Stop, Look, Listen: Celebrating Shabbos through a Spiritual Lens

the hegemony of brightly shining novel devices is not inevitable; it can be resisted and even rolled back by the soft power of Shabbos.

Once every week, Shabbos provides an opportunity to rediscover our embodied selves and the blessing of being in one place at one time. Shabbos invites us to commit to our feet and the range that they afford us.

The zemirot are love songs to Shabbos that deepen our appreciation and express our admiration for Shabbos’s alluring beauty and sweet sanctity. Our collective serenade to Shabbos at the table caps the table’s transformation from functional base, holding food and utensils, into sacred vessel, a resonant instrument whose fundamental tones unite those

If Jews do not devote themselves to cultivating this heritage of panoramic, all-embracing practice, no one will.

Reverence: Renewing a Forgotten Virtue, Paul Woodruff notes that we live in a culture that celebrates irreverence. Woodruff asserts that reverence is needed not only in religion but in all worthwhile cultural activities. Some features of this virtue according to Woodruff are: harmonious group-engagement with a project in a structured, ceremonious w

“The observance of the Sabbath is extremely beautiful, and is impossible without being religious.”

Shabbos instructs us that freedom means not needing to escape. On Shabbos, you are already home. There is no need to run; you are exactly where you want to be.

Wherever we are, whatever we face, we are never alone.

Shabbos is the greatest meditative immersion we have. Total presence is the deep meaning of Stop.