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http://www.jewishworldreview.com --
My friends and relatives all want to know about the light bulb in my
refrigerator.
A few months ago, our family decided to try being shomer Shabbat, or
Sabbath-observant. It made an immediate, and remarkable, difference in our
lives, which had become something of a rat-race.
Neither of us is a workaholic, we don't work overtime and our kids have
always come first. But our daily commutes into Washington, D.C. take a heavy
toll. We race to get the kids ready and dropped off (at two different
places) to get to work on time, and then, at day's end, race again from work
and through rush hour, to pick our kids up before the day care facility
closes.
We try to squeeze errands in at night, but usually end up doing them on
weekends. Twice a year, we take a one-week vacation.
Now, though, we take one, for 25 hours, every week.
The discussions with relatives have helped illuminate the differences. My
sister asked, "you mean, you don't do any errands on Saturdays anymore?"
"No," I answered, "in fact, when we recently moved on a Friday, on Saturday
we didn't even unpack any boxes."
"What a great excuse!" she chuckled.
"That's the point," I told her, "It's like an enforced vacation."
Before moving to our new community, we never walked anywhere (like most
suburbanites, there was nowhere close enough). But now our family
positively relishes the walk to shul and to friends' houses on Shabbat. A
few weeks after our move, we were invited for Shabbat dinner to friends -
and the leisurely walk back to our home was awesome and romantic, in a
familial way. It was my wife and I, our two young children, on a clear
summer night, with the stars twinkling brightly. We walked, talked and
sang, with absolutely no deadline and no rushing. It was a simple and
luxurious experience.
Am I?
All I know is that I vividly remember from our pre-Sabbath-observance days,
driving past dressed-up Orthodox families walking to shul on Saturdays. I
felt sorry for them. What strict, humorless lives they must lead, I thought,
with all their restrictions! Recently, though, walking with my family
after lunch at shul through another idyllic, afternoon of children playing
and grownups studying and shmoozing, I noticed the cars whizzing down the
road on their way to the local shopping center. I chuckled as I caught
myself feeling sorry for all those helplessly harried people in their cars!
Ah, yes, but what about the light bulb in my refrigerator? Inquiring minds,
I realize, want to know. I'll get there but first let me tell you one
thing. Our wonderful children have the childish habit of getting up before
seven every morning, even on weekends. It used to be that we would just put
a tape in the VCR, teach the kids how to start it, and "sleep in" till 8:30.
Now, though, they don't watch TV on Saturdays: It is Shabbat. And, as a
matter of fact, the Sabbath has helped them realize that playing with each
other is fun; it has become one of their favorite pastimes. Much to our
delight, we discovered that our children now spend less time in front of the
flickering screen the other days of the week.
I'll come clean. Yes, I took it out. I took out the darn 10-watt bulb! I
don't even know where it is now! And I don't miss it! The refrigerator is in
our kitchen, and our kitchen light is usually on! I can see inside my
refrigerator just fine without the confounded thing! In fact, I'd never
even think about it, except that so many people ask!
For you see, we have discovered that the Sabbath, as the Talmud puts it, is
a bit of the World-to-Come in the here-and-now. It is a holy gift, a
beautiful package - but works for us only as a package deal. And my family
and I feel privileged to have discovered and embraced it in its entirety.
But please, don't ask about the toilet
Jewish World Review Dec. 28, 1999 / 19 Teves, 5760
The light bulb in
my refrigerator
By Eric Simon
And yet, whenever we tell our friends and relatives about our new embrace of
Shabbat, what they really seem to want to know about is the light bulb in
our refrigerator. I appreciate their concern, of course, and even remember,
a few months before we changed our lifestyle, shmoozing with a friend of
mine who described his "observant" friend as "not one of those crazies who
takes the light bulb out of his refrigerator."
It's not the light of the TV screen, though, that we're asked about, but the
one in the refrigerator.
Eric Simon, who served as a Union of American Hebrew Congregations (Reform) regional board member and as a member of
the Executive Committee of the UAHC Commission on Synagogue Affiliation, is
currently active in Jewish outreach and educational activities in Northern
Virginia. Contact the author by clicking here.
