Shabbat thoughts
Photo by Joe Goldberg
By RONN TOROSSIAN
Owning 5WPR, a leading PR agency I work many long-hour and like many others struggle constantly with “work-life balance.” This week, I am traveling with my family and like all other works eagerly await the Friday nite meal. Even on vacation, we all do our own thing – my eldest busy at the “kids club” in our hotel, myself defragging from 80-hour weeks, my wife enjoying the sun with the kids – and no matter what else comes we know come sundown we will be together.
In my mom’s house growing up I vividly recall our Friday nite meals and conversations. Wherever I away, whether away or at home I look forward to Friday nites in a synagogue. Its such a nice barrier for the week & the weekend – a break between Monday –Friday madness and then weekend of relaxation and family. Elie Wiesel once cancelled an important meeting someone had planned for him on a Friday evening and said: “I am a Jew, and on Friday evening my place is in a synagogue.”
Some beautiful quotes about the Sabbath/Shabbat:
“When we live without listening to the timing of things, when we live and work in twenty-four-hour shifts without rest – we are on war time, mobilized for battle. Yes, we are strong and capable people, we can work without stopping, faster and faster, electric lights making artificial day so the whole machine can labor without ceasing. But remember: No living thing lives like this. There are greater rhythms, seasons and hormonal cycles and sunsets and moonrises and great movements of seas and stars. We are part of the creation story, subject to all its laws and rhythms.” -Wayne Muller
“The meaning of the Sabbath is to celebrate time rather than space. Six days a week we live under the tyranny of things of space; on the Sabbath we try to become attuned to holiness in time. It is a day on which we are called upon to share in what is eternal in time, to turn from the results of creation to the mystery of creation; from the world of creation to the creation of the world.” – Rabbi Joshua Heschel
“Six days a week we wrestle with the world, wringing profit from the earth; on the Sabbath we especially care for the seed of eternity planted in the soul. The world has our hands, but our soul belongs to Someone Else. Six days a week we seek to dominate the world, on the seventh day we try to dominate the self.” - Rabbi Joshua Heschel
“God, help us now to make this new Shabbat. After noise, we seek quiet; after crowds of indifferent strangers, we seek to touch those we love … We break open the gates of the reservoirs of goodness and kindness in ourselves and others; we reach toward one holy perfect moment of Shabbat.” – Ruth Brin, in the poem “Sabbath Prayer”
In many ways for families and the Jewish people the famous quote of Ahad Ha’am rings true: “More than the Jews have kept the Sabbath, the Sabbath has kept the Jews.”
Shabbat Shalom.
Ronn Torossian is CEO of 5WPR, and Author of “For Immediate Release.”
Short URL: http://thejewishreporter.com/?p=4788
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