May 14, 2022|י"ג אייר ה' אלפים תשפ"ב Shabbat as a "Moed" and Why a Digital Shabbat is Doomed to Failure By Rabbi Jonathan Muskat

Can a “digital Shabbat” succeed or is it doomed to failure? A few weeks ago, I read an article on this very topic in “Wired” magazine. Wired is a monthly American magazine that focuses on how emerging technologies affect culture, the economy and politics. The article was entitled, “Why Your ‘Digital Shabbat’ Will Fail.” This article begins by explaining how Shabbat is often cited as the “cure” for resisting technology into daily life, that we should create a digital Shabbat each week, one day in which we live for twenty-four hours without checking our phones or social media. People celebrate their social media Shabbat’s as mindfulness meditation, “in which an ancient spiritual practice is drained of its religious substance and repackaged as a wellness mechanism.” This article addressed whether a digital Shabbat can actually succeed.

We are told to observe Shabbat a number of times throughout the Torah. One of the ten commandments is to observe Shabbat and its formulation is different depending on when the story of the Ten Commandments is recorded. In Parshat Yitro, we are commanded to observe Shabbat because God stopped creating on Shabbat and in Parshat Va’etchanan, we are commanded to observe Shabbat and remember that God took us out of Egypt. Bnei Yisrael are also commanded to observe Shabbat in connection with the building of the mishkan, perhaps to clarify that the building of the mishkan does not override the sanctity of Shabbat, and then we have this week’s parsha, when the Torah discusses the various holidays.

The Torah begins with a nice introduction. “Mo’adei Hashem asher tikr’u otam mikra’ei kodesh eileh hem moadai,” or “These are my fixed times, the fixed times of God, which you will proclaim as holy occasions.” God is about to command the Bnei Yisrael to observe the Jewish holidays, but before it starts, the Torah states, “sheishet yamim tai’aseh melachah u’vayom ha’shevi’I Shabbat shabbaton mikra kodesh kol melacha lo taasu Shabbat he la’Hashem bechol moshvoteichem,” or “On six days work may be done, but on the seventh day there shall be a sabbath of complete rest, a sacred occasion. You shall do no work; it shall be a sabbath of God throughout your settlements.” Then the Torah starts discussing all the holidays beginning with Pesach. I wonder, why is the holiday of Shabbat, which has been discussed already, a number of times, discussed once again in the context of the holidays?

The Vilna Gaon rejects the premise of my question. The Vilna Gaon explains that Shabbat is not mentioned here at all. The Torah simply introduces the holidays and then the Torah states that work shall be done for six days and the seventh day shall be a sabbath of complete rest. The Vilna Gaon explains that the Torah here is describing not six days in a week followed by Shabbat, but it is describing the six Biblical holidays when some work can be done. Ochel nefesh – food-related work – can be done. What are those six Biblical holidays? Sukkot, Shmini Atzeret, two days of Pesach, Shavuot and Rosh Hashana. On these six days, ochel nefesh is permitted. However, on the seventh holiday, Yom Kippur, it is a day of complete rest. Even ochel nefesh is forbidden. According to the Vilna Gaon, this pasuk is not discussing Shabbat but it is introducing the seven holidays and explaining how one of them, namely Yom Kippur, is different than the rest.

This explanation is a very creative one, but it doesn’t seem to be the simple reading of the text. The simple reading of the text is that the Torah introduces the holidays by telling us about Shabbat again, even though we have already been taught about Shabbat numerous places elsewhere in the Torah. So why does the Torah mention Shabbat again? The Ramban, for one, believes that the Torah wants to contrast Shabbat with Yom Tov, that on Shabbat all melacha is forbidden but on Yom Tov, with the exception of Yom Kippur, that is not the case. Rashi, for one, follows those midrashim that believe that the Torah wants to compare Shabbat and Yom Tov, that if you profane Yom Tov then it’s as if you profaned Shabbat. Until now, we have learned the centrality of observing the Shabbat in the Torah, so I might have thought that observing the holidays is not so significant. By including Shabbat as one of the holidays next to Pesach, Shavuot, Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur and Sukkot, the Torah highlights the significance of these days as well, similar to that of Shabbat.

However, Rabbi Sacks took this connection in another direction. The textual connection between Shabbat and Yom Tov doesn’t merely teach us something about Yom Tov; rather, it teaches us something about Shabbat. He writes: “Creation, revelation, and redemption represent the three basic relationships within which Judaism and human life are set. Creation is God’s relationship to the world. Revelation is God’s relationship with us. When we apply revelation to creation, the result is redemption: the world in which God’s will and ours coincide.” He explains that this is why the Torah contains three different accounts for Shabbat. The account in the first version of the Ten Commandments, when we remember that God created the world, is the Shabbat of creation. The account in the second version of the Ten Commandments, when we remember that God took us out of Egypt, is the Shabbat of redemption. The account in this week’s parsha is the Shabbat of revelation. Why? Because Shabbat is called a “moed.” What is a “moed?” A “moed” means a meeting. Shabbat here is viewed as a time when we meet God. It is not about the past or the future. It is about the present.

Our holidays are all moadim. They are all times when we meet God not in space, but in time. There is no mention of aliya la’regel, of the pilgrimage to Jerusalem during the shalosh regalim in Parshat Emor, even though that is a significant aspect of holiday celebrations, because Parshat Emor is about the moed, meeting God at appointed times, not at appointed places. Why is Shabbat recorded here? I might have argued that Shabbat is all about the past, about creation of the world or redemption from Egypt, but here it is called a “moed.” Here we learn that Shabbat is about a rendezvous with God in the here and now.

Can a digital Shabbat succeed or is it doomed to failure? The author in the “Wired” magazine article explained why a digital Shabbat will fail, first because of a practical reason, that the observant Jewish Shabbat is celebrated within a community and it’s very hard to observe Shabbat alone week after week not in the context of the community. But then she writes that there is another reason why a digital Shabbat will fail, and that is because the focus of a secular Shabbat is the rest itself. She writes that rest “implies that decompression is the ultimate purpose of Shabbat, like a spiritually inflected massage… If Shabbat is for the sake of your own mental flourishing… you can cast nearly anything that makes you happy as what Jews call oneg Shabbat, in the spirit of the day, even if that thing—be it binge-watching TV, juggling multiple WhatsApp text chains, or diving into the recesses of Reddit—might make you psychically flabbier in the long-run.”

She points out that Shabbat cannot be secularized. Yes, Shabbat does allow us to decompress and detach, but that’s not why we do it. We do it because God told us to do so. It’s a covenant between us and God. Shabbat is when we surrender to God. It’s not merely about man-made mental health. This author here is describing the “moed” aspect of Shabbat, which doesn’t exist in a secular Shabbat. It is a transcendental feeling, that is impossible for secular Shabbat observers to experience, but it is also challenging for Shabbat observant Jews to experience.

Last Shabbat in one of our mental health sessions, we were discussing how to combat the OCD that some people feel when they don’t believe they experienced the mitzvah with its full intensity. Somebody suggested that maybe in response, we should only focus on the “maaseh mitzvah” and not the “kiyum hamitzvah,” that in Judaism we should only focus on whether we got the technicalities right and whether we checked the boxes in any given mitzvah? If we do stop focusing on the “kiyum hamitzvah,” the religious feelings that we experience when we observe mitzvot, then maybe that will help some people suffering from OCD. I explained to him afterwards that I thought that for some mitzvot, what is important is actually the “kiyum hamitzvah,” the inner subjective experience that we should feel when we observe the mitzvah and I believe that Shabbat is one such example. We may observe the technicalities of Shabbat, but if view it merely as a secular Shabbat, as a day of rest and relaxation because we need to decompress after a very stressful week, then I am afraid we will have missed out on the essence of this mitzvah.

As a shul Rabbi, I have jokingly told people that I observe the Christian Sabbath, which is Sunday, because Shabbat is probably my busiest day in the week so if I need to decompress. I do that on Sunday. But Shabbat should be a busy day for all of us, even for non-pulpit Rabbis, but it should be a busy day of being a “moed.” What does that look like? The Yerushalmi (Shabbat 15:3) writes that Shabbat and Yom Tov were given to the Jewish people only for Torah study. Rav Melamed, author of the famous Peninei Halacha sefarim, has written extensively about this, and he points out that, yes, there is a mitzvah of oneg Shabbat, of enjoying Shabbat with food and drink, because oneg Shabbat is a subtle mitzvah requiring a balance and integration of the body and the soul and when we successfully enjoy our meals together with significant Torah study we can truly achieve this beautiful balance. Our Sages state that Shabbat is “mai’ain olam haba,” a taste of the world to come, a time of “moed,” of connection with God.

At the end of the day, we all have a choice. We can view our Shabbat as a digital Shabbat, as a time of decompression, as a time of mindfulness, and as a time to focus on family and friends, and there’s value to that. We can view our Shabbat as a time to build our faith in God as our Creator and our Redeemer, and there’s value to that. But this week’s parsha tells us to value Shabbat as a “moed,” as well. May all of our behaviors on Shabbat, our commitment to tefillah b’tzibbur, our commitment to Torah study for us and for our children and the religious rituals that we create once every seven days, reflect this transcendental value.