Sabbath-keeping

It's Friday, at the end of a week filled with work, church, kids' activities, homework, allergies, and assorted other normal daily things. Friday is my day off, sometimes it's Sabbath, sometimes it's Preparation Day for a Sabbath that runs from Friday evening to Saturday evening worship. This week, Friday is Sabbath because we have to be at church in the morning. Randy is off work today. The sun is shining. Kitty the slightly odd-looking bullish dog is napping beside me.


Nowhere we have to go. Nowhere we have to be. Nothing we have to do. It feels like heaven.


That's exactly what Sabbath is supposed to be - a foretaste of heaven. A day to live on God's time, to purposefully live at God's beck and call so that it seeps into the other six days and all of life becomes God-directed. A day of peace that spills over and makes us people of peace the rest of the time.


I looked forward all week to it, but the temptation to fill the day with shopping, errands, work is huge! There is always more to do. Stopping has to be a choice. No wonder God had to make Sabbath-keeping a commandment! Otherwise, we'll just do one more thing, try one more thing, slip in an activity or two, and before long we aren't stopping at all.


God commands me - us - to Sabbath. A rabbi Randy knows sent us a recipe for cholent, a traditional Sabbath dish. For Orthodox Jews, it is breaking the Sabbath to turn on a stove or light a fire. A fire kindled or a stove turned on before the Sabbath is allowable. So they have a dish called 'Cholent' which is started before the sun sets on Friday and cooks until Saturday mealtime. Crockpots are Sabbath-friendly, to the Orthodox Jew.


I joked about this last weekend. How much energy does it really take to plug in a crockpot or turn on a stove? Is that work? For the Jew, yes. Because even the family cook, be it Mother or Father or you yourself, should have the taste of heavenly peace. Since they also don't want to cause work for others, ordering pizza is not an option. So they put together the cholent on Friday, and let it simmer away.


We aren't going to make it as Orthodox Jews, and yet I want everyone I know to receive the blessings of deliberately choosing Sabbath. It is indeed a blessing, a joy, to cease from work and to not put work onto others. Choosing Sabbath takes planning and thought, it is a decision that doesn't happen by itself. And it does form me into a more tolerable and kind person the rest of the week. Why am I blogging on a Friday then? Probably because I like to! Still, after I finish this, I'm even turning off the computer, unplugging the phone, and simply being in the day. God is in control, and the world will survive without me.


If someone is actually reading this, I am going to pray that you find the strength in yourself to choose to keep a Sabbath. Stay home, cease from your work and fret, allow others the freedom to do the same, and rest in God's care and provision. It will be easier and even more blessed if we do it together.


You have to love a God who puts resting in the top 10 things he wants you to do with your life!




Rabbi Tovia's Cholent recipe
Boil one package of parley and some red beans and lima beans in water to cover for 10 minutes. Drain. Cover again with water, boil 10 minutes, drain. Do the same thing one more time. This will help with the gas, or so he says!


Fry some onions and place them with some olive oil in the bottom of a crock put. Put the barley and beans in the crock pot. Pour a can of vegetarian baked beans over the top. Add salt, ketchup, pepper and a few cloves of garlic to your taste. Mix it all thoroughly. Add some flank steak or stew meat. Add some sliced potatoes. Pour boiling water over the whole dish until the water comes to the top of the food.


Let it simmer away in the crockpot on low. Given how the Sabbath works in Israel, I'm guessing it cooks for 12-15 hours before they even attempt to eat it, but the recipe doesn't say. Leave the dishes until morning!