Counting to Shabbat Shalom

The first commandment given to individuals is “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and master it.” (Genesis 1) And the first mitzvah given to the Jewish people is “This month shall mark for you the beginning of the months; it shall be the first of the months of the year for you.” (Exodus 12)

To be a Jew is to count time. We are to mark the holidays. This is what makes us free.

The sixteenth century commentator, Obadiah ben Jacob Sforno, expands on the commandment’s meaning and imagines God adding, “From now on these months will be yours, to do with as you like. This is by way of contrast to the years when you were enslaved when you had no control over your time at all. While you were enslaved, your days, hours, minutes, were always at the beck and call of your taskmasters.”

It is a blessing to count the days toward Shabbat. It is a privilege to measure the passage of years by the holidays. And yet how often do we complain about time. We never seem to have enough time to get everything done on our to do lists.

Think of how harried our days feel as we prepare for a vacation. Recall how all-consuming those tasks feel in the weeks prior to our children leaving for sleep away camp. And yet even during these busiest of days, or for that matter the most ordinary of weeks, Shabbat arrives. We then let go.

We break free from these to do lists. We are free. We are blessed. We are fortunate enough to take a day of rest when we look away from work’s claim on our lives. We free ourselves from being slaves to time.

Rabbi Larry Kushner writes:

Now obviously no one can ever complete all the little tasks. Sooner or later, as the vacation departure clock ticks down, we decree arbitrarily that whether or not they are done, we are done. We renounce their claims on us. To do so requires great spiritual self-control. Well, it is like that with the Day of Being too. Every seventh day we clear off our desks. Of course we are not finished. And from the looks of the world, hopefully God isn’t finished either. (The Book of Words)

As Shabbat fades and the sun sets on Saturday evening, we begin our counting toward the next seventh day. We look forward to Shabbat. We will once again mark our freedom from the myriad of unfinished tasks that have their hold on the other six days.

We taste perfection. We embrace the momentary liberation of having no tasks, and the respite from to do lists. We relish in the privilege of shouting blessings to God and offering thanks for our people’s obligations.

We are free.

We continue counting toward the completeness that is embodied in the simplest and most profound of greetings, “Shabbat shalom.”