Alexander Jewish Family Service Friends – 

No matter how productive the work week has been, and no matter how much I enjoy the work that I do, there is still and excitement and anticipation that comes with the end of the work week. The author Mark Buchanan offers some insight that may help in understanding this. He says:

“Most of the things we need to be most fully alive never come in busyness. They grow in rest.”

Buchanan speaks eloquently about the need for balance in our life between doing and resting – between time for action and time for rest, recovery and dreaming.

But Sabbath is about more than resting from work – it is about connecting with something different. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel in his book The Sabbath says:

“There are many who have acquired a high degree of political and social liberty, but only very few are not enslaved to things. This is our constant problem—how to live with people and remain free, how to live with things and remain independent…. The Sabbath is the day on which we learn the art of surpassing civilization.”

For some, these times of rest have a spiritual aspect to them and include time for worship, for others it may be time for family and friends or time spent in nature.

The poet Emily Dickinson describes that for her, the Sabbath was deeply connected to nature:

“Some keep the Sabbath going to church, I keep it staying at home, with a bobolink for a chorister, and an orchard for a dome."

Rick Warren, the author of The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here For? reminds us:

“We are human beings, not human doings.”

I hope that you find a way to use the weekend to disconnect from the pressure of doing and re-connect with the those things inside that help you feel most fully alive. In stillness and rest the quiet voice of inspiration, hope and dreams can finally be heard and have its time to speak.
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Shabbat Shalom,

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Carl E. Josehart, MSW (he/him/his)

Chief Operating Officer

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