Remember the Sabbath Day and Keep It Holy

When I was a boy growing up in New York City, I would often spend time with my paternal grandfather in Hartford, Connecticut. Toward evening, we had a ritual. We’d go outside and Grandpa Sam would look up at the skies and tell me what the weather would be the next day. “See those clouds?” he’d say. “Storm’s a coming.” Or: “You can just smell it in the air. Snow on the way.” Or: “Tomorrow’s gonna be beautiful. We’ll go swimming.”

Grandpa was sometimes wrong – the weather would bear no resemblance to what he had predicted – but it hardly made a difference. Grandpa had a relationship with the clouds, winds, sunset, and skies that gave him license to forecast what they would do. Often, he got it right.

Grandpa Sam is gone many decades now, but I often think of him when I glance at the weather app on my phone. After all, I don’t have to look at the skies. My phone knows. I get the temperature, the chance of precipitation, the humidity, the wind velocity. It’s usually dead-on accurate and useful. But something is lost.

Our phones are amazing tools. They keep us informed, entertained – and, with their flashlight function, light our way. They can summon a friend, a taxi, a favorite song, and directions home. They can tell us how many miles we walked, who won the game, and how the markets are doing. To be sure, our phones have become indispensable tools, but at the same time they have distanced us from our friends, our loved ones, nature, and even ourselves. With our phone, we are never alone, never have to look into ourselves – or the skies. Studies report that the average adult looks at their phone eighty times a day, that is, once every twelve minutes. Kids do it even more.

When I traveled the New York City subways as a kid and young adult way back in the twentieth century, everyone, it seemed, was reading a newspaper or a book. Today, everyone is looking at their phone. When I go to the gym, most people do not take their eyes off their screen. They stretch, lift weights, and huff and puff with a fixed gaze. And when you are walking down the street, how many people look you in the face?

Fortunately, my expression of faith, Orthodox Judaism, demands that I take a break. On Friday nights at sundown, I power down my phone, and I keep it off until the stars come out on Saturday night. It is my weekly twenty-five-hour Shabbat phone fast. What do I do without my phone? I read books, I have uninterrupted conversations, I look at the skies, I sing a tune, I wake without an alarm, and I navigate the city streets unassisted.

When I first turn off my phone on Friday night, it takes some time to adjust. My mind is accustomed to varied and frequent stimuli. I open a book, but I have trouble focusing. There are no links to other stories, there are no updates. There are no dings or reminders. I sit uneasily before my open book; I have to consciously settle into the book. After a few pages, my nerves relax, and I recover the joy of uninterrupted reading.

Of course, some things are lost over the course of the Sabbath. I do not know the latest news. I can’t be in touch with friends. I get lost. I stumble in the dark. Sometimes, I am bored.

The reasons for the no-cellphone-on-Shabbat rule are admittedly arcane. There were no cellphones – and no electricity – when the Sabbath laws were codified in ancient times. But the Torah, from which the laws are derived, is very clear about one thing. “Thou shalt not kindle fire in all your habitations on the Sabbath day,” Exodus 35:3 declares. When electricity was harnessed and brought into widespread use in the early twentieth century, the rabbis had a dilemma: Is an electric light fire or not? Over time, most Orthodox rabbis declared that it was and should be prohibited on the Sabbath. 

In the homes of my youth (my parents were divorced when I was a small boy and I grew up in many homes, including my grandfather’s), we didn’t cook, didn’t turn lights on or off, didn’t use the telephone and didn’t watch television, or listen to the radio on the Sabbath. Some of these practices fell under the broad definition of fire – after all, the incandescent light bulbs of the time were not only bright but also hot. But the other prohibitions had less to do with fire and more to do with observing “the spirit of Shabbat.” It was a day set apart and not a day for electronics associated with work and secular pleasures.

Of course, there were exceptions based on another verse from the Torah, this one from Leviticus 18:5: “You shall observe my statutes and rulings which a person shall do and live by them. I am the Lord.” The live-by-them standard was a clear message that all these laws went out the window if human life were at stake. For the Orthodox, if someone is sick or requires medical attention, it is OK to turn on lights or use the phone or prepare hot food. It is OK to summon an ambulance or drive someone to the hospital. The law makes allowances for emergencies.

To be clear, these Sabbath laws did not mean that we sat in the dark, which is how the Karaite sect of Judaism interprets the Sabbath laws. Orthodox Jews have found ways to make the Sabbath restrictions more livable by setting up timers in advance to turn lights (and some appliances) on and off during the Sabbath. We don’t light fires, but we enjoy their light. We don’t cook food, but we use warming trays to keep the food hot. In fact, the Sabbath candles ignited at the onset of Sabbath are there to literally and symbolically light the way of the Sabbath.

When cellphones came into broad use, they were put into the not-in-the-spirit-of- Shabbat category. Orthodox Jews outlawed them. The Orthodox cellphone prohibition is especially onerous for young people who grew up with a cellphone, but for older people like me, for whom the cellphone is still something of a novelty, its use is nonessential. I lived without one most of my life; I can give it up one day a week.

I love being without it. My Sabbath days are rarely boring. My wife Shira and I often have guests for Shabbat meals on Friday nights and Saturday lunches. And just about every Friday night, Shira and I play Scrabble, a board game that is perfect for Sabbath observers: no electricity and no writing (another Sabbath prohibition). How do we keep score? We each have a big fat book where we match our score with the page number. If you get forty points, you turn forty pages. (Shira usually wins.)

On Saturdays I go to an Orthodox synagogue where no one uses a phone. In fact, most people, myself included, just leave them at home. Some bring their phones for emergencies but wouldn’t dare take them out inside the sanctuary. Phones are verboten or, in Hebrew, muk’tza. You can’t even touch them! In synagogue, I talk to friends. And I talk to God. Who needs a phone for that?

That is how I grew up. But today there are clear fissures in the ironclad no-cellphone rule. Since Israel went to war in Gaza following the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre, Israelis have been living in a state of emergency. They have had to seek shelter because of incoming missiles. There are apps that warn Israelis of incoming missiles, so many Orthodox rabbis permit Israeli Jews to carry their phones on the Sabbath. It is a matter of life and death, they say.

Among the Orthodox in America cellphone use is also growing, albeit discretely. Some Orthodox Jews, worried about a recent surge in antisemitism, are checking in on the news and on loved ones on the Sabbath. This is especially important for friends with elderly parents or small children. They don’t have the luxury to disconnect.

I, for one, hold fast to the no-cellphone practice. I am lucky to live in a vibrant Jewish community in New York City and am lucky to be surrounded by family and friends. My phone-free Shabbat reminds me that not everyone has these gifts in their life. And, in a broader sense, not everyone can afford a phone or wireless services.

Downpour in Dublin. Photo by Callum / Adobe Stock Photo.

As with other Sabbath restrictions, our temporary deprivation makes us more sensitive to others. For example, Orthodox Jews do not carry or spend money on the Sabbath. Commerce is forbidden. In my normal weekday life, I have the money to buy a coffee or a meal or pay for admission to a museum or a movie. Not on the Sabbath. On the Sabbath I am acutely aware that not everyone can spend money the way I do.

There have been times when I too am without. Recently, I was in Dublin, Ireland, on a business trip during Shabbat. The nearest synagogue was many miles away. In keeping with other Sabbath rules, I could not drive or take a taxi or use public transportation. Instead of going to synagogue, I spent most of my Shabbat happily alone in my hotel room catching up on sleep, reading, and relaxing. No cellphone, no laptop, no TV. When I ventured out, I left my phone behind. I consulted a map, looked into the skies – they were clear – and set off on a solitary adventure in a light jacket.

I walked east along the River Liffey. I knew I was headed toward some museums and found my way to the Irish Museum of Modern Art. Luckily, it was free. The artworks and the stories behind them were captivating. I got lost in the art.

When I emerged several hours later, the skies had clouded over, the temperature had dropped, and the wind had whipped up. I looked at my watch. (While cellphones are muk’tza, most watches are permitted on the Sabbath.) It had taken me forty minutes to walk to the museum. Could I get back to the hotel before the skies opened up? I started to walk briskly. My light jacket did not provide much protection, but I pressed on. A steady drizzle began as I approached my hotel.

Relieved to see it, I sprinted the last block and made it inside before the downpour started. I sat in the warmth of the lobby and caught my breath. I clearly did not have Grandpa Sam’s gift for weather forecasting, but I had shared and honored his fealty to the Sabbath day. 

A hundred years ago, Grandpa Sam ran Finkelstein’s, the family-owned men’s clothing store in Hartford, an enterprise founded by his father-in-law, Efraim Zalman Finkelstein. I still have the store’s business card. It reads: “Open Evenings Until 9, Closed Friday Nights and Saturdays, Open Saturday Nights After Sunset.”

Finkelstein’s business card. Photo courtesy of the author.

Maybe Grandpa Sam could read the skies, but he couldn’t tell the future. He had no idea that someday his offspring would be walking around with these amazing devices that connect us with the world. I do believe, however, that he understood that he was setting an example for future generations. He continues to teach me about the importance of taking a break from my daily routines by putting away my phone and making the Sabbath holy.