5. The Sabbath and prayer help us to achieve this state of mind.
The Sabbath is a way to begin to engender this sense of love and humility before Creation. It is also is a way to living a sustainable life. For one day out of seven, we limit our use of resources. We walk to attend synagogue and drive only when walking is not possible. We do not cook and we do not shop. We can use the day for relaxation, contemplation and to ask ourselves: what is the real purpose of human life? Are we here on earth only to get and to spend? As Rabbi Ismar Schorsch has written, “To rest is to acknowledge our limitations. Willful inactivity is a statement of subservience to a power greater than our own.” (To Till and to Tend, page 20)
Prayer also helps us to recognize that everything we are, everything we have and everything we use ultimately comes from God (Babylonian Talmud, Berachot 35a). When we say a blessing, we create a moment or holiness, a sacred pause. Prayer also creates an awareness of the sacred by taking us out of ourselves and our artificial environments and allowing us to truly encounter natural phenomenon. Prayer creates a loss of control, which allows us to “see the world in the mirror of the holy.” (Heschel) We are then able to see the world as an object of divine concern and we can then place ourselves beyond self and more deeply within Creation.
Suggested Discussion Questions:
1. What is the role of the Sabbath in our lives? How is it similar to prayer?
2. Why is it important to pause and acknowledge God? What will happen if we don’t do this regularly?
Time Period: Contemporary (The Yom Kippur War until the present-day)