Flunking Sainthood Read online

  And so I forgive him, right then while he’s drilling, drilling, drilling. I forgive you, Doctor, and I hope you feel God’s love today.

  LordjesuschristsonofGodhavemercyonmeasinner.

  7

  July

  unorthodox sabbath

  What we are depends on what the Sabbath is to us.

  —ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL

  7:15 AM. The alarm goes off, and I’m immediately presented with my first opportunity to break the laws of the Orthodox Jewish Sabbath I’m observing this month. Despite a fog of disorientation, I recognize the dilemma right away: I have an electric alarm clock. I should have shrouded it in a cloth so I wouldn’t be tempted to so much as look at it. Instead, I’ve forgotten to deprogram it, and the digital hussy beeps at me with growing insistence. I decide that it would be more shalom-inducing for everyone in the family if I turn the alarm off, so there it is: my first violation of the Orthodox Jewish Sabbath. I’ve been awake for approximately fifteen seconds.

  The second transgression comes moments later at the front door. Each morning, Onyx follows me downstairs with more enthusiasm than we see from him the entire rest of the day, bounding and leaping in anticipation of his first outing. It isn’t actually much of an outing—I open the front door and let him pee in the neighbor’s yard. (To be fair, the dogs have an unspoken reciprocal arrangement whereby Bailey, the neighbor’s dog, pees almost exclusively in our yard, so this isn’t as rude as it sounds.) Only today, I stand frozen at the front door with my hand halfway to the knob. The alarm system. Phil programmed it last night after I went to bed, as is his faithful habit, and neither of us thought to alter the usual pattern.

  If it weren’t for Onyx, I’d just wait another hour until everyone else is up; I’m in no hurry to go outside. But the wretch is prancing from paw to paw in his obvious need to use the facilities. He even woofs at me, a low, guttural single bark that is as rare as it is pointed. Isn’t there some law that on the Sabbath, it’s permissible to rescue an ox who falls into a ditch, rather than making the animal suffer a whole day before liberation? Right! There is a clear scriptural precedent for animals in need. I key in the password and open the door, Onyx springing immediately out of sight. And then, unthinkingly and out of pure habit, I switch off the porch light to welcome the day before remembering that I’m not supposed to flip light switches, which violates the injunction, “Do not kindle a fire.” Strike three.

  My Sabbath experiment has been underway for approximately three and a half minutes, and already I am worthy of stoning.

  AN ARCHITECTURE IN TIME

  My project this month is to attempt a viable practice of an Orthodox Jewish Sabbath, complete with no driving, no use of electricity, no cooking, and of course none of my usual work. My companion on this journey is Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907–1972), who wrote an enduring 1951 classic called The Sabbath that is still in print. I figure that Heschel’s an expert on the Sabbath. Born into a dynastic Hasidic family in Poland, the scion of generations of famous rebbes, he fled the Nazis in the late 1930s by coming to England and then America. He spent many years as a professor at Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, helping to raise up a whole generation of American rabbis. He remained observant of Jewish laws and rituals, true to his faith and his impressive heritage, and did a great deal to encourage American Jews to revive or strengthen ancient practices that some had abandoned as antiquated.

  His book The Sabbath was not a how-to guide for creating a restful Sabbath in the unlikely environment of busy, prosperous postwar America. It didn’t draw on the self-help psychology that was then becoming popular to tell Jews that if they would only observe God’s weekly cease-and-desist order, they would experience inner peace or stronger families. Rabbi Heschel leaves such low-hanging fruit for others and goes after a more intriguing argument: how does the Sabbath carve out holiness?

  Most of life, he says, is a struggle to conquer the space around us: we conquer space when we pay our mortgage, battle any kudzu that threatens to encroach in the yard, or venture forth from our homes to wage the incessant war that is earning a living. But it’s a tradeoff. We can only conquer that space, he explains, when we sacrifice time. And after some years of this, a surprising thing happens: we come to dread blank time without that war of busyness, because here we have to face the truth of who we are and what we’re doing. Many people persist in a state of perpetual dread of empty time because they live entirely in the world of space. That’s a luxury that Orthodox Jews cannot afford, however, because God saddled them with the Sabbath. And they, in turn, offer to share it with everybody else. (Um, thanks!)

  Blessed are You, our God, Creator of time and space, who separates the holy from the mundane.

  —TRADITIONAL PRAYER WHEN ENDING THE SABBATH

  The Sabbath may be the Jews’ great gift to the world, but Rabbi Heschel says this innovation can only be appreciated when compared to other areas where Jews have not exactly been leaders. Architecture, for instance. While other religions have been busy constructing their Domes of the Rock (Islam), Hagia Sophias (Eastern Orthodoxy), and soaring cathedrals like St. Peter’s and Notre Dame (Roman Catholicism), Jews are hard-pressed to claim a single unforgettable building of worship. I reflect on a college trip to Israel and realize this observation rings true to my experience: all of the finest architecture belonged to Muslims and to Christians of too many persuasions to count, who were obviously trying to one-up each other as well as pay homage to their God. Jews don’t have many synagogues that are world famous simply for how they look; the eminent ones are known because Rabbi So-and-So presided there, or the congregation’s Torah scroll once unfurled itself and gobbled a Nazi. They’re generally nondescript buildings with nary a hint of the vitality hidden within.

  So, Jews don’t have fantastic buildings. What they do have is the Sabbath, which Rabbi Heschel claims is their “palace in time.” Here’s how he describes it:

  He who wants to enter the holiness of the day must first lay down the profanity of clattering commerce, of being yoked to toil. He must go away from the screech of dissonant days, from the nervousness and fury of acquisitiveness and the betrayal in embezzling his own life. He must say farewell to manual work and learn to understand that the world has already been created and will survive without the help of man.

  It may sound like good news that the world can jolly well survive without me, but I actually find this notion a little depressing. Much of my world—my helicopter parenting, my workaholism, my ceaseless lists—is predicated on the comforting fantasy that I am indispensible. But as a pastor I know likes to say, graveyards are filled with indispensible people. The Sabbath reminds us that we’re always pointing toward eternity—which is a heavy, and often unwelcome, truth.

  LIVING THE SABBATH

  It’s not until I start trying to live the Sabbath practice that its ideological weight begins to lift. Now, I’m not entirely new to the whole Sabbath concept. In our house we have a few rules about Sundays: they are primarily for worship and rest. Everybody has to go to church unless they’re sick, bleeding, out of town, or in some event that can’t be rescheduled, such as the Olympics or their own death. And there are whole lists of things we do and don’t do: Unless there’s an emergency need for chocolate, we don’t go shopping. We don’t do work or homework. We often take naps, have folks over for supper, or enjoy a family movie night at home. It’s an unplugged kind of day.

  So by twenty-first-century American standards, we’re already almost Puritan in our observance of the Sabbath. Just by trying to keep it a special day, a day when we don’t work and are free to relax with friends and not accomplish much, we’re pushing back against the culture. But now, we’re going to step it up. We’re going to be Orthodox Jews.

  It all starts on the first Saturday of July, when I am running around like a Jewish grandmother trying to get everything ready. Well, not quite like a Jewish grandmother, because she would have made all these preparations on Friday in anticipat
ion of a Saturday Sabbath. Because our lives are already engineered to slow down on Sundays, we’re going to observe our Sabbath from sundown on Saturday to sundown on Sunday. It’s kind of cheating, but it’s our best shot at actual Sabbath compliance.

  Every person must carry the holiness of Shabbat to hallow the other days of the week.

  —REBBE NACHMAN OF BRASLAV

  The first step is cleaning out my office on Saturday afternoon, filing things away and shutting down the electronics. It’s rare for me to turn off my computer. My husband is always riding me about this, saying that I don’t need to have nine applications open at once, and that I should actually shut the whole system down at the end of a working day. I almost never do, however; I like knowing that I can pop into my office for a few minutes in the evening to check my e-mail or have a go at Facebook without booting up all over again. Phil sighs in exasperation. My Apple laptop is old, he explains to me. He has christened it the Granny Smith. It deserves a rest now and again.

  For the first time in a long while, it is going to get one. I power it down and then organize all of the letters, book proposals, and books that clutter my desk into tidy piles. Then, I close the door to my office. It already feels like a victory just to declare that all of these seemingly urgent items can wait until Monday morning. In fact, I don’t even have to look at them.

  THE TENT OF PEACE

  This office orderliness has to do with inviting the shalom of the Sabbath before the day even officially kicks off. Rabbi Heschel writes that for six of seven days, Jews include in their evening prayers a petition that God will “guard” their going out and coming in, which is based on a promise in Psalm 121. But on the Sabbath, the prayer is different: instead of requesting protection from harm, it declares that God will “embrace us with a tent of . . . peace.” Maybe the Sabbath is similar to the way I feel on a winter’s night when, clad in fleece pajamas, I finally crawl under goosedown covers and rest in the knowledge that nothing more will be demanded of me that day. God will embrace me with the tent of his peace.

  At least, that’s the hope. It turns out that there’s a whole lot of work involved in pitching a tent of peace. For starters, I have a major dinner to conjure out of whole cloth. I buy the challah bread at a marvelous local bakery owned by Mormons—because if anyone knows how to bake a great challah, it would be a Mormon, right? For the other dishes, I’m on my own. As I was reminded when attempting kitchen mindfulness back in March, I enjoy cooking, but preparing for the Sabbath is more challenging than it appears.

  The Sabbath meal is supposed to be over-the-top special, signaling by every available means that the Sabbath is the most holy day of the week, insinuating itself into every nook and cranny of life. I like the idea of this, but it’s troublesome to put in practice. At the last minute, I’m trying to download instructions about the prayers for the meal, chop the strawberries for a fruit salad, and convince my daughter that yes, it really is time to turn off the television. I also have to turn the lights on upstairs and set the DVR for Masterpiece: Mystery. There’s a lot to remember. It’s unclear why Rabbi Heschel’s book lacks a checklist.

  The clock ticks furiously in my head as we count down to the candle lighting. I’ve got to hurry because after the candles are lit, the Sabbath will officially begin, and you can’t sneak any activities like putting flowers in water or turning off the oven. It’s almost like everything goes into Sabbath freeze-frame for approximately twenty-five hours. (And yes, that’s twenty-five hours, not twenty-four. To be on the safe side, rabbis established the rules for the Sabbath so we have to refrain from working before the sun begins to set on Sabbath eve until after it has completely set on the Sabbath Day, just so we don’t do something truly evil, like use scissors to snip a coupon while there’s still a streak of pink in the sky.)

  The first thing our family does is light the candles, a ritual that is supposed to happen eighteen minutes before the Sabbath. I’m the star here, as the lighting is always done in a prescribed way by the mother of the house. She lights them, then waves her hands around the flames in a gesture of bringing the Sabbath peace into the heart of the family. I’m not quite certain of this movement, having only a vague recollection of Tevye’s wife in Fiddler on the Roof. So instead of drawing the Sabbath toward us, I symbolically blow it out: my over-vigorous waving has snuffed a candle and I have to relight. I’ve already improvised somewhat with the candles, just using the ones we have on hand and not worrying about any nagging rules about the height of the candles or how many there should actually be. We haven’t even started the Sabbath yet, and already I have performance anxiety.

  Then we commence with the prayers. The Sabbath prayers aren’t long, but they involve a surprising amount of physical action. We all traipse over to the kitchen sink to wash our hands—right over left—and recite a special prayer. Back at the table, there is a prayer for the Mormon-baked challah, and one for the grape juice we’re using as a cheat for sweet kosher wine. I show off by reciting these in Hebrew, one of the few things I remember from the semester I spent teaching fourth and fifth graders prayerbook Hebrew at a Reconstructionist synagogue that was so liberal it didn’t bat an eye at hiring a Gentile fresh out of Protestant seminary. I’m glad I still remember these prayers by heart, because there’s comfort in reciting them in the language that has been used for millennia around the world.

  My favorite part of our short Sabbath ritual is the blessings. Traditionally, these are done by the man of the house, who blesses his wife and children. Phil gamely lays his hands on my head and tries not to crack up as he calls me a “woman of excellence,” drawing from the Bible’s prescription for the ideal woman in Proverbs 31. That passage has always bothered me in its sexism (I’m going to be judged on whether I can weave purple cloth?), but there’s something wholly different about hearing it recited by candlelight by someone who actually loves me, even if he is struggling not to laugh as he says, “Many women have done excellently, but you surpass them all.”

  Then we both lay hands on Jerusha’s head and give her a parental blessing. The traditional blessing for a daughter petitions God to make her like Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah, which is not exactly the blessing I’d wish on my girl: May you be a micromanager, a liar, a whiner, and a cheat! On the other hand, it’s a reminder that all of us frail, flawed, clawing people have a place in the distinctly wooly kingdom of God, so despite my half-year of failing at various spiritual practices, maybe there is hope for me yet if the Bible’s standards for women are so low. At least, this is what I am thinking about as I gently rest my hands on Jerusha’s head. She apparently is thinking about dinner, which is getting colder by the minute as we improvise our way through these candle lightings, washings, and prayers. Jerusha sighs dramatically and wonders aloud if we are ever going to eat already.

  The dinner of roast chicken, carrots, and potatoes is delicious and unhurried. Afterward, we carry the dishes to the sink, though I’m not at all sure that’s kosher. There are specific rules about not carrying things on the Sabbath. But I’m too OCD to bear the thought of leaving them out overnight, so I use Onyx as my excuse. It would be cruel to tempt a good dog beyond what he can bear by leaving highly lickable dishes on a table he can reach without difficulty.

  We spend the evening in quiet pursuits. So far, so good.

  THE THIRTY - NINE PROHIBITIONS

  The Jewish Sabbath comes with an impressive list of things to avoid—thirty-nine categories of things, to be exact. In advance of my Sabbath experiment, I’ve glanced over the categories and identified a few that I shouldn’t have to worry about. I’m not likely to flay something anytime soon, so I’m in good shape on that score. I also don’t regularly tan animal hides on a Sunday. Whew!

  I can’t work, of course. But it’s not just work that we’re called to resist on the Sabbath—it’s any creative activity. However things are when the Sabbath begins are how they need to remain until the Sabbath ends—no washing, cutting, cleaning, painting, or the l
ike. I’m not supposed to change anything from its original state. Even if I were allowed to light a fire or flick on the electric range, I can’t boil anything (which could cause a chemical change), bake anything, or even toast my bread. Doing any of those things makes me a creator of sorts, and that role is verboten on the Sabbath. This is all designed to honor God’s own example: he worked and created for six days but then took a calculated breather.

  In the end, it’s actually the creative restrictions that are the most difficult for me to abide. There’s something so marvelously liberating about stepping back from work, especially housework, that I actually feel more creative, more eager to put words to paper. But I can’t even take real-time notes about my Sabbath experiment because I’m not allowed to write, turn on a computer, or vocalize cryptic reminders into the Dragon Dictation app on my iPhone. The rabbis are clear about writing: you can make one letter, and no more.

  In the silence of our Sabbath observation our minds can rest, and that often leads to the freedom to learn anew how best to use our minds for the glory of God.

  —MARVA DAWN

  Church is another problem. I can’t drive myself there, but it’s several miles away so it would be a bit of a hike. I’m not keen on showing up on a sweltering July morning all sweaty, but I feel guilty about not doing my bit for the planet. Then I discover a wondrous fact: Orthodox Jews are actually supposed to count their steps on the Sabbath. That’s why they try to live so close to their shul, so it’s a short walk and they don’t have to use a car at all. (Apparently Jews in Israel can also use a special Segway-ish vehicle called the Shabbat scooter. That sounds way cooler than my basic plan of bumming rides from my friends. So, next year in Jerusalem.)