Introduction

Our days are full, and our weeks are long; it is rare for us to take the time to think about time. But time, and our relationship to it, is of paramount importance in Jewish thought. We encounter the issue of time in our earliest foundational texts. God speaks the world into existence. For six days God is aCreator, feverishly fashioning the universe with atumbling plethora of details: designing the cosmos, decorating the earth, fashioning flora and fauna, and creating creatures innumerable, ingenious, and beautiful. God is busy. And then, at the peak of this burst of creative genius, God does something truly remarkable. God stops. God’s last creation is aday of not-creating, atime dedicated to rest. God models for us aformula of six days of doing and one day of being. We call that seventh day Shabbat. It is aday when we let loose our grip on being human “doings” and instead embrace being human beings. The word Shabbat in Hebrew has the same root as the Hebrew word for settle. Shabbat is an invitation to simply be, to settle into the place where we are–physically and emotionally. Shabbat can become apractice of internal settling, an opportunity to tend our inner garden, aplace where understanding and acceptance can grow, where tenderness, rejuvenating rest, and dreams can flourish.

Visiting this inner garden is aspiritual experience. It can also add to our lives the practical benefits of reconnecting us to our family and community, revitalizing us, and motivating us with wider consciousness and higher aspirations. Shabbat offers us ataste of deep nourishment for our soul, in areality outside and above time itself. Our sages describe it as ataste of theworld that is coming. 1 It is apause that regenerates us with asense of possibility and hope,

that inspires us to step into the next week with the optimism and motivation to help usher in the world that can be. So integral is Shabbat to the experience of Jewish time that preparing for it is considered amitzvah in and of itself. As Shabbat draws near, ashift is possible, ashift from the everyday to the holy day, from pressure to possibility. You can celebrate this shift in avariety of ways: by wearing different clothing or eating different foods; by elevating your conversations; by setting abeautiful table; by embracing silence; by breathing, meditating, or moving; by resting, singing, or praying. You can tune into the joy of Shabbat over afull day–or in the moments in which you choose to connect. Shabbat is about bringing delight to both body and soul, free from distractions, and about welcoming in asacred spaciousness. Shabbat is not all-or-nothing. Experiment. Explore. And above all, take the time to enter your inner garden. May the blessings, reflections, and rituals in this chapter serve as astarting point for you to find what is meaningful to you and your family. Enjoy!