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

Rather than sedentary relaxation, Shabbos calls for maximum alertness and focused awareness. This is the time to ponder what really matters in one’s life and how to increase the scope and clarity of one’s vision.

Shabbos morning is the time for re’u – for looking and seeing, for observing with gratitude the gifts we have been given, in order to savor them, to look at them appreciatively but not possessively, to recognize them as gifts of God.

Psalms 92:3, however, evening becomes the time for faith, for trust that the morning will bring God’s loving-kindness.

When God “blesses” the seventh day, God is bestowing personhood on Shabbos, affirming that this day has a personality that deserves to be recognized, honored, and cherished.

The point of the parable was to frame Shabbos as an exercise in trust. Shabbos meant not only ceasing from work but also – what was much more difficult – ceasing to think about work, halting the endless internal ruminations about customers, markets, supplies, regulations, accounts payable, taxes, making enough profit to survive and feed one’s famil

you detect a flaw in someone else, know that the same flaw is within you; otherwise, you would not have noticed it. Rather than attempting to change the other person, search yourself, and you will find an area to rectify. By improving yourself, you will elevate the other person as well, and, as a bonus, you will have made peace between you.

Carrying a niggun in the heart throughout an entire week is a particularly powerful practice. The niggun becomes our anchor, our anthem, our lifeline during this period.

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

we must adopt the posture of shaanan, naĥat, shalva vehashket – tranquility, calm, serenity, and stillness – which can only be accomplished if we have avoided af – the habit of reacting to everything with frustration, disgruntlement, and disappointment.