Ran across a fascinating piece in Slate about how even secular Israelis are seeing the value of keeping a national day of rest on the Sabbath. The article also looks at the not-so-distant past in the United States, when blue laws instituted the same sort of enforced “rest” on Sundays. Here’s an excerpt:
The texture of that day off is hard to conjure up now, because contemporary life offers little like it. For 24 hours, we stayed home and ate huge family dinners, or went to church, or set off on afternoon drives, and we not only did these things with members of our inner circle, but did them in the knowledge that everyone else in the nation was doing them, too. At any rate, they weren't doing the things they spent the rest of the week caught up in, and that gave us permission not to do them either. We had fewer choices, but that lack of choice may have been more liberating than we realized, because having the option of working or shopping often brings with it the nagging sense that if you're not working, you should be—and if you're not shopping, you need to be. One day a week, the country honored life beyond duty and beyond the imperatives of the marketplace. Americans embraced laziness, goofiness, random reading, desultory conversation, neighbors and relatives both pleasant and unpleasant—the kinds of things that knit them together even as they made them more themselves. We can't have those days back, of course, but we can try to remember what disappeared when they did.
Do you and your family observe a “day of rest,” either on Sunday or another day of the week? Sunday is probably the closest thing in my house. I try to avoid shopping on that day (but don't always succeed). My only violation is that we usually eat lunch out after church — either at a nice restaurant or a carry-out place. Dinner is usually home-cooked. My typical Sunday activities include doing a couple loads of laundry, the Sunday New York Times crossword and a nap. And maybe I’ll watch a video (rented on Friday or Saturday night) with Ken or Amy.
The Sabbath was created for man, for his rest and renewal and refreshment. What blessings are we missing because we don’t observe it in the consumer-driven hustle of modern life? Would the economy come crashing down if we all just chilled out for one day a week?
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