My Shabbat State of Mind

Wait, I remember thinking when I first started to read up on Shabbat early on in my Jewish odyssey. Hold up, hang on. You expect me to give up Friday nights? That traditional kick-off to the weekend, the frothy just reward every Monday-through-Friday nine-to-fiver suffers through a workweek to chug down with both hands? That happiest of happy hours, the evening of long dinners out, of movie dates and dancing late, bowling teams in smoky lanes and football games under the fabled bright lights?

Not that I ever rallied for the home team from the stands and I can’t remember the last time I had drunk my way to a Saturday morning hangover. All the same I still felt very possessive of my Friday evenings. The thought of surrendering all those long held oft-praised adolescent-based glories - or at least the potential of them - seemed unthinkable, unreasonable, impossible.

Worse, as a Jew who would practice Shabbat I was also expected to ‘keep’ Shabbat from Friday sundown to Saturday evening. Granted, Reform Judaism did not insist on the same prohibitions as Conservative and Orthodoxy streams but it did strongly suggest that there be some restraint of those distractions that define the rest of the week - for a whole twenty four hours, no less.

Really? I thought. Look, I was already going to Shabbat studies on Saturday morning. I tried to spend some
time in a natural setting afterwards, whether it be a stroll through the greenery of the Riverway (a.k.a. that ‘dirty water’) or a meditative stroll along the Harborwalk contemplating the ‘world of creation’. Wasn’t that something? Wasn’t that enough?

At this time I had just started going to temple for Shabbat regularly - but only with the escape clause in my purse that said I could stop any time I wanted. Because I have to confess it felt weird to be going into a house of worship on a Friday - every Friday - especially as the rest of Boston headed off to the movies at Lowe’s, another round at Ned Devine’s or packed the ‘D’ or Riverside cars (not coincidentally, the same Green Line train I took to get to Temple Israel) for the game over at Fenway.

Of course, I was still thinking in a post-Catholic mindset, counting time on the Christian clock, turning the page of the Gregorian calendar. In the United States and other Catholic theocracies the world always revolves around Sundays. The week starts on Monday, slogs through Wednesday, quickens on Thursday. Once the whistle blows on the assembly line Friday at 5:00 p.m. you’re allowed two nights and a day of debauch (whether that debauch is defined as drinking, dancing, drugging, sex or shopping, or some combination thereof) squeezed into about 32 hours...40 if you’re really adventurous.

Then comes Sunday, worship day. Dress in your fineries, cue the organ music and incense, sunlight through stained glass, priestly intonations and confessing of all your hard-earned sins. Stop by the bakery on the way home, pick up The Globe or The Times, cook the day-long meal, kick back on the couch to watch the game.

Not so much on the Jewish clock. If you are going to Shabbat then it’s a Friday night that brings you through the synagogue’s doors. And guess what? The world outside is not going to stop for you. Restaurants, bakeries, baseball teams do not care. The Red Sox are still going to play that double-header, your non-Jewish or non-observant Jewish friends are still going to par-tay. Shabbat is pretty non-negotiable. You can catch one of a half-dozen possible Catholic masses to fit into your Sunday schedule but there is only one sunset on a Friday.

That seemed huge to me and perhaps rightly so. As author Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg points out in her book "Surprised By God," religion is supposed to be larger than the practitioner of it. What’s the use of any belief system that allows us to be equal with our Higher Power, and therefore can barter with, mold and shape to our own needs and fears?

Religion washes over us like a wave from the sea, not a stream from a showerhead we can turn on and off. Spirituality contains this hidden non-negotiable element of surrender in this respect. It says if you want to have a relationship with your Higher Power then you are going to have to pay attention. It kindly, lovingly demands a laying down of our arms (if not our pride and iPods, too). It just won’t work if we’re constantly checking our cell phones, thinking about tomorrow’s staff meeting or downloading the latest Lady Gaga or Justin Timberlake.
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So I thought, okay, I can do this. Judaism wants just twenty-four hours, a single day out of the week. Is it really that so much to ask? Beside, I was starting to really connect with my spirituality again through Shabbat services and Torah studies in a way I hadn’t in decades. This was beginning to have real meaning for me, an emotional and intellectual investment. Did I really want to do anything that would intrude on this ongoing meditation, this love affair I was fostering with the universe and its Creator?

Then September came around - a new season, a new semester. I had a course problem. The only way I could get the minimum credits for financial aid was to take a Saturday afternoon class. Okay, I thought, I can do this. It didn’t impede on my Friday night services or my Torah studies. This was workable.
Only it wasn’t. The class was a three-hour lecture from noon into the middle of the afternoon. I had just enough time to wrap up Torah Study and bail on oneg to go catch the Green Line T to make the Red Line south to JFK/UMass and then race to grab the shuttle to the campus. On the good days I managed to land at my desk with literally minutes to spare. Most times it was five or ten minutes late. The class - Ancient and Medieval Art History - was engrossing and challenging, demanding my full attention and fostering critical thought. Which of course is what any good course should do.

But it also picked me up of my Shabbat and unceremoniously dropped me in the middle of a classroom. My weekly love affair now ended hours earlier than I wanted it too. Soon I began to resent it. Then I remembered I had made this choice and therefore needed to deal with its consequences. It was only for a few months, right? Dammit I could do this.

And I did, too, although not without some serious pangs. I’m pretty sure no one was happier than me the following Saturday morning at oneg. I was back, I had returned with some new lessons learned, not only in how to tell the difference between Doric, Ionic, Corinthian and Etruscan columns but in gauging the true depth of my Shabbat experience and my need to stay connected to the universe, give thanks and continue to have that beautiful wave wash over me.
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Here’s what I found out - the more I went to Shabbat, the more I wanted to go. The more time I spent on a Saturday wandering the Harborwalk or along The Riverway, the more I wanted to look at nature through Shabbat-steeped eyes. The more I entered that Shabbat space the less I wanted to leave it. I began politely turning down friends’ invites to coffee chats or the movies and especially any Saturday protests. Hey, this is Boston - weekend protests in the Common is almost a given. Yet I knew to participate in one would totally shatter whatever Shabbat meditation I found myself in. Hard to keep an appreciation of God and The Torah and the gift of this world while screaming some clever political slogans.

Nowadays I schedule my Fridays so that I have the afternoon-leading-into-evening off. I try to do all my cleaning, food shopping and cooking done beforehand. I like the idea of being presentable in house, dress, body and mind to greet and invite the Shabbat bride via "L’Cha Dodi"into my Life for the day.

Does this mean I won’t buy food if I need to, or clean a plate I have dirtied (or shovel snow, as this *is* Boston in winter right now)? No...but I am trying very hard to keep from doing any extraneous activity which would tear me out of my Shabbat state of mind, rip me away from that special guest. No, twenty-four hours doesn’t seem enough now, not nearly enough.

I’ll end with this thought. Recently someone else new to this process admitted she wasn’t going to be able to make it to Shabbat. "I just can’t get out of work to make it there on time."

I totally respect where she is at. There was a time I thought I could live without Shabbat services. And with no disrespect to her, but these days I feel I would have a very hard time living without it.