Shabbat: The island in time 

Parashat Emor opens by reiterating the centrality of Shabbat in the Jewish calendar. God says: “Speak to the Israelite people and say to them: These are My special times, the fixed times of the Eternal, that you shall proclaim as sacred occasions. On six days labor may be done, but on the seventh day there shall be a Shabbat of complete rest, a sacred occasion. You shall do no labor; it shall be a sabbath of the Eternal throughout your settlements.” (Leviticus 23:2-3)

During the week, we can (and often must) work hard. But on Shabbat, we are told to let go. Shabbat is a day of rest and renewal unto itself. But in 2026, it can be hard to let Shabbat be a true island in time, disconnected from media and technology. It’s difficult to let go of the tension we feel during the week, living with the anxiety of not knowing what the future holds for the Jewish people. We hold out hope for the news to get better, instead of going from bad to worse, but some of us also feel like we have to be braced for the worst. Shabbat is the antidote.

In 2019, writer, educator, and Yiddish translator Jonah Boyarin wrote in Jewish Currents magazine about attending shul on Shabbat in light of the then-recent violent attacks on synagogues in Poway and Pittsburgh on Shabbat. He said: “Tuning out once a week [on Shabbat] is an act of creative constraint.” Boyarin pointed out that the practice of Shabbat helps us care for what Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel called “‘a seed of eternity,’ a night and day filled with song, food, friends, rest, and love — a taste of the world as it should be.” But as a Jew in 2026, it can feel especially difficult to put down our smartphones and truly unplug. As Boyarin noted: “…there’s a helplessness in surrendering the sense of control we feel in being constantly tuned in to the news cycle. In a world that delivers one uppercut after another, it’s scary to let your guard down; who knows where the next punch might land.”

And yet we cannot live in that constant state of fear, always plugged in to current events as they unfold. As Boyarin added: “It’s well-documented that continuous, unremitting exposure to stories of tragic violence can be traumatizing, leading not only to a state of persistent, heightened alarm, but to a sense of powerlessness and numb indifference … when we don’t take control over the ways we take in tragic information, it’s bad for our mental health. Perhaps counterintuitively, it also makes us less likely to take effective, responsive action. Self-help gurus advise that we set timed breaks from our devices in order to reconnect with our own sense of presence and feeling; bestselling Christian authors recommend the practice of regular Sabbath rest.”

Even at times like these, when we’re worried about our family, friends, and fellow Jews all over the world, from New York City to the State of Israel, Shabbat is critically important. I recognize I might be preaching to the choir, as it were, since many readers may be regulars at Shabbat services. Perhaps it’s time not only for us to deepen our practice of Shabbat, but also for us to encourage our fellow Jews to experience the power and importance of Shabbat. We need to spread the good words, as it were: that we can (and must!) take a break from the nonstop onslaught of the workweek, when many of us take “breaks” from our work by watching the news or reading and posting on social media.

Shabbat is more relevant than ever. Perhaps, paradoxically, the irrelevance of Shabbat, the fact that we are meant to do nothing productive on it, is what makes it relevant. Shabbat can keep us emotionally safe by keeping us grounded in Jewish spirituality: we are meant to pray, sing, and study with others in our community. Even eating and sleeping have a special spiritual meaning on Shabbat. This time spent doing “nothing,” time that is “irrelevant” to current events and “unproductive” to our day jobs, might just help us stay sane.

To be clear, the purpose of Shabbat is not to make us more productive during the week. Shabbat is a day for contemplating the sanctity of the Divine, the wisdom of our Torah, the inherent dignity of humanity, and the beauty of all of creation. Shabbat is about Jewish thriving within our sacred mission: not just to survive, but to heal each other and the world.

We can’t always live in a state of constant high tension and stress. And we also can’t live in a time of constant closeness, focus, and spiritual highs. We cannot all be like Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, hiding in caves, engaging exclusively in Torah study. Most days, we have to work hard at our labor (whether paid or unpaid), seeking to improve and repair the world. But once a week, we need to be able to let go and rest — physically, mentally, and emotionally — in order to live healthily and happily, even in the midst of strife and anxiety.

Perhaps this is why Sefirat Ha-Omer, this period in the Jewish calendar during which we count the days from Pesach to Shavuot, is organized around seven Shabbatot, the sacred days that end and renew each week. Each Shabbat is a crucial moment of pause, punctuating and pausing even the semi-mourning of the Omer. Each Shabbat is a sacred opportunity, a day on which we are obligated to rest and to cultivate shalom, a sense of well-being and peace.

Let’s seize that opportunity every week. Whether your connection to Shabbat is through spirituality or light reading, in community or in solitude, in shul or in nature, I hope you all find your way to practice Shabbat. I know I’ll feel grateful for (and perhaps even a little healed by) our day of sacred rest the next time my son and I start our weekly chess game early on Shabbat morning. Shabbat shalom.