Why Your "Digital Shabbat" Will Fail

If you observe a sabbath, this feeling is not unfamiliar. You are well-acquainted with what others think of as the awkward restraints of just being . You understand its essential, restorative purpose — and marvel at others’ allergy to it. Why are we so terrified of stillness? To be still is an invitation to reckon with our smallness, our powerlessn

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on my mind: modern spirituality encourages us to DIY our own world of life signifiers, to come up with our own spiritual frameworks involving special diets, meditation schedules, intermittent fasts, escapes to nature, and more. but to go down this path, we have to really believe, like @antoniogm says that we can improve on a bar mitzvah as a comi... See more

I know there is a phenomenon of “technology fasts,” but it's a lot harder to do if it’s not supported by a community that is doing the same thing. In that way, one of the things that makes Shabbat very interesting is that it exists not just within the context of law, but also within the context of community.

Shabbos gives release from the tyranny of technology, yes, but the deepest rewards of Shabbos go beyond direct utility and practicality. They are in the social, interpersonal, and spiritual realms – family bonding, community formation, opening the heart to grace, nobility of character, orientation in place and time, rediscovery of the self, liberat

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