The Sabbath: How We Help Each Other Slow Down

Wednesday, Sep 23

7:00pm – 8:30pm

Hosted by

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Reading: Heschel, The Sabbath, "Chapter 1: A Palace in Time"

Have you noticed how hard it is to slow down when the world around you keeps spinning faster and faster? In this Swedenborg Salon, we'll have a conversation about Shabbat, the Jewish practice of rest observed from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday. Shabbat has inspired practices well beyond Judaism, from the Christian custom of Sunday rest to the more recent rise of "tech sabbaths," in which people unplug for a full day. What gets lost when Shabbat is practiced outside its original context in Jewish community? And how might we recover sabbath as a communal practice, one made possible only when an entire community commits to it together? We'll hear from Ken Magid, a rabbinical student from Los Angeles, who will share his experience of practicing Shabbat in community and lead us through a discussion of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel's The Sabbath. We'll close by working together on a plan for our own sabbath practice. READING: Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Sabbath, "A Palace in Time" (1951). SPEAKER BIO: Ken Magid is a rabbinic student, Jewish educator, and communal leader in Los Angeles whose learning and teaching are rooted in Neo-Chassidic thought and the lived practice of Jewish ritual. He is especially interested in helping people encounter Jewish tradition as something spiritually alive, embodied, and communal, and in how practices of prayer, sacred time, and ritual can draw people into deeper relationship with Jewish life.