We remember Epicurus’s thought: ‘Everything we need is easy to procure, while the things we desire but don’t need are more difficult to obtain.’ We live in an age where ‘conspicuous consumption’ (the purchasing of goods to display our economic success) and ‘invidious consumption’ (purchasing in order to make others envy us) are so commonplace we ba

willingness to adjust schedules to accommodate Shabbos signals that regimes of commerce, transactional marketplaces, dreams of economic expansion, and grasping for competitive advantage do not lay final claim on our time and our attention; appetites for acquisition and consumption can be reined in and stilled.