to save and savor

Charlotte's Web is one of my all time favorite books. I only recently learned that E.B. White was a writer beyond the world of Zuckerman’s Farm. 

In 1969, he was quoted in the New York Times saying, “”If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve (or save) the world and a desire to enjoy (or savor) the world, This makes it hard to plan the day.”

These days, I feel this tension deeply. In fact, it is this tension that animates my spiritual life. In religious terms this is the tension between the verses, Tzedek Tzedek Tirdof - justice, justice, you shall pursue and the words I recite before Kiddush every Friday night, 

וַיַּרְא אֱלֹהִים אֶת־כׇּל־אֲשֶׁר עָשָׂה וְהִנֵּה־טוֹב מְאֹד
“God looked at everything that happened, and called it very good.”

Each week, we find something good in our week to be grateful for without denying the aching for things to be different. 

Judaism has a very specific way it reconciles E.B. White’s very human conflict – Shabbat!
Shabbat is a weekly opportunity to do what my gym coach calls “deloading.” Whether building muscle or social movements, is it necessary to deload to build strength and power.  

In the words of last week’s parsha (Exodus 34:21),
שֵׁשֶׁת יָמִים תַּעֲבֹד
Six days a week you should labor… 

Six days a week we rise with the purpose of improving the world. 
וּבַיּוֹם הַשְּׁבִיעִי תִּשְׁבֹּת
On the seventh day, you should cease…enjoy and savor the world. 
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It is of course not so easy to compartmentalize our lives into neat structures, nor the false binary of saving and savoring the world. But the rabbis also know that given the work and pain of the world, it can feel nearly impossible to actually cease and savor. So they are sure to repeat themselves. This week’s parsha, Vayakhel, also begins with another instruction to observe shabbat: 
שֵׁשֶׁת יָמִים תֵּעָשֶׂה מְלָאכָה
Six days a week we work…

וּבַיּוֹם הַשְּׁבִיעִי יִהְיֶה לָכֶם קֹדֶשׁ שַׁבַּת שַׁבָּתוֹן לַיהֹוָה
And the seventh day should be reserved for holiness, for savoring…

Except here in Exodus 35, unlike in Exodus 34, the verse continues and add a rather intense consequence, 
כׇּל־הָעֹשֶׂה בוֹ מְלָאכָה יוּמָת
Anyone who does work, will die.

The rest of the parsha goes on to detail the intricate beauty of the mishkan, colors and textures in total abundance. As a result, the rabbis craft a shabbat practice that stands in contrast to the building of the mishkan. Mountains of rules hanging by the thread of three verses. Don’t weave or cut or thrash or sort. What’s crucial is that shabbat be distinct from the rest of your week.

But what about the week’s when it’s not? Need it really come with the threat of death?  

Here is what I do know - the weeks when I am lenient in my shabbat practice, I enter the new week less refreshed; my ability to fully greet the week to come is diminished. I often feel more irritable, less connected to my family and my body, not fully myself. This is not the same thing as death, but it does add it up and it does motivate me to sink into shabbat more fully each week.

As we round the corner on the second half of this year, I want to invite you to pause and consider, how is my shabbat practice going? Where is my work in the world? And where is my delight? How can I savor more, so that I can labor more effectively in the week to come?

E.B. White got it right - it’s not an either/or. We are called to save and to savor, however incomplete our ability to do either may feel. I know the fuller I savor shabbat, the more restored I am for the challenges of the week ahead.

As the sun sinks, I am grateful that we are wisely instructed to savor one day a week. To imagine it whole so that our nervous systems can reset and we can return to the work of saving this broken, beautiful world.

However, if you are reading this, the work of the week is not over. The horrible war is raging on as the people of Gaza prepare for Ramadan. Before or after Shabbat, I invite you to either read or watch the testimony of Susan Abulhawa, a Palestinian writer who just spent two weeks in Gaza. (Content warning: Her testimony is graphic.) 

May we have the courage to savor this seventh day and make it holy. 
And may we emerge refreshed with a sense of vitality and purpose.