The Ark of Shabbat
We come to the end of a loud and heavy week.
Loud with a relentless cacophony: speeches, rallies, cable news pundits, analysis, processing groups, WhatsApp notifications, breaking news alerts, and (for some of us) family feuds.
Heavy with emotion: Reactions to the election vary widely, even within our own community—but whatever we are feeling, the fact remains that we entered this election cycle at a time of great unrest and division; though the election is over, the weight of this moment in American life has not lifted.
And now, Shabbat approaches.
On Wednesday, I was fortunate to study a beautiful text with my friend and teacher Rabbi Miriam Margles, from the 20th-century Hasidic master Rabbi Shalom Noach Barzovsky—also known as the Netivot Shalom—on last week’s Torah portion. In his essay, “The Function of the Ark for Future Generations,” he writes that the Jewish people has its own eternal ark, an ark that not only provides refuge but one that can serve as an existential compass:
Shabbat is like an Ark in which we can take shelter. The power of Shabbat is that it can save us in any situation, even from those like the generation of the Flood. How is this so?
It is because Shabbat is the source of the connection between Israel and God. It is “a dwelling place in the lower realms” – God desired a dwelling place, a pure spot in which we might raise ourselves up, even if we have served idols like the generation of Enosh, even if we have become like the generation of the Flood, or that of Enosh – this is the power of Shabbat…
This is an understanding that takes us beyond the idea of Shabbat as a day of rest. It reflects the reality that our weekday work can bury us in its frenetic energy so that we can no longer see the big picture of ultimate meaning. Shabbat extracts us from the week and becomes a place of quiet respite where we can connect to the transcendent, to our larger purpose and values, to the covenant between God and the Jewish people. Perhaps, then, Shabbat is part of the secret to our survival, a practice that has helped keep the Jewish people alive through many periods of darkness over the centuries.
I am finding the Netivot Shalom’s words deeply resonant today. It would not be hard to allow the noise of this week to drown me in paralyzing despair or cynicism, or alternatively, to spin me into an unproductive flurry of doing, organizing, acting, planning, strategizing—grasping at straws to feel that I am doing something. But if I can step into the ark, things get a little quieter. If I spend some time in this protected, transcendent space, I know I will be able to more wisely discern next week’s work because I won’t make choices from a reactive place of catastrophic thinking. I will be seeing both the needs of the moment, and also the longer horizon of history.
In just a few hours the ark of Shabbat will arrive. We can let go of the week’s work, the work of “how” to navigate our existence, and embrace Shabbat as the opportunity to consider the “why” of our lives. So I invite you to step into the ark with me, maybe even turning off your phone or not watching the news or not talking about the election. Let’s step into that ‘pure spot in which we might raise ourselves up’ so that we can emerge with the wisdom and the strength that we need right now.
Shabbat shalom.