The other day I heard someone say: “Throughout the week we sat at home and did nothing so what’s the big deal this week about Shabbat? The whole week was one long Shabbat.”
If Shabbat is only about sitting around and doing nothing – she’s right. But Shabbat is more than that. All week they keep telling us “No” – no to buses, no to flights, no to schools, no to coffee shops. You can’t do this and you can’t do that.
Shabbat is the time to say yes. Yes to Shabbat candles, yes to kiddush, yes to a special dinner, yes to a unique family feeling, yes to 24 hours that are completely different, when it is possible to disconnect – in order to connect.
It appears that our mission this Shabbat is to bring the holiness of the synagogue – now standing empty – into the living room and the kitchen.
Shabbat shalom.
(translation by Yehoshua Siskin)
