THE GIFT OF SHABBAT IN A 24/7 WORLD
A new six-week course from the Rohr Jewish Learning Institute
COURSE RATIONALE
We live in an age of constant digital streams, when checking e-mail, tweets and alerts can be compulsive and the thought of unplugging for any length of time, terrifying. Once, the workday ended when we left the workplace to return home. Now, thanks to our Blackberries, iPads and other ubiquitous wireless connections, our work follows us wherever we go.
As the boundaries between professional and personal life erode, and what is important is being replaced by what is urgent, the concept of a day of rest has never been more outdated, and more necessary.
Dr. Ken Goldberg, a robotics professor at UC Berkeley and director of Berkeley’s Center for New Media explains that the constant deluge of digital input is “an enormous problem.... Paying attention, being patient, listening to people and concentrating on an idea not easily expressed in 140 characters are skills we’re in danger of losing unless we learn to occasionally unplug. Ancient rabbis knew this.”
If you had the will and the means to “get away from it all,” what might you gain? Might you be more productive if, instead of multi-tasking, you turned off all distractions and focused on what mattered most? Might the quality of your living be deeper, richer, if you incorporated sufficient time for rest and restoration?
It is against this backdrop that the Rohr Jewish Learning Institute unveils a new course, Oasis in Time: The Gift of Shabbat in a 24/7 World. Over six weeks, students will have the opportunity to examine essential dilemmas of modern life, and discover remedies in the age-old paradigm of Shabbat. Through the lens of Oasis in Time, students will be provided with the opportunity to reclaim a sense of serenity in their lives and make their days more meaningful.
The course will familiarize students with the traditions and rituals of Shabbat and explore the ways in which they provide a refreshing perspective on such fundamental concepts as work and rest, peace and love, pleasure and synthesis. Students who have never experienced Shabbat will find refreshing and thought-provoking new perspectives on achieving balance in their lives. Those who observe Shabbat will deepen and enrich their understanding.
COURSE OVERVIEW
A journey to a time outside time, Oasis in Time examines cultural and contemporary sources covering the global utopian idea of Shabbat and its contribution to the world and to the individual. The course explores how the institution of Shabbat can create a less pressured, more sociable, wholesome world, as well as a transcendental mode of living for everyone.
Oasis in Time unravels the mysteries of Shabbat from multiple entry points, providing various levels of incorporating the mystical, psychological, social, and cultural lessons of Shabbat into one’s life.
The course includes:
• Meditations on the value and purpose of life and work
• A formula for self-mastery and retaining transcendence while immersed in the pursuit of work and engagement
• A model for discovering the balance between living in and enjoying the moment while planning and preparing constructively for the future
• Strategies for conflict resolution and enriching personal relationships
• A roadmap to happiness, enjoyment, and fulfillment within a healthy synthesis of discipline and pleasure
COURSE OUTLINE
Lesson One: The Gift of Rest
What is the role of rest? Is it merely a pause to recharge and re-energize before returning to work? Or can it play a more active role, allowing the work itself to mature in a way that is not possible while one is active?
More significantly, what does rest teach us about ourselves? Might rest be a way of freeing ourselves from defining ourselves by what we do and value ourselves for who we are instead?
Lesson Two: The Gift of Purpose
The lesson focuses on the need to create a safe-space, a sanctuary in time, to transcend our everyday involvements and to rethink the course of our accomplishments. The lesson probes the specific nature of “work.” Defined by man’s pursuit of life’s basic necessities, obtaining food, clothing, and shelter, Torah determines thirty-nine basic categories of labor to refrain from on Shabbat. In this framework, work is defined not as strenuous labor, but as creative and productive pursuits with which we change and affect the world around us.
Utilizing Shabbat’s neat construct of creative labor, we ponder the greater motive behind our efforts. Beyond the here and now of everyday survival, what life-goals do we intend to achieve through our work-related pursuits?
Lesson Three: The Gift of Investment
The quality of our life experiences are directly impacted by the degree to which one invests in preparations and planning. The Talmudic adage states, “He who applies effort on the eve of Shabbat will eat on Shabbat, but he who does not apply effort, from what shall he eat?”
This lesson focuses on the emphasis Jewish culture places on Shabbat preparation and the essential role it plays in creating the Shabbat experience. In life, we invest much effort into our future: building a career, investing for retirement, raising our children. Shabbat teaches us to value the process itself, to live in the present being mindful of each moment, while constructively focusing on shaping our future.
Lesson Four: The Gift of Love
Shabbat edifies the fundamental importance of dedicated family time to build and fortify healthy, loving family units.
More significantly, Shabbat observances form a clear roadmap to resolving conflict and building solid and sustainable relationships.
Lighting candles ushers in the day of rest. The establishment of this custom intended to prevent family members from stumbling over one another. The message of the Shabbat candles illuminates the value in giving each person in the family unit their own space to live and grow independently.
Deeper reflections of poetic Shabbat hymns guide us to search for commonalities in our relationship with our significant other and shed light on seeking their angelic qualities.
And finally, Shabbat celebrates a state of enhanced awareness of our soul. Recognizing that we are part of a greater whole, we appreciate that our differences also make us unique and complementary to each other.
Lesson Five: The Gift of Pleasure
Seventy-five percent of Americans are fighting their weight, and the numbers in other countries continue to rise. At the same time, anorexia is more prevalent than ever, and radical, strict eating regimens are achieving an ever greater following. In this time of great bounty, we have never found it harder to negotiate the concept of moderation with healthy pleasure.
Shabbat provides the perfect model for synthesizing spirituality and pleasure. Contrary to the widespread representation of piety as asceticism, Shabbat redefines holiness as purposeful pleasure. This lesson provides a three-step plan for discovering a balanced and healthy relationship with the pleasures in life.
Lesson Six: The Gift of Every Moment
Everyone has moments of clarity. The secret is to find awareness and direction in every situation. Behind the age-old, multi-sensory experience of havdalah, lies the key to bridging the gap between darkness and light, between the ordinary and the extraordinary.
Instead of escaping chaos to find serenity, we learn to discover serenity within the chaotic moments themselves. The lesson provides the tools to recognize what differentiates good times and bad times. We then explore how this awareness provides perspective to see how the worst of times are potentially the best of times, in disguise.