The Doors to Paradise

“Once upon a time, before MTV, before remote controls, before books on tape and Internet streaming media, …a person would sit down and listen to an entire symphony, for however long that took….Listeners…paid money to occupy a seat in a concert hall for a set time. [They] were enclosed in ritual spaces, with nothing to do but listen and watch. Now there are other temptations.”

“…Your life is lived with the kind of excitement that your forebears knew only in battle. They, unlike you, were the prisoner of mundane tasks. They wrote with pens; they did addition; they waited endlessly for things that come to you instantaneously. They had far less than you do, and they bowed to necessity, as you do not. You love the pace, the giddy, continual acceleration. Admit it – you do!”

These words come from a book by James Gleick called Faster: The Acceleration of Just About Everything. The book examines our appetite for speed in all its manifestations – what Gleick calls “hurry sickness.” The jerky camera cuts and frantic pacing of modern films and tv shows; shorter and shorter sound bites that pass for political discourse; shorter and shorter shelf lives for books, movies and CDs.

Fax machines and Fedex and proliferating e-mail. Instant coffee. Instant replay. Instant intimacy and instant gratification. Speed-dialing and high-speed internet access and quick-playback buttons on answering machines. Pre-aged blue jeans, because we don’t have time to wait months for the stiff dark-blue denim to get faded and soft. The new rules in baseball passed in the 1990s, all of them designed to save time.

The “door close” buttons in elevators which, according to Gleick, do nothing at all and are there simply to soothe the type A personalities among us. Minute rice, one-minute bedtime stories, the one-minute manager.

The evolution of breakfast foods, from hot cooked oatmeal to cold cereal in a box, to toaster food like frozen waffles and Pop Tarts, to granola bars, energy bars and something called Breakfast Mates, “for today’s busy families” – a single cereal portion packaged with its own milk, bowl and spoon – tested by the New York Times, and found to cut breakfast preparation time from fourteen seconds to thirteen, at a cost of one dollar per second saved.

Today, speed is everything. We’re wired, in every sense of the word. We want it now. We drum our fingers restlessly while we’re on hold; we grind our teeth while we’re waiting for a website to come into view; we pound the steering wheel in frustration while we’re sitting in traffic. In our culture, calling a person “slow” is an insult, implying that he or she is handicapped.

And the pulse-pounding tempo is getting faster all the time. One writer says: “It has gotten to the point where my days, crammed with all sorts of activities, feel like an Olympic endurance event: the everydayathon…I hear an invisible stopwatch ticking even when I’m supposed to be having fun.” [(Jay Walljasper, Utne Reader, in Gleick p.277].

In an article in The New Yorker last year, Adam Gopnick writes about an imaginary friend that his three-year-old daughter Olivia developed. His name is Charlie Ravioli. Now, imaginary friends are not so uncommon for three year olds to have. The odd thing about Mr. Ravioli is that he is always too busy to play with Olivia. Writes Gopnick: “She holds her toy cell phone up to her ear, and we hear her talk into it: ‘Ravioli? It’s Olivia…It’s Olivia. Come and play? Ok. Call me. Bye.’ Then she snaps it shut, and shakes her head. ‘I always get his machine,’ she says.

“Or she will say, ‘I spoke to Ravioli today.’ ‘Did you have fun?’ my wife and I ask. ‘No. He was busy working.’ …On a good day, she ‘bumps into’ her invisible friend and they go to a coffee shop. ‘I bumped into Charlie Ravioli,’ she announces at dinner…. ‘We had coffee, but then he had to run.’ She sighs, sometimes, at her inability to make their schedules mesh, but she accepts it as inevitable, just the way life is. ‘I bumped into Charlie Ravioli today,’ she says. ‘He was working.’ Then she adds brightly, ‘But we hopped into a taxi.’ ‘What happened then?’ we ask. ‘We grabbed lunch’ she says. [“Bumping Into Mr. Ravioli,” The New Yorker, September 30, 2002]

It’s a cute piece, but a poignant one, too: a three year old reflecting, as in a tiny mirror, the hectic lives of her parents, where lunches are grabbed and life is lived on the run from appointment to appointment, and human relationships are what we try to squeeze in between.

Journalist Richard Louv, visiting a third grade class in Seattle, asks the children a question: How do your parents spend time with you? He writes: “The class exploded in chatter. Hands flew up. I moved from child to child, bending close to hear their soft-spoken answers. ‘My parents say, “I’ll spend time with you tomorrow,” said a little girl whose voice was as light and as high as a sparrow. ‘But they don’t.’

“A boy looked up and said, ‘My dad works morning till night, and my mom works afternoons and nights, so they say, “Tomorrow we’re gonna do some things,” but tomorrow comes and they go to work.’

“…And another boy whispered, ‘My dad says, “I’ll play with you tomorrow,” but tomorrow comes and he watches TV….”

“I’ll play with you tomorrow,” writes Louv. “I’ve said that to Jesse, my own son….All parents have said it at one time or another. (One father told me the first phrase his child learned was ‘Not now, later.’) But there was an urgency in these children’s voices, a vacancy and yearning….[You see,] parents and children…live in entirely different time zones. The adult time zone allows for delay, distraction, pushing away. If not this year, next year; that’s when we’ll do it…But no such luxury exists in the children’s time zone because children, annoyingly, grow up. By the time their parents do have time for them, many kids don’t have time for their parents” [Childhood’s Future, p.17-18].

Sometimes it is overwhelming. Too much information coming at us, too fast. Too much to do. Too many choices, and not enough time. We live our lives like we’re channel-surfing – zapping the remote control again and again, flitting from one screen to the next.

Our pulse races; life goes by in a blur, and our children grow up while we’re not looking.

Speed is seductive. Speed means convenience and progress. Historian Stephen Kern writes: “The historical record shows that humans have never, ever opted for slower.”

But that’s not entirely true. Take tonight, for instance. Jews around the world are gathered tonight for a purpose that seems to go deliberately against the grain. Yom Kippur is nothing if not slow. It’s long; it’s repetitive. We listen to Kol Nidre three times. We repeat the confession of sins five times. We spend an entire day in the synagogue, and there are no distractions here. No multi-tasking. No channel surfing. Just one screen, one text, one supreme task.

Perhaps our ancestors devised this long and drawn-out day (it’s actually 25 hours long), with its deliberate tempo and enforced repetition, because they intuited an important fact: some things, to be done well, have to be done slowly. Character development, which is at the heart of Yom Kippur, can’t be hurried. You can’t grab it on the run. You can’t do it in your sleep. You can’t do it for ten minutes a day while you’re watching television or speed-read it while you’re working out on the stationary bike. Character development is the fruit of time.

And so our ancestors, architects of time, built a temporal structure for introspection and unhurried thought, and they bequeathed this structure to us. It is the structure we enter tonight; a structure the Torah calls “Shabbat Shabbaton – a sabbath of complete rest.” And it is written: “Mei-erev ad erev tishb’tu shabatchem – from evening to evening, you shall observe this your sabbath” [Lev.23:32].

Yom Kippur goes against the grain. It is an act of revolt against the fast and the frenetic, the proliferation of choice, the acceleration of just about everything. It is an artifact of a counter-culture that values what is quiet and deep and true.

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately,” wrote Thoreau of his famous journey to Walden Pond. “…I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life.” We read Thoreau today because he speaks to a yearning that still rises up in us, albeit sporadically, in between the ringing of the cell phone and the beeper and our other “handheld antiboredom devices” [Gleick, p.181]. “Our life is frittered away by detail,” he wrote. “…Why should we live with such hurry and waste of life? ….Simplify, simplify.”

The times we live in have spawned an entire industry based on “living simply,” slowing down and caring for the soul. Ironically, here too is a proliferation of products --books, tapes, websites, courses, personal coaches -- all promising to show us how to manage our time and develop a life that is balanced rather than breathless.

Sue Bender’s book Plain and Simple is, for me, an especially evocative meditation on the hurry sickness of our times. It’s the true story of a busy therapist and artist in Berkeley who found herself powerfully drawn to the Amish way of life. She saw in traditional ninepatch Amish quilts a symbol of order and tranquility, of symmetry and grace. She writes: “How opposite my life was from an Amish quilt. My life was like a crazy quilt, a pattern I hated. Hundreds of scattered, unrelated, stimulating fragments, each going off in its own direction, creating [its own] frantic energy. There was no overall structure to hold the pieces together. The Crazy Quilt was a perfect metaphor for my life” [p.4].

Like Thoreau, Bender wanted to simplify and go deeper. So she left her chaotic Berkeley household to live on a farm with an Amish family for several months, in search of a life that was plain and simple, pared down to essentials; a life with a center, with clarity and coherence and peace.

I enjoy reading these books and I like fantasizing about life on a farm – minus the drudgery and tedium, of course – but I know that the solution to my own crazy-quilt life has nothing to do with going back in time or leaving my home for an imagined rural paradise. It has to do with the real paradise that my ancestors prepared for me, two thousand years ago. The paradise that is part of every week in the lifetime of a Jew.

Tonight, on the holiest night of the year, I want to talk to you about Shabbat.

Shabbat – the seventh day – comes from a Hebrew verb that means “to cease; to stop.” What do we know about Shabbat from the Torah? It was the last entity to be created by God, enabling God “l’hinafesh” – literally “to catch His breath.” It is the subject of the last words God says to Moses on Mt. Sinai, after all the laws and regulations have been given. “Ve-shamru v’nei Yisrael et ha-shabbat – the Israelite people shall keep Shabbat, to make Shabbat throughout their generations.”

Shabbat is something that God creates but that people ‘make’; it is a gift from God, but one that we ourselves must fashion; it stands at the very intersection of the divine and the human.

Rabbi Pinchas Peli writes: “Every generation ‘makes’ the Sabbath again and again, and so, I believe, must ours.”

Shabbat is “berit olam” – an everlasting covenant; it speaks of eternity and links the generations of Jews together. But Shabbat is made again and again -- in every age, in every Jewish family, in every Jewish home -- and its meaning evolves over time.

For ancient Israelites it was a day to withdraw from toil and depend on God to sustain them. For the rabbis of the Talmud, it became a forest of legal regulations, dense and forbidding to outsiders, providing those inside with a reassuring sense of structure and control in unstable times. For medieval Jews in the ghetto, Shabbat was a place of refuge, promising dignity, affirmation and joy – an escape from a society in which they were despised. For our great-grandparents in the old country, Shabbat was the family table -- the best food of the week; candlelight and wine and singing; a blessing for the children and the woman of the house.

And what can it be for us today? All that it once was, and more. A day to withdraw from the world and recover from its depredations. A way to bring stability and structure to crazy-quilt lives. A day of refuge from what is vulgar and ugly. A day of joy, to celebrate what we have rather than chasing after something else. A day to be with the people we love. A day to honor the needs of the body -- for rest, for food, for physical pleasure and tenderness and play. A day to honor the needs of the soul -- to catch our breath, to think and reflect, to renew ourselves from within.

Abraham Joshua Heschel called Shabbat a cathedral in time -- a grand and beautiful monument sculpted for us by generations past, within whose spacious walls we can find shelter. My own favorite metaphor for Shabbat is different.

I think about the home where my friends the Levys live. The first time I visited them I lifted the latch of their gate and stepped into a wonderful surprise: their front yard is a walled garden, shut away from the noise of the city. In the center of the garden is a brimming fountain. There are lemons and kumquats and a Chinese magnolia tree, and all around you a profusion of flowers – red and pink and yellow and purple and white.

You go into the Levys’ garden and the place works its magic on you. You stand motionless, taking it all in: trickling water and color and fragrance and perfect stillness and peace. You feel your muscles start to relax, and you let out a long, slow breath.

The first time I went there I thought of a book I loved when I was a child: The Secret Garden – the story of two sickly, irritable children who are healed in body and soul when they discover a neglected garden and begin to work on it.

The lovely thing about a garden, you see, is that if you take care of it, it will take care of you. A garden that you nourish and cultivate becomes a place of nourishment and refreshment for you – a refuge from the craziness all around.

Shabbat can be a secret garden for every Jew – a still center of beauty and peace, a place we can go each week to heal the bruises that the world leaves on us. It is, the Midrash says, a taste of Paradise – a weekly visit to Gan Eden, the Garden of Eden. Of course, there is one catch: you can hire a gardener to tend your flowers, but each of us has to create the Sabbath-garden for ourselves.

Now, I live in the real world, along with all of you. I know about children who squabble at the table and squirm during synagogue services. I know about family members who are all dashing off in separate directions. I know the pressures that push us to make Shabbat the same as Sunday -- just another part of the weekend -- a day for shopping and errands and soccer games and chores and catching up on our work, and running around to do whatever we don’t have time to do during the week.

I live in the real world – but I also believe in the possibility of a secret garden. I believe it’s real. I believe it can happen. Most of all, I believe we need it desperately. I know I do.

I don’t want to give you a list of do’s and don’ts for how to spend your Shabbat. All gardens, after all, look different; they reflect the personality of their creator. But all gardens do have some things in common: they are places of beauty and comfort and peace. They quiet us inside. They lift up our spirits. They refresh our thirsty souls. When we leave the garden, taking one last regretful look, one last whiff of the delicate fragrance, we walk back into the world better fortified to face it.

Every garden begins with a decision -- to clear some ground away, to open up a space where something can grow. Every garden takes shape by design. We choose what we will plant, what colors, what scents, what arrangement fits the space and soil and circumstances of our home. And every garden requires devotion. A garden that’s neglected will die.

A decision. A design. An act of devotion. Those are the three steps to making Shabbat. The first one may be the hardest. Shabbat begins with a decision to clear away some space, to open up some time. It takes an act of will to say no to the profusion of choices spread out before us. If we want to focus deeply rather than grabbing and snatching and racing from place to place, then we cannot do everything. We have to decide what it is that we’ll say no to.

Tradition provides some guidelines. It says that one day a week, labor and commerce should be cleared out of our lives. Even reading business correspondence, even talking about business should be cleared away on Shabbat. Even if we love our jobs. Even if we thrive on the machinery of capitalism and consumption. Work is important; money is important; but there is more to life than money and work.

Shabbat begins with a decision to clear some space, to make room for the soul to grow. Shabbat takes shape through conscious design. Once we have cleared away the space -- once we have said no to certain activities -- a more important step awaits us. What will we choose to fill the space we have created in our week? What kind of garden will we plant? Once again, Jewish tradition offers us guidance. Our Sages taught that the building blocks of this day should be menucha -- rest and peace; oneg -- joy and pleasure; kedusha -- holiness and sanctity. As we say no on Shabbat to what is fast and frenetic and draining, we say yes to what is quiet and deep and true.

We make a decision. We form a design. The third step to making Shabbat is devotion. Tending the garden, protecting and guarding it from all that intrudes; protecting our holy day from all that distracts us and draws us away. A garden that’s neglected will die. To work its magic on us, Shabbat requires us to be strong, to resist society’s pressure to run everywhere and do everything.

We’re addicted to speed in 2003; it’s our drug of choice and we’re not likely to kick the habit anytime soon. Let’s face it -- we enjoy our gadgets and we thrive on our busy and stimulating lives. Our tradition doesn’t ask us to run away to the woods or return to a simpler age. But for 3000 years Judaism has held workaholism in check by caring for the body and soul in the deepest possible way. Here in the real world, week in and week out, Jews found a way to make Shabbat. They took care of the garden, and the garden took care of them. It can take care of us today.

How will we open a space for the seventh day? Let me suggest that we begin with one small step: let’s start calling Saturday Shabbat. That, in itself, will begin to change how we think. Don’t worry about making it last for 24 hours; start with one hour on Friday nights or carve out a little time on Shabbat afternoon. Decide what activities you want to clear out. Doing the bills, or going to the mall, or answering e-mail; maybe even find a way to stop doing your job. Whatever evokes, for you, the clamor and crush of commerce, the effort and strain of work.

How will you design your Shabbat? Its shape will change as your life evolves, as children are born, grow up and leave home. Some of Shabbat may be private; find whatever it is that brings you peace and comforts your soul. But some of it should be shared, for Shabbat is about restoring relationships that are precious to us.

On this day we don’t squeeze people in, on the run; we seek out connections and give them the unhurried time they need. When Jewish parents lovingly bless their children on Friday nights we show them with our words and our touch that they are precious to us -- that they matter to us infinitely more than our cell phones or our jobs. When the fixed anchor of our week is the Sabbath meal with the ones we love, we make a statement about our highest priority. When we celebrate Shabbat at the synagogue we form a bond with Jewish community and cultivate friendships of substance.

We are blessed to be part of a congregation where Shabbat has come alive. Each week there are hundreds who come to worship and to sing, to study and to celebrate the day. And starting this month we’ll offer new, creative ways to enrich Shabbat at Beth Am. You’ll receive a brochure tonight that describes the diverse offerings for all ages and interests.

Shabbat is meant for refreshment and renewal. So don’t be overwhelmed by the variety of choices. Find one opportunity; focus on something that speaks to you. Relax and enjoy.

Life doesn’t have to be a marathon event. Life can be different. Because once upon a time, our ancestors gave us a magical gift. It heals the hurry sickness of our time, and helps us find comfort and rest. It fortifies the spirit to do avodah -- our holy work in the world. It strengthens marriages; it nourishes families; it sustains a community. It brings us together, week after week, to share songs and prayers that penetrate our soul; to share sacred words that remind us what we stand for as a people.

Candles and wine and challah and blessings. An act of will. A creative design. A decision to say no; a decision to say yes. The doors to Paradise are within our grasp. We can open them with just two words: Shabbat shalom.