The True Life of the Sabbath

A Simple Question Ask yourself one simple question: when was the last time you sat completely with yourself? Not with your phone. Not with the noise. Not with the endless list of things to arrange, to check, to answer. Just you, with yourself. Most of the time, my dear fellow Jew, we are not living as ourselves. We run. We react. We manage. There is so much noise, outside us and inside us, that our inner point can hardly be heard. So the question is: what did Hashem do about this? Resting Makes Room Everyone knows that the Sabbath is about resting from work. But what does that rest really mean? There is a simple way to understand it: you don’t do the kinds of work that are forbidden on that day. But there is something deeper here. Resting is the making of an empty space. A person stops building, writing, producing, and in this way he empties the vessel. All the busyness of the working world falls away. All the outside noise falls away. All the “just one more thing” falls away. And what is left is room. The Zohar, the great book of Jewish mysticism, teaches that the Sabbath is the day when an extra soul rests upon a person. And where does it come to? Exactly into that empty space we have made. If the vessel is full, it has no room to receive. If the vessel is empty, it can receive. Living with Yourself: Who Is “Yourself”? This is the heart of the matter. When people say “spend time with yourself,” a person might think: “I’ll rest, I’ll relax, I’ll treat myself.” But who is this “self”? Here Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, author of the Tanya, the classic book of Hasidic thought, opens a door for us. In the second chapter of the Tanya he explains that the soul of every Jew is “a piece of Hashem above, truly.” It is, so to speak, a real part of Hashem Himself. Not something on loan. Not a reflection. A part. This means that your true “self” is not your ego. It is not your worries. It is not what you do to make a living. Your true self is the divine soul inside you. Now we can see how deep the question goes: when do you actually live as yourself? During the work week you live the life of the body and the material world. The body acts, the mind manages, the feelings react. But the soul, where is it? About this the Bible says: “If you hold back your feet on the Sabbath… and call the Sabbath a delight.” The delight of the Sabbath is exactly this meeting. It is not only the body enjoying its rest. It is the joy of the soul as it meets its own root. True Life: Movement on the Inside Here is the new idea. The rest of the Sabbath does not mean standing still. Just the opposite: it is movement. But it is movement on the inside. All week long the body moves, and the soul gets dragged along behind it. On the Sabbath the body rests, and the soul begins to move. To meet. To connect. The Baal Shem Tov, founder of the Hasidic movement, taught that deep closeness to Hashem, a person’s bond with Hashem, is the very life of the soul. And on the Sabbath, when all the distractions have gone and the empty space has opened up, this closeness becomes possible in a way that has no equal on any other day of the week. Our Sages said: “The Sabbath is for Me.” On this day a person comes back to his own “me.” To his very essence. To the inner point that is a piece of Hashem above, truly. This is true life. Not the pulse of the body. Not what we do on the outside. It is the soul, close to its Source. That is true vitality.