the day of rest...

Blog reader Tom sent in the following (unedited). Just wanted to share it. Such a spiritual insight.

I was at a friend's daughter's bat mitzvah this last weekend and the Rabbi, in trying to explain to a much of gentile 12 & 13 year old girls who were attending -- it is a birthday party after all -- why we were praising the Sabbath, gave this bit of insight. I'd never heard it before and it struck me as really interesting. I paraphrase his comments:

When we praise God, the word God, it comes from the German, Gott. But it's not a good translation of what is in the original Hebrew. The closest actual translation is "that which is eternal," or "that which always has been, is, and always will be." When Moses actually tried to name God, when the burning bush spoke to him, he asked, "what shall I call you?"

And the voice from the bush said, "I am that I am." In other words, there is no name. God is simply those eternal things which have always been and will always be.

Sabbath is the day that we reconnect to these things. WE put aside worrying about those things that will be tomorrow. We stop thinking about those things that happened yesterday.

We take a moment and reconnect. We relax. Maybe we go for a bike ride. We spend time with our family. And we re-discover the eternal things and rejoice in them.

In listening to the Rabbi speak, I realized how my weekends, my Sabbath,have become yet another workday, only with different kinds of work.

I stopped. I spent the rest of the Saturday with my parents, and then with my sister and brother-in-law. I met my girl-friend in the evening. Sunday was similarly relaxed. It was lovely. I didn't turn on a computer all weekend.

Today I showed up at work rested and relaxed for the first time since I can remember. I am now reorganizing my calendar so that I can keep the commandment to have one day of Sabbath. It's a challenge. Yet the rewards are astounding.