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Slowing Down: Shabbat and Environmental Awareness


This resource is part of Canfei Nesharim’s Year of Jewish Learning on the Environment, in partnership with Jewcology.com, with support from the ROI Community, a community of young Jewish innovators founded by Lynn Schusterman, and the Shedlin Outreach Foundation.

In modern society, we are running, speaking, and thinking at an exceptional rate. Oftentimes we continue all week long without slowing down. We can get so caught up in the doing that we could spend our whole lives on the go. If being too busy is a malady of modern man, slowing down on Shabbat may be a key remedy.

Summary:

The Torah teaches, «These are the things that the Divine commanded to make. Six days work may be done, but on the seventh day you shall have sanctity, a day of complete rest to G-d…» Achieving sanctity and complete rest is the stated goal of Shabbat. Every week, Shabbat gives us an opportunity to check in with ourselves about how we are being. And Shabbat can remind us that we are first and foremost human beings, not just human doers.

Yet how can this happen? One key source may provide instruction to help us find spirituality and uplift our relationship to the created world.

Learn this topic:

Rabbi Yona Metzger, Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi of Israel, on Shabbat and Environmental Awareness