One morning, a few years ago, Harvard President Neil Rudenstine overslept. After years of non-stop toil in an atmosphere that rewarded frantic overwork, Rudenstine collapsed. Only after a three-month sabbatical—during which he read essayist Lewis Thomas, listened to Rave and walked with his wife on a Caribbean beach—was he able to return to his post. That week, his picture was on the cover of Newsweek magazine beside the banner headline “Exhausted!”.
In the relentless busyness of modern life, we have lost the rhythm between action and rest. I speak with people in business and education, doctors and day-care workers, shopkeepers and social workers, parents and teachers, nurses and lawyers, students and therapists, community activists and cooks. Remarkably, there is a universal refrain: “I am so busy.” The more our life speeds up, the more we feel weary, overwhelmed and lost.
Today our life and work rarely feel light, pleasant or healing. Instead, the whole experience of being alive begins to melt into one enormous obligation. It becomes the standard GREeting everywhere: “I am so busy.”
We say this to one another with no small deGREe of pride. The busier we are, the more important we seem to ourselves and, we imagine, to others. To be unavailable to our friends and family, to be unable to find time for the sunset (or even to know that the sun has set at all), to whiz through our obligations without time for a single mindful breath—this has become the model of a successful life.
Because we do not rest, we lose our way. We lose the nourishment that gives us succor. We miss the quiet that gives us wisdom. Poisoned by the hypnotic belief that good things come only through tireless effort, we never truly rest.
This is not the world we dreamed of when we were young. How did we get so terribly rushed in a world saturated with work and responsibility, yet somehow bereft of joy and delight?
We have forgotten the Sabbath.
Sabbath is the time that consecrated to enjoy and celebrate what is beautiful and good—time to light candles, sing songs, worship, tell stories, bless our children and loved ones, give thanks, share meals, nap, walk and even make love. It is time to be nourished and refreshed as we let our work, our chores and our important projects lie fallow, trusting that there are larger forces at work taking care of the world when we are at rest.
If certain plant species do not lie dormant during winter, the plant begins to die off. Rest is not just a psychological convenience; it is a biological necessity.
So “Remember the Sabbath” is more than simply a lifestyle suggestion. It is a commandment, an ethical precept as serious as prohibitions against killing, stealing and lying.
Sabbath is more than the absence of work. Many of us, in our desperate drive to be successful and care for our many responsibilities, feel terrible guilt when we take time to rest. But the Sabbath has proven its wisdom over the ages. Many of us still recall when, not long ago, shops and offices were closed on Sundays. Those quiet Sunday afternoons are embedded in our cultural memory.
Much of modern life is specifically designed to seduce our attention away from rest. When we are in the world with our eyes wide open, the seductions are insatiable. Hundreds of channels of cable and satellite television; phones with multiple lines and call-waiting, begging us to talk to more than one person at a time; mail, Ｅ-mail and overnight mail; fax machines; billboards; magazines; newspapers; radio. For those of us with children, there are endless soccer practices, baseball games, homework, laundry, housecleaning, errands. Every responsibility, every stimulus competes for our attention: Buy me. Do me. Watch me. Try me. Drink me. It is as if we have inadvertently stumbled into some horrific wonderland.
