"Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy"

 

The Fourth Commandment makes no reference to our mindless scrolling addiction or to our screen-glued eyes, but it does hint at a message that we all sometimes need to hear. Take a break.  

 

“Six days shall you labour, and do all your work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD your G-d: in it you shall not do any work,”

 

No work?

 

Clearly the Old Testament was written before today’s workaholism culture was born, and surely BTE (Before Twitter Era). But maybe we can learn a lesson from the seemingly outdated laws of the Old Testament. Maybe it's possible to find a way to use faith-based principles, like the Fourth Commandment, to strengthen our relationship with the secular, ultra-connected world we live in. 

 

It’s hard admitting defeat, but it has become very obvious that we have all lost to our smartphones. They’ve captured our conversations, slowed our attention, and provided us with instant gratification in exchange for long-term anxiety. They’ve stolen our time—over four hours of the average American’s day, to be exact—and shaped modern communication, for better or for worse. The saving grace to the horrors of today’s tech dependency is that the problem doesn’t lie within the user. Cellphones are designed to be addictive. And if that’s the design goal, Silicon Valley is kicking ass.

 

So how do we cope with the inherently addictive nature of modern tech? Is it possible for us to unplug in a world where our social lives revolve around cellphones? And if it is possible, is it necessary?

 

If I could, I would probably become a Shabbat activist—a preacher, if you will. This isn’t me trying to guilt others into adopting higher levels of religious observance, or me trying to convince others to convert to Judaism, for that matter. You do you. But can you imagine a world where everyone just relaxed on Saturdays? A world where your boss is forbidden from emailing you, procrastinating homework is admired, and sitting on your couch is the ultimate mitzvah (for those who don’t know, a mitzvah is a religious commandment). 

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I have not always been one to glorify the perks of adhering to the Fourth Commandment.  In fact, when I discovered that my freshman year roommate was an observant Jew, I panicked at the thought of living with someone who disconnected from technology on Saturdays. It was not until I tried it myself, three years after living in our 10 by 10 dorm room, that I understood the modern appeal.

 

My freshman year roommate’s name is Lauren, but she goes by LT. LT and I both attended Jewish day schools and were connected to each other through various mutual friends, despite her being a grade above me. During my senior year of high school, LT was studying Jewish law at a learning institution in Israel called a seminary. I heard, through the grape vine, that she was becoming more religious, but I seriously prayed for it to just be a phase. It wasn’t a phase.

 

Despite my apprehensions, it took about 12 minutes before LT and I became best friends. And part of my role as BFF was also being her Shabbos goy. A Shabbos goy is technically defined as a non-Jew who performs forbidden tasks for observant Jews on the Sabbath, like pressing an elevator button or turning on the lights—but we use the term more lightly. In our case, I’d straighten her hair in exchange for her doing my makeup. I also became both of our social coordinators on Saturdays, as she was disconnected, and falling behind on the freshman frenzy to make friends simply was not an option.

 

While I served the role of LT’s Shabbos goy, Rachel was LT’s Shabbos buddy. Like most connections made through Jewish geography, Rachel and I had known each other for about eight years before actually meeting in college. We took a freshman-year seminar on Yiddish Love Stories together and the rest is history.

 

Anyways, Rachel deserves a gold medal for all of the times she kept Lauren company freshman year when I was too “busy” to attend whatever Jewish event was taking place on campus. This primarily manifested itself through Friday night dinners and Saturday lunches at the Jewish Resource Center—a place at which I used to have a pretty bad attendance record at, that I now go to religiously. Rachel defines herself as Modern Orthodox Light. She’ll happily use her phone on Shabbat but refuses to enter a car or spend money. This allowed for an effective system. I could communicate with Rachel about when the Shabbos meal was finished without having to actually attend the Shabbos meal.

 

But over the course of the past few years, Lauren’s Shabbos buddy has blossomed into a Shabbos crew. Lauren, Rachel and I became part of a larger group of girls that quickly and effortlessly banded together. The ten of us found each other very early on in our college careers and have stuck together ever since. Despite coming from a (somewhat) wide range of religious backgrounds, we’ve adopted a relatively syncretic perspective on the Sabbath. The "somewhat" is a necessary distinction because all my friends are Jewish, but most never had their own Shabbat experiences before coming to college. Nonetheless, they’ve all welcomed our strict interpretation of the Torah with open arms. If someone has to walk, all nine will volunteer to come with. Going for dinner on a Saturday night? Someone’s already checked to see what time Shabbat ends to make sure everyone can go. This type of mentality has fostered an environment that encourages religious growth, and subsequently allows all who are present to experience the benefits (or drawbacks) of the Sabbath whether or not one is personally adhering to it.

 

We like to melt our brains on Saturdays. By 4 PM, most of us are huddled around the couch, still in pajamas, picking apart the final remnants of the homemade challah we defrosted from the night before. We’ve been debating playing Bananagrams for about an hour now, but no one can muster the strength to leave the couch (and frankly, no one wants to disrupt this vibe). Somehow we haven’t run out of things to talk about, and the debate over potato versus noodle kugel is just starting to heat up. There’s nothing particularly religious about this. Granted, a few of us are disconnected from technology, which naturally has a domino effect in a group setting. But the value of this time spent together goes beyond the letter of the law. The spirit of the Sabbath has non-religious perks.

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Despite a plethora of laws regulating what you can and can’t do on Shabbat, nowhere does it say you have to spend quality time with the people you love. That part of the day—which is one of the most important parts, if not the most important part, remains within the spirit of the Sabbath, separate from the religious realm of this holy day. The communal aspect of Shabbat is what ensures we spend the day together, relying on each other as opposed to material objects. Enjoying the Sabbath is not exclusive to those who observe its laws. 

 

So when five of us (including me, Rachel, and LT) decided to study abroad together in Florence, it became clear that weekends exploring Europe would have certain elements of the Sabbath engrained in the itinerary. The world was our oyster—as long as it was within walking distance. In many ways, we had all been following parts of Shabbat without ever consciously choosing to do so—on a personal or religious level. That was, until, Lisbon.

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On March 23, 2018, at 6:33 PM in a Forever 21 store in Lisbon, Portugal, my fingers slid against the dubious    iPhone message asking whether I really wanted to power off my device. My fingers were two steps ahead of my mind, which was more focused on the sweatpants I was about to purchase than the actual decision I was making to disconnect from technology. Ironically, I broke Shabbos the second I decided to keep it when I chose to buy those sweats.

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In typical fashion, one of my friends shouted, “Shabbos is starting!” to alert LT it was time for her to turn off her phone. While Shabbat reminders are standard fare in my circle, this one felt different—I felt eager to disconnect myself.

 

I distinctly remember that night, walking to Forever 21. I remember admiring every crevice and cranny of that city’s cool grey cobblestone floor. Each step felt like its own adventure, as though I was walking atop an intricate work of art, disguised through the composition of a sidewalk. Every 20 steps or so, a new design would appear. The cool grey stones would suddenly be contrasted by faded white bricks, offering a glimpse into that neighborhood’s unique personality. Falling in love with these streets was easy.

 

Sundown was approaching, evident by the sky’s transition into a radiant, neon-like indigo. The sky was becoming progressively darker along the route, but the beaming street lights hanging along the buildings’ facades were fighting in favor of the floor’s attention. The cobblestone took on an entirely new life, lit up by the reflected aura from the lighting above.

 

Looking back on this walk, I wondered why I had such a distinct memory of the pavement. Why could I only remember what the floor looked like? How could my brain have two completely different perceptions of this city, all encoded within one long walk from the restaurant to our AirBnB, with one stop at Forever 21.

 

See, Forever 21 was a critical part of this night, because after stepping foot in that store, I would no longer have the responsibility of navigating Google Maps. As much as my eyes were enamored by the pavement, there was an entire city to be looked at, that lived above street level. I wanted to see it all, to feel it all—to be in the moment. The only thing I craved that night was the people I was with and the place I was in. I lost interest in my phone.

 

A burst of energy ran through my blood immediately after my finger slid along the glowing red banner that occasionally appears on the iPhone screen—signaling the start to a 25 hour, well-deserved cellular breakup. I felt a sense of wonder and awe for the world around me, a feeling that brought me back to being a child in a playground, admiring the beauty and grace contained within every inch of my surroundings. Walking home from Forever 21 was the start of a really great journey—one that’s taught me the value in disconnecting, and reminded me of the mysteriousness of our world’s creation.

 

I remember smiling so hard on that walk that it made my cheeks hurt. I was starting to notice things I was previously blind to, like the bouts of graffiti painted on the brick walls, the historic and massive cathedrals readily available in eye’s distance, and the luminous shades and shadows defining the city’s Neo-gothic architecture. We walked at a rather slow pace, taking the time to climb up and down the hilly foundations of the city—pausing sporadically to explicitly honor the city’s charm. I felt more present than ever.

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While I hadn’t pre-planned turning off my phone, I have always had a love-hate relationship with it. I am convinced that the smartphone has plagued an entire generation with its addictive design and attention-craving characteristics. Two can connect within seconds, but two can also find themselves sitting at a table, glued to their screens and stripped of a schmooze. And if you know me, you know how much I value a good schmooze.

 

So maybe the decision to turn off my phone was spontaneous, but I have definitely spent years of my life fearing the crippling power of our devices. I have also admittedly spent years of my life searching for ways to put my spiritual connection into practice, without violating the social norms of my people.

 

I continued turning off my phone for the rest of my weekends studying abroad. They all sort of blend together besides for this one weekend in Dubrovnik where Rachel stepped on a sea urchin (80 pricks, to be specific) and I was sent to go buy rubbing alcohol. There was only one store in Dubrovnik that sold the product. With three minutes to spare before sundown, I set out to find a store eleven minutes away. So I took a final glance at Google Maps and trusted my directionally challenged instincts, only to enter every storefront in a panic hoping it would be the one. I came back empty handed, just to find Rachel with said product.

 

Rachel: “Why didn’t you pick up your phone?! I thought you were kidnapped!”

Hayley: “How did you get the rubbing alcohol?! You can’t walk!”

Rachel: “Holy s***t. I forgot you turn off your phone now.”

 

While my friends were a little forgetful, my family back home was left out of the know. And this continued when my time abroad came to an end.

 

For most of the summer I was able to sneak around without a phone and get away with the “whoops, I just saw this” text. I would also time my commute from my internship to my beach house—down to the minute—so that my travel plans would not interfere with Shabbat. This wasn’t because I decided that I would, under no circumstances, be in a moving vehicle. But if I could avoid traveling, I would. And this was pretty doable considering that my beach house is located on Fire Island, where bikes are the only form of transportation.

 

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I was an undercover Sabbath observer for the first four months of adherence. Only those that I was physically studying abroad with knew my secret. This was, in part, because the Jewish community I stem from has a very specific religious branding. My family is traditionally Jewish, meaning we celebrate Shabbat through elaborate Friday night dinners where we devour kugel and gefilte fish before sitting on the couch to watch Borat. If you don’t attend Shabbat dinner, you’re considered OTD (Off The Derech – an expression for someone who has lost their religious path). But if you choose to actually observe the Sabbath, you’ve gone a little too far. In fear of being judged for shutting off my phone, I kept it to myself—a decision I now regret, but at the time felt right.  

 

One of the reasons I was reluctant to tell those I love that I consistently turned my phone off was because I feared they would view me as too religious. Because, at the time, this really was a secular(ish) choice I was making. I’d be lying if I said it was entirely secular, but I’d also be lying if I said it was entirely religious. The secular aspects can be more universally understood than the religious ones. The secular element of it was wanting to be in the present, feeling like I had enough phone time during the other six days of the week, and finding ways to relax entirely without having any sense of guilt for the lack of action. For example, when I first came home from abroad, I would occasionally turn on my cellphone just to listen to music while exercising on Shabbat. Eventually I realized that breaking Shabbat to do something on a Saturday, that I didn’t want to be doing, was not worth it. I cared way more about adhering to Judaism than I cared about that workout—or any excuse to use my phone, for that matter.

 

Recognizing this moral opposition to using my phone on the Sabbath made me realize that there was more of a religious element to this than I had originally thought. The religious aspect started becoming integrated and inseparable from the secular. 

 

The religious component was more of an internally felt, highly personal experience. In many ways, building a relationship with religion was like building a relationship with myself. I trusted that how I was restricting myself was helping me. I wanted these limitations and found a way to deeply appreciate them. I believed that what I was doing was better for me, and maybe even for some higher power. The spiritual and religious aspect of the Sabbath is nuanced and challenging but also rewarding and beautiful. There's never been a verbal confirmation or visual cue that told me to keep going, but I did develop an internal feeling along the way, that something about this was right, and that it was being noticed or felt by something greater than what exists in the material world. But the religious path of this journey has been more subtle and continuous than the secular component—constantly evolving and adapting with every additional Shabbos observed.

 

It’s not like I had some religious awakening in Lisbon where I heard a voice coming from the clouds telling me to turn off my phone. I’ve always felt spiritually connected but was never part of a community where keeping Shabbat was normal. I attended a Jewish day school where more people ate treif than believed in G-d. Both my school and my family have been successful in breeding a homogenous Jew—one that deeply values the community but is able to look past the religious laws. So the decision to keep Shabbat in secret can most truthfully be explained by the fact that I was embarrassed. I wanted to hide the fact that I no longer fit into their mold—that I was going in a direction opposite to my roots. 

 

I guess that’s why I started this experiment while I was studying abroad. In a time when most people rebel against their parents by getting nose piercings, I rebelled by keeping Shabbat. I used the 3,371 miles of distance to test out a more religiously observant lifestyle. Studying abroad provides a path of exploration, discovery, and freedom. It was the peak time in my life to test out the waters of something that I would not have done in my natural habitat. It was exciting and scary all at the same time. Exciting, because I found something that I really loved. Scary, because I knew I would soon need to bring Shabbat home with me.

 

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Eventually, I had no other option but to tell my parents. After taking the ferry to get to my beach house and starting to unpack all of the food for the weekend, I realized I left my bag somewhere along the journey. This sort of drove me into a panic because it had all my personal belongings in it, including my laptop and cellphone—and ultimately, my secret. See, as paradisal as Fire Island is, it is horrible to get to. At this point, we had already driven two hours, just to take a ferry that dropped us off in the town next to ours, because we missed the ferry that was going to our town while sitting in traffic. We were completely and utterly exhausted. So when I said that I lost my bag (and subsequently failed to take action to find it) no one was amused.

 

“Why are you just standing around? Call the ferry company and see if you left it there” my mom said agitatedly. “I can’t” I yelled. “What do you mean you can’t? This is your bag, you need to take care of it.” “I’m not using my phone” I spat out frantically, hoping no one would hear. “On Shabbat—" I paused. "I stopped using my phone on Shabbat.” 

 

Everything stopped. For a second—which felt like a minute—all movement in the room became stiff. My dad’s eyebrows pushed together, as his eyes squinted, and forehead wrinkled. He looked at me with disbelief, as though he had to do a double-take to make sure that I was, in fact, his child. “Since when?” my mom asked. “Abroad,” I murmured. “Well, why didn’t you just tell us?” I could hear her disappointment.

 

This was the first thing I had hidden from my parents since a party I lied about going to in high school. See, this is where I went wrong in my journey. The whole point of me keeping Shabbat was to be and feel closer to those around me. Keeping my family out of the know went against that goal.

 

But before the conversation could continue, my dad was already getting on a bike to ride to the ferry station. I, obviously, was obligated to join him. The bag was sitting there, untouched. And the conversation resumed the next day.

 

Their initial shock and seeming dissatisfaction disintegrated throughout the day. They started to realize that they would be reaping some benefits from their new Shabbos-keeping-daughter. They had my undivided attention. I couldn’t check my phone during meals because I wasn’t using it. And I relied on them for all entertainment because I couldn’t power on the TV or make plans with anyone else besides for the two of them. They had a good gig.

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“So, do you like, believe in G-d now?” my mom asked. “Totally cool if you do” my dad uttered, making sure to keep their support explicit. My feelings towards G-d have moved in a pretty synchronic fashion aligned with my level of religious adherence. The more I have adhered to, the closer I have felt to G-d, and Judaism altogether. Others have described this journey as faking it til I make it. But I think of it more as don’t knock it ‘til you try it. Anyways, when asked this question I quickly shrugged it off and explained my decision to turn off my phone as a way of reducing screen time, which it was, but it also had hints of religion packed into it.

 

Eventually I started gravitating towards a higher level of religious understanding and valued the concepts associated with stricter observance—like being in one physical place for the entirety of the Shabbos, or taking a day to not spend any money. I became accustomed to having a concrete end and start to my week, marked by a physical change in my behavior. And the more changes that I made in my behavior, the more meaning I began to attribute to this day of rest. It also became clear to me, through these self-imposed restrictions, how excessive life is. Why do I need to _______ [insert any activity] all seven days of the week, when I can do so for six? I started to understand why Shabbat was not only a gift but a necessary part of my week in order to survive.

 

This value and appreciation for Shabbat came alongside feelings of guilt for breaking certain rules that I hadn’t been following. An example of this is the microwave. I never really decided that I was going to stop using the microwave on Shabbat, but then I started to try to avoid it. And when I wouldn’t avoid it and would heat up my food, I wouldn’t really enjoy the food I was eating. The food tasted better when it wasn’t served with a side of guilt.

 

These feelings of guilt partially emerged because I was able to recognize how much of a fulfilling part of my life Shabbat had become. If turning off my phone was giving me so much joy, why should I not be following the other rules? But it was also because I started feeling like if someone or something from thousands of years ago was so confident that this day of rest was so important, and it is, then I believe in that being. In other words, I started believing in G-d.

 

This heightened sense of belief is still something I wrestle with on a daily basis but have become more comfortable with as I have spent more time following Judaism more strictly. Once I started my senior year at Michigan, I started observing Shabbat more closely, beyond disconnecting from my phone and hoping to not enter a vehicle. I’m still trying to figure out exactly where I want to stand and what I want to do, but as of now I won’t use any technology, transportation, or transfers of money. I’ve discovered that the rule of “sometimes less is more” holds truth in our material relationship with the world. In a certain sense, Shabbat has taught me what it feels like to be spiritually amazed. And this recognition of how we can celebrate time, by marking one day as different from the others, has undoubtedly brought me closer to this higher power we call G-d.

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Of course, with any major adjustments of behavior and belief, there are certain aspects that are initially intimidating. It can feel very challenging—arguably impossible—to not pick up a pencil on a week where you have a major exam coming up. Coming to terms with not doing work when you feel like you are drowning in it, is something that requires us to go against natural human instincts for the sake of something greater. I broke Shabbat several months ago when I was placed in this position. I convinced myself that it was a tug of war between my midterm grade and the Sabbath—only one could win. Boy was I wrong.

 

I found myself buried in hundreds of pre-printed pages, fighting an urge to pick up the conveniently placed pencil, which was resting in its invisible (and seemingly impenetrable) Shabbos barrier. In preparation for Monday’s midterm, I printed out any and every document that could be considered hypothetically helpful before sundown on Friday. The final moments before Shabbat started felt like an episode of MasterChef. I had eight seconds left to plate and serve my food, except my food was still in the oven. And my food was actually just a study guide that I had not yet written.

 

I felt particularly threatened by this exam. Maybe it was because of the superfluous information I had to memorize, but also because it was the first time I felt like Shabbat was jeopardizing something that I cared about; my grade. So I promised myself that if I were not going to use my computer on this very important Saturday, I would overcompensate by following all parts of the commandment. Even the parts I hadn’t necessarily been adhering to at the time—which included, but was not limited to, writing. Midway through that Saturday, at around 2 PM, I decided to break that Shabbos barrier and pick up the pencil. I caved. 

 

I still feel guilty about this, but not for choosing to use the pencil. Something inside of me was wrestling with another part of myself. It felt like I had to determine, then and there, which was more important: my religious faith or my academic success—as though the two could not thrive simultaneously. That’s where I fooled myself.

 

Had I just waited for Shabbat to end to start studying, I would’ve felt recharged, reset and eager to get to the library. Instead, the transition from Shabbat to normal life felt static. I was still stuck in that uncomfortable chair, scribbling notes with the same pencil I had been using for the last four hours. I failed to recognize Shabbat as a day distinct from all other days. This wasn’t a result of the physical act of writing, but rather a result of failing to create Shabbat as “a foretaste of paradise.”

 

In the words of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, “the question is how to perceive that holiness: not how much to observe, but how to observe. Strict adherence to the laws regulating Sabbath observance doesn’t suffice; the goal is creating the Sabbath as a foretaste of paradise.” The spirit of the Sabbath is just as important, if not more important, than the actual laws associated with the day.

 

By sacrificing my religious values for the sake of an exam, I was reminded of the very reason for adhering in the first place. Observing the Sabbath allows us to excel in the other aspects of our life. It protects us from the burnout effect—providing us with a sigh of relief amidst stressful days of studying. It challenges us to focus on building relationships with those we are physically surrounded by—not through a phone, but through active listening. It encourages us to explore the world using our feet, instead of through the inside of a moving car. It forces us to spend more time at the dinner table and less time in the kitchen. When we are forbidden from creating, we grow what already exists.

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But this growth is all-encompassing and in many ways has far transcended the religious aspect of my journey. Adhering to religion in college has pushed me and my friends to find a unification between modernity and orthodoxy. It has forced us to find a way to follow the ancient rules of the Sabbath while adapting to the modern world around us.

 

As you could imagine, modernity and orthodoxy are an unlikely match, and combining the two has left us with some of our most epic college memories. We’ve spent hours trotting along the streets of Las Vegas in five-inch heels to avoid a five-minute Uber. And because we couldn’t buy replacement shoes along the walk, we turned to plastic bags as a form of protection against the gravel when we couldn’t handle another second in said five-inch heels. We still go to bars on Friday nights, except we pay our cover ahead of time on Thursdays to avoid breaking Shabbos by spending money. We’ve effectively koshered a college lifestyle.

 

Whether or not this constitutes as “resting” is up for interpretation. That being said, I don’t think there’s one uniform way of recognizing the Sabbath. The way the Israelites observed the Sabbath thousands of years ago is different from the way that I observe it today. Nowhere in the Torah does it explicitly tell us not to use our cellphones; rather, this is an interpretation of one of the 39 categories of laws prohibited on Shabbat. The rabbis needed to modernize these laws to fit into modern day society, the same way we need to adapt ourselves to the continuously changing world around us. The rabbis came to the conclusion that all electricity, including phones, is prohibited on the Sabbath because it falls under the umbrella category of igniting a fire. I am not sure if I agree with this logic, but I know that it is a necessary measure given the fast-paced, technological world we live in. And for that reason, I follow it.

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But I am not the only one who has turned to biblical guidance as a modern form of technological relief. There’s an entire movement dedicated to the “Digital Sabbath,” which challenges individuals to go technology-free one day a week for three months. There’s a “National Day of Unplugging” in March, a book about “How To Break Up  With Your Phone,” articles about “How I Ditched My Phone and Unbroke My Brain,” and new “Screen Time” apps aimed to give you an honest account of your phone usage. The growing body of resources built to help you disconnect is a step in the right direction. It shows that people are starting to recognize what an unhealthy relationship with a cellphone looks like, and why monitoring that relationship is important. It also shows how turning to principles grounded in religion, such as adhering to the Fourth Commandment, isn’t such a far-fetched solution to mending our relationship with the technological world we live in. Taking a break one day a week could be helpful for our mental sanity—regardless of our religious beliefs.

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So I’m going to end this narrative the same way I started my journey—with the phone. I challenge you to take one day of the week and power off your device. If you feel uneasy about it or are simply not enjoying it, you always have the option of turning it back on. That motion should feel second nature to you by now. But we’ve become far too comfortable exchanging moments of thoughtful correspondence with moments spent behind a screen. We’ve entered a trend of perpetual “phubbing,” where we ignore each other by paying attention to our devices instead of to each other. If you don’t want to disconnect for yourself, do it for those around you.  Give them a taste of your undivided attention. You may just find that the Fourth Commandment was right.