have to ask ourselves
what is work, so that then we can identify what
can be Sabbath rest and recreation in Israel, in the

(09:34):
land where there is so much strife, rest and the
Sabbath is important there too, although defense of the country
and the borders still depend on working on the Sabbath.
We've learned that Sabbath rest cannot be at the expense
of defense of saving one's life saving another life. So

(09:57):
if one is a doctor and there called at the
hospital on the Sabbath, because of the principal in Judaism
called pikuach Nephesh, that we will do anything that it
takes to save a life. A doctor can serve somebody
can help another for the sake of their life, if
they've tripped and fallen, if they've fallen in the water,

(10:19):
if they're in the hospital, visiting the sick, tending to
their well being is also part of the Sabbath too.
And so a hot Arm, a man who's known as
a cultural Zionist, who understood how the rhythm of Jewish
life around the world and especially in Israel when he lived,
was something akin to helping us identify what it means

(10:42):
to be at our very best. And so he said,
more than the people Israel has kept the Sabbath. The
Sabbath has kept the people Israel, and what he means
by it is that we can observe all that we want,
and we can choose to observe it in the way

(11:03):
that we want, when we want. Perhaps some people don't
even observe it every week. But if we allow the
rhythm of our tradition and heritage and culture to help
us find a momentum that leads us not only up
to the day of the Sabbath, but through it as well,
then it holds us and binds us as a people

(11:24):
who observe it weekly and for all the reasons that
we come to learn through the doing of Sabbath observance,
perhaps beginning with the three blessings over the candles and
the halla and the wine, and to make real recreation
and refreshment of the day. If we and our family,
our neighbors, our city, our collective people observe it in

(11:47):
some meaningful way, then the Sabbath truly has kept our
people together. Identifying what the ritual and the point of
heritage and the exercise of time comes to mean to
all of us, I would suggest that even in your
own faith tradition, there are rhythms to holidays, rhythms to

(12:11):
the week that bind you as a church, as a mosque,
as a neighborhood, as a family because it has held
you together, whether it's religious or not. Maybe there's even
a custom, a tradition in your family that moves you
as a family to observe it once a week, or

(12:32):
once a month, or even one year annually. I know
a family that celebrates a vacation that brings them together
every single year more than the vacation. More than they
have kept the vacation, the vacation has kept them. And
so we do look for traditions that help us to
step away from the busy world that surrounds us to

(12:55):
be sure that we're taking care of ourselves and our family,
heart and soul together through meaningful rest and recreation. I'm
Rabbi David Lyon from Congregation Beth Israel in Houston. To
hear this message again or to share it, you can
find it at my podcast called Heart to Heart with
Rabbi David Lyon at Sunny ninety nine dot com, on

(13:17):
the iHeartRadio app. In all the ways that we remain busy,
we do have an obligation to work to change the
world for the better and to be good neighbors to
each other. But once a week, as Torah commands, as
religious traditions suggests, we should certainly take a day that
we call the Sabbath, a day of rest, separated from

(13:39):
all that is defined by work, however we might describe it.
So take a moment as the Sabbath begins for us,
and identify what is work, what is pleasure? And how
can that hour a pleasure or that day of rest

(14:00):
collect you as a family and a community and hold
you together so that in the midst of all that
goes on in the world, we can still separate from
it for a little while and remember that there is
something sacred in the world around us that deserves our attention,
deserves our recognition, and our appreciation and gratitude. With thanks

(14:23):
to God or with thanks to others, we appreciate the
world that has been given to us and entrusted to
us to do something good with it. And though the
world might be broken or complex, as it always seems
to be, we can identify what is sacred and holy
and enduring for us and all who are touched by

(14:43):
our lives. Together. Thank you for joining me this week.
I look forward to being with you again next time.