Momentum, Inertia and the Less Often Discussed Benefits of Shabbat

This past Friday evening I arrived at the Shabbat table with reluctance.

“I wish I could have a whole nother week before Shabbat,” I said.

It was painful to pull myself away from my work. The wheels in my brain were spinning 100 miles an hour: possibilities, ideas, meetings to schedule, visions to execute on. I didn’t want to stop.

This experience isn’t new. I remember struggling to power down my phone as a teenager, racing to get out my last few messages as the window of time slowly closed in.

Thankfully, most Fridays I successfully power down the apparatus of my work and settle into the bliss that Shabbat often brings: laughter, smiles, silence, and connection.

Ironically, I generally enjoy Shabbat so much that come Sunday evening I am as reluctant to power back on as I was to shut down.

The experience speaks to the immense power of momentum and inertia, namely that it requires force to get a moving object- or an active mind- to stop and yet more force to get it moving again.

When viewed through this lens, we can understand the unique challenge and benefit of the practice of Shabbat.

What we are being asked to do by “rest” is in fact an extraordinary challenge. We are being asked to be able to power down, and start back up on demand. So that at the snap of a finger, we are able to drag the freight train that is our minds to a stop, and at a subsequent snap to lug the train back to motion.

The benefits of this particular aspect of the practice of Shabbat can be noticed experientially, but I think will become more impactful after being brought to our conscious attention.

Firstly, we are being trained to develop an incredible agility between two parts of our brain, the part responsible for toil and that part responsible for enjoyment. This will give us the dexterity to enjoy our lives with a far greater capacity and the strength to restart even when our momentum is lost.

I also find that those aspects of our work- ideas, relationships etc- that cannot survive a haultage in our momentum are often ill fated ideas that are best let die. The analogy of a computer is apt here. As far as I can understand, we are instructed to shut down our computers each evenings (yes, you should do this) , in part to give them the opportunity to rest, but also because over time they begin to run particular bits of program that slows it down in the long term, loops that drain it of its energy and are not core to its performance.

In the same way, without rest we would find ourselves looping on ideas born of a strung out mind. I often return to work Monday morning with a shifted perspective. A perspective that disregards many of my Friday ideas as trivial or ungrounded and has its own capacity for creativity that is closer to my core values.

So the next time you are struggling to shut down on Friday, or reluctant to power back on Monday, recognize that this challenge is precisely that which will allow us to reap the fruits of our incredible Shabbat.

-Shabbat Shalom