What Shabbat Teaches us About Jewish Vacation

The Jewish view of time is that it is our most precious commodity. We are enjoined to maximize every moment to its fullest; hayom katzar, ve’hamlacha merubah¹. The day is short, the work is plenty. What is the Jewish attitude towards vacation? What are the landing pads of rest that Hashem gifted us with, and what do they teach us about the need to rest and recoup?

The most obvious instance is in the second chapter of the Bereishit: Hashem blessed the seventh day and sanctified it because in it he abstained from all His work². The root word shuv, meaning abstain or rest, is also used to mean sitting, as well as returning. What is the nature of this rest?

It certainly isn’t about physical rest. Rabbi Mordechai Becher tells of how he was once staying at a hotel on Shabbat, with a room on the 70th floor. He opted not to use the leniency of the Shabbat elevator, where the mechanism is auto-operated and no direct desecration occurs, instead choosing to climb all the stairs by foot. As he tells the story, somewhere near the upper levels, huffing and puffing, he met a custodian, who looked strangely at him. “You don’t understand,” he defended himself, panting. “It’s our day of rest!”

So what is our day of rest really about? What do the 39 forbidden tasks instruct us to desist from? The key lies in the preceding verse to the one cited above, and the beginning of the Friday night kiddush: Vei’chilu hashamayim ve’haaretz v’chol tzva’am – and the heaven and earth were completed, and all their array. Shabbat was a cessation of the work of creation; it was – and is – about resisting from bringing new additions to the world. With Shabbat, the world was complete.

This rest is not physical, but psychological, spiritual. It’s less about how many calories are exerted and more about where the mind is: planning, creating, and generating are the mode and mindset of the weekday. Shabbat is for stilling the mind and distilling it of the everyday to-do and hullabaloo. All week we do work: Shabbat we just exist in the space we created and furnished. 

So do we stop taking time seriously? Do we not try to maximize every minute with mitzvot? 

In Mesilat Yesharim, Ramchal outlines how to acquire zehirut, the trait of being vigilant and meticulous in one’s observance. The path, he says, is through hitbonenut, contemplation. The way to achieve more meticulous observance is to set aside time to focus, to review and reconnect to the bigger picture. This time is handed to us with Shabbat.

Shabbat is the soul where the week is the body. Shabbat is the product where the week is the process. It is m’ein olam haba, a taste of the next world, where there is never any movement anywhere, because there is nowhere to go. It is the place to be, the ultimate state of arrival. You have earned your rightful place, just as it is on Shabbat. Mi shetorech b’erev Shabbat, yochel b’Shabbat³. He who prepares before Shabbat, eats on Shabbat.

This phase is necessary for continued and inspired growth. No journey can continue for long stretches of time without a period of rest, to gather further energy and to check one’s compass for direction. Every path has curves and pivots, points at which to look back, look forward, and remember the meaning of the journey altogether.

Taking a break Jewishly is not about waiting for summer break to finally strike so we can let go of our duties for a couple days or weeks. We are working toward building something each day, investing and working toward becoming the people we want to be. Whether it is in relationships, in the workplace, in our studying environments or at home, we are cultivating and creating worlds of greatness with every choice we make.

Let’s recap. The rest of Shabbat is earned by six days of work and preparation; only what was invested can be reaped. It is not a day of complacency, but a vital opportunity to focus on the inner world of spirit and connection. It is the point of arrival, where we get a taste of the joy of a completed process, a journey weathered, and a space to refocus our energies and strategies for the battles yet ahead.

Taking a break Jewishly is not about waiting for summer break to finally strike so we can let go of our duties for a couple days or weeks. We are working toward building something each day, investing and working toward becoming the people we want to be. Whether it is in relationships, in the workplace, in our studying environments or at home, we are cultivating and creating worlds of greatness with every choice we make.

When the opportunity for vacation arrives, we should be lugging sackfuls of meaningful days and weeks to be sorted out and thought through. In this way, vacation is not a shameful abdication of responsibility, nor a craving borne of laziness. It serves the legitimate, necessary, and noble need to recap, review, reset. After all, there is much more journey ahead. 

In a letter from the Chazon Ish, the great sage discussed the phenomenon of bein hazmanim, the few-weeks break between semesters of the Yeshiva calendar. We do not, unfortunately, know the content of the private letter initially sent to the Chazon Ish, although we can gather that the writer was someone fully invested in Torah. But his letter in reply is illuminating. 

“There is no sin or guilt in resting when one is exhausted.” He writes. “Eat well, sleep well, go on trips, engage in recreational activities.”⁴ He refers to a Torah question the letter writer included, saying he will not respond to it because of the necessity of letting the mind take a break. He also writes that the need for a break after intensive work is a working of nature, “which is just the will of Hashem manifest, and we should not fight Hashem’s will.”

The natural world requires sleep, rest, cycles of on-off-on again. Let’s embrace these opportunities, to review, reconnect, reenergize and refuel for all the intense investments we land throughout the year.

1. Pirkei Avot 2:15 ↩︎
2. Bereishit 2:3, translation by Artscroll ↩︎
3. Avodah Zara 3a ↩︎
4. Kovetz Igros Chazon Ish, Letter #35 ↩︎