Repetition stabilizes and deepens attention.

Rituals are characterized by repetition. Repetition differs from routine in its capacity to create intensity. What is the origin of the intensity that characterizes repetition and protects it against becoming routine? For Kierkegaard, repetition and recollection represent the same movement but in opposite directions, ‘because what is recollected

In the post-industrial age, the noise of the machines gives way to the noise of communication.

Rituals are characterized by repetition. Repetition differs from routine in its capacity to create intensity.

The compulsion to reject routines produces more routines.

If life is deprived of any possibility of closure, it will end in non-time. Because it rushes from one sensation to the next, even perception is now incapable of closure. Only contemplative lingering is capable of closure. The closure of the eyes is emblematic of contemplative closure. The flood of images and information makes closure of the eyes

Communication without community can be accelerated because it is additive. Rituals, by contrast, are narrative processes that do not allow for acceleration. Symbols stand still. This is not the case with information: information exists by circulating. Stillness only means that communication ceases, stands still. It does not produce anything.

God blessed and sanctified the seventh day. The rest enjoyed on the Sabbath consecrates the work of creation. It is not mere idleness. Rather, it is an essential part of creation. In his commentary on the Book of Genesis, Rashi thus remarks: ‘After the six days of creation, what was still missing from the universe? Menuchah [inoperativity, rest].

Exalted time [Hoch-Zeit] is also the temporality of schools of higher education [Hoch-Schule]. In ancient Greek, ‘school’ is scholé, that is, leisure. Schools of higher education would thus be schools of higher leisure. Today, they are no longer places of high leisure. They have become places of production, factories of human capital. They pursue