Rest on Shabbat: Acknowledging that We Need to Pause
Continuing to learn from Mussar (Jewish ethics) leaders, I now turn to Rabbi Nosson Tzvi Finkel, known as the Alter (Elder) of Slabodka (1849-1927). The following excerpt is from his work Ohr HaTzafun (The Hidden Light) and was translated by Alan Morinis and Avi Fertig of The Mussar Institute.
The verse says: “[God] ceased on the seventh day from all the labor that God did, and God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because on that day God rested from all the work of creation that He had done” (Genesis 2:2-3). This cessation has been completed, which is to say, the form of creation, and so explain the Sages on this verse: “What did the world lack? Rest. Shabbat came; rest came. The labor was thus finished and completed” (Rashi to Genesis 2:2; and see Torah Shlemah, 2 loc. cit., Section 23). Behold that the creation was completed with rest.
When I finish writing an essay, I immediately feel the need to find the next topic to write about. After I finish a meal, I think about what I’ll eat next (though sometimes this thought comes while eating). There is always a next thought, a next thing to do, with rarely a pause between the current activity—the present moment—and what should or could come next. There is constant movement, even if it’s only in thought. This means that I never truly savor the completion of a task or the eating of a meal, or even this—this—moment.
Shabbat rest. According to this excerpt the pinnacle of the week is when we rest from the doing of the week and transition into being. The idea that rest is part of the task—the final step of creation—makes me reconsider the impulse to immediately jump to what’s next. The ultimate unit is to do what can be done in six days and then rest on the seventh. This acknowledges that the doing—even if incomplete—must be coupled with rest, with a cessation, which means that (for people) the creating is both complete on a weekly basis and never complete (until the end of one’s life).
The value of Shabbat, then, is that it gives the feeling of accomplishment—a week of something having done something—and a gift of acknowledging that by stopping after a job (well) done!
This can help change my expectation from thinking that the goal of life is to always be in the midst of producing or creating (even when retired!), to one where I acknowledge that the process is not non-stop—that doing is not all there is—and let myself pause (regardless of where I am in the process). This understanding enhanced this past Shabbat. It really did end the week and let me move from a mindset that there is so much to do, and enter one where I could recline into repose and an acceptance of what I did—and that it was enough.
