Now More than Ever

March 6, 2026

During the pandemic, there were a few phrases that became ubiquitous. Social distancing, flatten the curve, essential worker. In my line of work, the phrase that everyone seemed to use was “now more than ever.” We need our community now more than ever. We need prayer and ritual now more than ever. We need our relationships now more than ever. We need your financial support now more than ever. The phrase conveyed that we were living through an extraordinary time, a time when everything we had taken for granted seemed to be on the verge of disappearance. There was an urgency to the phrase, meant to spur people to act now, whether it was to show up for a Zoom class or service, or donate funds to keep people and organizations afloat. As the pandemic wore on, the phrase gradually lost popularity. The unprecedented had become familiar, the unthinkable our new normal. 

The pandemic has, thankfully, abated, but our country and our world don’t seem to have gone back to any semblance of normality.  Just checking the news in the morning is an act of courage. Every day brings a new crisis, a new outrage, a new war. We have been cursed to live in interesting times. We need every tool in our toolbox to cope with these times and to do what we can to bring an end, or at least a pause, to the chaos. And one of our most powerful tools is Shabbat. So I say, we need Shabbat, now more than ever.

Shabbat is often called one of Judaism’s greatest gifts to humanity. The Israelites were the first people to mandate a sacred day of rest every week, something unheard of in the ancient world. It is said that the Romans thought Jews were lazy because they only worked six days a week. Especially after the destruction of the Temple, Shabbat became one of the most important Jewish practices. The Jewish people no longer had a holy place, but we still had holy time.

Shabbat contains within it several vital, and even some radical, ideas. The first idea is that rest itself is divine – God rested, and therefore so should we. The commandment to keep Shabbat found in Exodus says, “...Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath of the ETERNAL your God… For in six days GOD made heaven and earth and sea—and all that is in them—and then rested on the seventh day; therefore GOD blessed the sabbath day and hallowed it” (Ex. 20:8-11). If you’re troubled by the notion that an omnipotent, incorporeal God would get tired and need to rest, the Sages have an answer for you. The Midrash teaches, “If He, who is not subject to weariness, writes of Himself that He created the world in six days and rested on the seventh, then a person, of whom it is written (Job 5:7) ‘Man is born for toil,’ how much more so (should he rest)!” Rest is such a great, holy thing that even God, who doesn’t really need it, does it. In a world that values productivity and achievement above nearly everything, the notion that rest itself is divine is truly radical.

Another revolutionary idea that Shabbat gives us is that of equality. The version of the Shabbat commandment in Deuteronomy explains, “The seventh day is a sabbath of the ETERNAL your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your ox or your donkey, or any of your cattle, or the stranger in your settlements, so that your male and female slave may rest as you do. Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt and the ETERNAL your God freed you from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore the ETERNAL your God has commanded you to observe the sabbath day” (Deut. 5:14-15). By connecting the sabbath to the story of the Exodus, Shabbat becomes an act of freedom and equality. The Israelites affirm that they are no longer slaves. And everyone in the community, even the Israelites’ slaves, get to rest. On Shabbat, everyone is free.

The third idea is that Shabbat connects us to God and to the Jewish people of the past, present, and future. As we read tonight, “The Israelite people shall keep the sabbath, observing the sabbath throughout the ages as a covenant for all time: it shall be a sign for all time between Me and the people of Israel” (Ex. 31:16-17). Shabbat is our ot, a symbol of our covenant with God. By observing Shabbat, we ensure that the covenant endures in the future. As the Zionist writer Ahad Ha’Am famously said, “More than Jews have kept Shabbat, Shabbat has kept the Jews.” 

And fourth, Shabbat has the power to effect tikkun, repair and healing. Our Torah portion this week includes the episode of the Golden Calf, the Israelites’ greatest sin and a moment of rupture and crisis for the community. Interestingly, the episode is bracketed on both sides with the command to keep Shabbat. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks explains, “Shabbat is the antidote to the Golden Calf because it is the day when we stop thinking of the price of things and focus instead on the value of things. On Shabbat we can’t sell or buy. We can’t work or pay others to work for us. It’s the day dedicated to the celebration of the things that have value but no price.” Or as Bible scholar Amy Kalmanofsky writes, “The sin of the golden calf and its aftermath rests between the laws of rest. Why? Why is this shameful story framed by the laws of Shabbat?... I see sacred time, Shabbat observance, as a means to contain the sin. The Torah frames Israel’s sin in this way to convey how Shabbat can protect us from our basest selves and comfort us when we are our basest selves. Even when we behave terribly, as Israel did with the golden calf, Shabbat reminds us of God’s holiness and our holiness. It is a sign of who we can be.” 

V’shamru ends with the curious phrase, “וּבַיּוֹם֙ הַשְּׁבִיעִ֔י שָׁבַ֖ת וַיִּנָּפַֽשׁ” And on the seventh day [God] ceased and was refreshed.” The word for “refreshed,” vayinafash, comes from the root “nefesh” or “soul.” So it could be translated as “God ceased and was en-souled” or maybe “re-souled.” Just as God reconnects with God’s own nefesh on Shabbat, so do we get our souls back on Shabbat. No matter how soul-sucking or soul-crushing the world is, Shabbat gives us a weekly opportunity for healing and restoration. On Shabbat, we might choose to free ourselves from the tyranny of the smartphone and maybe turn it off for a little while. On Shabbat, we might choose not to read every bit of bad news, trusting that it will still be there for us to catch up on tomorrow. On Shabbat, we might try to stop worrying about the state of our nation and our world, knowing that only by resting will we have the energy to keep fighting once Shabbat is over. On Shabbat, we might tend to our souls, focusing on the people and activities that bring us meaning and joy. “More than Jews have kept Shabbat, Shabbat has kept the Jews.” Now more than ever.

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1. Mekhilta de Rabbi Yishmael Bachodesh 7:18.

2. 2. Ki Tisa, Shabbat and the Golden Calf; Reflections on the Great Crash of 2008

3.  https://www.jtsa.edu/torah/kept-by-shabbat-2/