Sabbath and the Holy
“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.” Exodus 20:8
At the beginning of Parts 1 and 2 of SABBATH, various commentators recite the fourth commandment (of the wellknown Ten Commandments), which declares that the people of Israel are to “remember the Sabbath and keep it holy” (Exodus 20:8). Rabbis Ammiel Hirsch, in Part 1, and Manis Friedman, in Part 2, remind viewers that, for Jews, Sabbath-keeping “is not an option” (in Friedman’s words), but a commandment.
Whether or not you are Jewish, have you ever reflected on the idea of Sabbath-keeping as something people are commanded to do? How does that impact your thinking about what Sabbath is and what it means?
If the concept of Sabbath is new to you, how does thinking about it as a kind of responsibility influence your perspective on it? Does this encourage you toward seriously keeping Sabbath as a day of rest, community, and perhaps worship, or does it discourage you from these practices?
Do you already observe a weekly Sabbath? If so, what practices do you associate with it? How observant would you say you are? What impact do these Sabbath practices have on your life? (A little? A lot? What, specifically?)
If you do not currently have a Sabbath practice, does the film encourage you to do so? If so, which specific ideas, persons, or segments in the film are most inspiring to you? Why?
Traditionally, the concept of Sabbath has been most closely associated with Judaism and Christianity. Do you see Sabbath as primarily a religious concept, or do its practices and ideologies extend beyond religious boundaries? If you believe they do, in what ways?
In the film, Episcopal theologian Judy Fentress-Williams suggests that, in her experience, Christians “don’t . . . take the Sabbath seriously enough.”
If you are a Christian, do you agree with this statement? Why or why not? If you do agree, what are some things that Christians could do – individually and corporately - to take the Sabbath more seriously?
In Part 1, Elisa Nevarez, a member of the Church of Our Lady of the Angels, or La Placita, in Los Angeles, tells viewers that Catholics are required to attend a weekly mass: “Coming to Mass on Sunday is something mandatory if you're a Catholic,” she says. “Your parents teach you this. On Sunday, you go to church.”
Many traditions have requirements or social and cultural codes that encourage regular attendance at religious services. Some people see this as restrictive, including some who grew up in these traditions. What do you think about such codes? Do you tend to think of religious practice as an obligation, an opportunity, or something else?
As the film points out, there are aspects of Sabbath-keeping that have deep resonance in secular settings and for people who do not consider themselves religious. An example of this is the “Blue Laws” still in effect in Bergen County, New Jersey.
How do you feel about the “secularization” of Sabbath practices? Does this take away from the religious foundations of these practices, or does it illustrate their universality? At what point does the incorporation of traditional Sabbath practices into secular settings become a kind of appropriation? Or does it?
Jewish theologian and rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel famously described the Sabbath as “a cathedral in time.” Several commentators in the film pick up on this idea, referring to the Sabbath as “a different order of time” when weekday cares and concerns are put aside and the focus is on something beyond ourselves.
Is this how you think about or experience Sabbath? Do you tend to think about it as a period of time or a set of activities (going to church, synagogue, a sports match, etc.?) What does it mean to think about Sabbath as “a different order of time”? How might that way of thinking about it change or influence what you do during it?
For many Jews and Christians, Sabbath is first and foremost a time of worship and ritual. For Jews, especially, rituals help to define Shabbat (Sabbath) and to interpret its meaning. Jews light candles at sundown on Friday to welcome in the Sabbath, enjoy a shared meal, and attend worship on Saturday morning. Rituals help to reinforce a sense of community and of the holy.
What role do rituals play in your Sabbath observance? Do you feel – as several commentators in the film do – that rituals help transport you to “a different order of time,” to set the Sabbath apart from other days?
Jewish theologian Michael Fishbane describes Sabbath as a time set apart, when the routines of ordinary life no longer apply. “I don't go to work. I have to dress differently. I have to walk differently. I have to speak differently,” Fishbane says. “The rabbis emphasize that those are aspects of Sabbath behavior. It's a resting from constructive changes in the world. At the same time, it’s allowing a space for spiritual consciousness to unfold.”
If you are part of a Sabbath tradition, is Fishbane’s description of Sabbath behavior familiar to you? Is your Sabbath practice “set apart” by rituals of dress or behavior? If so, do you find these differences liberating or a kind of added responsibility?
What does Fishbane mean by “allowing space for spiritual consciousness to unfold”? Do you feel that Sabbath rituals - and the differences between those rituals and the routines of the week – help to create space for spiritual reflection?
In Part 2 of the film, religion scholar Susannah Heschel, daughter of renowned Jewish theologian and social activist Abraham Joshua Heschel, describes how her family practiced Sabbath in the Orthodox tradition---almost as a time out from the mundane routines and busyness of ordinary life:
We didn't use electricity, and we didn't cook. We didn't use the phone. Certainly didn't listen to the radio or television. We didn't go to the store, of course, or use the money. It's hard for me to actually identify what it was that we didn't do because it was so much a part of the natural rhythm.
If you are unfamiliar with Orthodox Judaism, do you find these Sabbath practices surprising? Do they seem unduly harsh or drastic to you? Can you imagine how these practices might help restructure a sense of time and break the hold of routine within the 24-hour Sabbath period? What difference might such dramatic changes in routine and such sacrifices make in how one viewed and approached the Sabbath?
Susannah Heschel also describes what her family did not talk about on Sabbath. This included anything that could be divisive or that could create tension and separation among those observing the day together. “On Shabbat, we didn't talk about politics,” Heschel says,
We didn't talk about things that were divisive, were depressing, horrifying. We didn't talk about the atrocities in Vietnam. We didn't talk about the Holocaust. Those were not compatible with the atmosphere of Shabbat.
Given the current divisions within American civic life---lamentable as they may be---do you think Sabbath could be a time for conversations that unite us across our differences? If Sabbath were a time when people intentionally avoided “hot-button” issues and volatile conversations, could that create space for us to listen to each other and help heal some of our divisions? Or just be a way of avoiding them?
Several film commentators remark on Sabbath as a time of awe, wonder, and beauty, themes highlighted in Heschel’s seminal book The Sabbath from 1951. In the film, Rabbi Manis Friedman puts it this way: “It’s like the whole week is hectic and then all of a sudden you light the Shabbos candles and you're in a different world.” Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch of the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue suggests that
Religion is supposed to inject in people a sense of awe, a sense of marvel, a sense of wonder, a sense of sanctity. All of those concepts, we try and bring them out on Shabbat.
Would you use words like “wonder” and “awe” to describe your own experience of Sabbath? If not---or if you do not regularly keep a Sabbath---where do you experience wonder and awe in the world? Why might Sabbath be a time when people are more open to experiencing and/or recognizing things like wonder, awe, and beauty?
What might you do to have a deeper sense of wonder, awe, and beauty in your own Sabbath-keeping? Can you point to specific times when you have experienced these things---perhaps in a worship service or outdoors in nature?
A shared Sabbath meal has been central to Jewish observance of Shabbat, and even to Christians in many traditions. In Part One of the film, we see Jewish cantor Daniel Singer and his family welcome the arrival of Shabbat on Friday evening with the lighting of candles and the enjoyment of a meal together. Later, we see an Adventist church community enjoy a meal together after their Saturday service. And many viewers will be familiar with the Christian tradition of a shared lunch after the Sunday morning worship service.
Christian theologian Norman Wirzba, featured in SABBATH, asks,
Does it not honor God when we make a good meal and then when we share that meal with others? Because every meal is a declaration of love to the people at the table, or at least it could be. So we invite people to the table and we say, “I've made this food for you as an expression of my love for you.”
How important to you is a shared meal as a part of Sabbath observance? Is this something that you regularly participate in? What values do you think a regular shared meal conveys? Why might a shared meal be important to the meaning and general observance of Sabbath? Finally, if you are someone who regularly observes Sabbath but does not participate in a shared meal, do the examples in the film encourage you to organize or become involved in such?
You may wish to visit the website of one of our partners, OneTable, a non-profit in the Jewish tradition that works to empower young adults to find, share, and enjoy Friday Shabbat dinners.
In the segment on the Trappist monks of Saint Joseph's Abbey in Spencer, Massachusetts, Brother Simeon Leiva-Merikakis describes the monks’ whole way of life as “sabbatical.” “We come here so that we can keep Sabbath better together,” Brother Simeon says. As explained in the segment, that life centers on the pillars of prayer, work, and reading – what the monks refer to as “ora et labora” (pray and work). When the monks are called to prayer – which is seven times a day – all work stops.
While the monks’ devotion is admirable, it’s not for everyone or even for most of us. However, their reversal of the usual ordering of time---focusing on Sabbath rather than the time outside of it---may have something to teach us. What do you take away from the monks’ practices and way of life? Does their re-ordering of the usual priorities---in this case, prayer over work---resonate with you in any way?
If we can’t live a Sabbath life all the time, as the monks do, how might we incorporate more of that life into our own? What, for you, would some first steps look like?
In Part 2, we meet Imam Khalid Latif, Executive Director of the Islamic Center at New York University, who tells us about the Friday Jummah prayers in Islam, which have some meaningful correspondences to the Jewish Shabbat and the Christian Sabbath. Latif says that, when the call is made for Friday Jummah prayer, the Quran commands Muslims to “hasten to answer that call, leaving behind even your work.”
The call to prayer and worship over work is strikingly similar to that expressed by the monks of St. Joseph’s Abbey. Moreover, Latif explains that the Friday call to prayer in Islam is a communal call, the word Jummah itself being derived from an Arabic root meaning “gathering,” or bringing people together.
How do you feel about being called to pray or to meditate at specific times of day, as with the brothers of St. Joseph’s in the Benedictine monastic tradition or with the Friday Jummah prayers in Islam? Does regularity of this Sabbath/Jummah practice reinforce its importance and adherence to it? What does it say, again, about how we organize our lives and how we structure our time?
Finally, of what importance is the fact that these prayers are communal, bringing a body of adherents together to engage in the practice?
In many traditions, Sabbath is also associated with acts of service. We see examples of this in Part 2, where students associated with Life Adventist Church in Berkeley, California serve meals to unhoused people in a local park on their Sabbath day (Saturday). One student volunteer describes the Sabbath as “a day that we take apart from the usual worries of the week. Where we tend to focus really on ourselves [in the week], during Sabbath, we should remove that and focus on other people. . . . “
Are acts of service an important part of your Sabbath observance, if you have one? How do they fit into your Sabbath ideology? Should service be part of Sabbath observance, or does it conflict with the idea of a day of rest?
In the segment devoted to the Hasidim (Orthodox Jews in the Hasidic tradition) in Part 2, Rabbi Manis Friedman also speaks of Sabbath, or Shabbos, as a time to redirect thoughts from oneself to other things. “The essence of Shabbos is for six days of the week, I worry about what needs to be taken care of,” Friedman says.
I have to survive. I have to exist. I have to improve my existence. But for 24 hours of Shabbos, my existence is not important. It's not a concern. Now you focus on why you're alive, not how you're alive. So the essential word for Shabbat is not rest. It's a poor definition, a poor translation. The real word is contentment. If you're really experiencing Shabbos, you're experiencing a true contentment.
Is contentment something you associate with the Sabbath experience? In what ways, if at all, is the idea of Sabbath “contentment” related to taking a time out from focusing on one’s own needs and concerns?