19 ms·

The Quiet Revolution of the Sabbath

80 points by samclemens 3y ago

red_admiral 3y ago
Unsurprisingly, Less Wrong has covered this one too: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/p7hW7E3fHF3PDzErk/sabbath-hard-and-go-home https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/p7hW7E3fHF3PDzErk/sabbath-ha...
iamthejuan 3y ago
The only command in the ten commandments that explicitly says "Remember", guess what? The pagans removed it and replaced it with their own. They even tried but will fail, to change the order of days from Saturday to Sun-day.
camhart 3y ago
In Germany most businesses are closed Sunday.
w10-1 3y ago
My preferred way to read the first of the 10 words is as anti-religion. The minority tribe in many places wanted relief from the majority religion (then coupled with slavery/work and promoted through great works like idols and pyramids). So they essentially said: 1. Any limited or concrete representation is not authoritative 2. Any priesthood is invalid (as taking the name of the lord in vain) 3. We get a day off Interesting that the punishment for (2) was visited upon children and grandchildren - pretty serious, likely because the benefits of clothing oneself as a religious authority are immeasurable. (The punishment hasn't worked even among believers.) Most interesting for this discussion was that (3) was expressly extended to wives, slaves/workers, et al. (though without speaking directly to them as agents). The liberation theology of the 1970's-80's and Islamic radicalism both created a protected space for anti-oppression, but for the most part religion and government have renewed their mutual protection racket in every corner of the world, dropping antagonistic aspects in favor of courting each other. It's unlikely either would operate as a real limitation on the other -- ironically because we are in an era when legitimacy is so contended.
vonnik 3y ago
Anybody who likes the idea of a sabbath should experiment with a digital one. Lock the screens in a box and look around the room, or get outside. I did it accidentally by leaving my phone in a locked room overnight and it was really liberating to get off the junk dopamine train and stop reaching for my pocket.
Yeul 3y ago
[flagged]
- mantas 3y ago
  Resting and common time off work for community building is crucial. That's the core reason behind designated rest days in any major religion. And yes, it is specifically for the benefit of mankind. Many of today's problems arise from weak communities with no bonding.
- inemesitaffia 3y ago
  Sabbath originates in Judaism
- bandie91 3y ago
  we had sabbath rule way before compiled bibles. the argument was always composit, maybe intellectually dishonest people did not get it.
pulse7 3y ago
If a company has global support centers - for example in several time zones - one can even have 24/7 support while allowing everybody to rest on a specific day (be it Saturday/Sunday/Friday) or even mixed - according to employee personal belief or preference...
- prennert 3y ago
  Beliefs and their specific holidays are an interesting facette of a diverse workplace that I feel is often overlooked in hiring for oncall and 24/7 jobs. No need to have to shutdown the business or for employees to skip every second Christmas, Diwali, Ramadan, Friday prayer, Sabbath etc if you have colleagues from other religions cover for you.
  - __s 3y ago
    Wait til you hear about how many days an atheist can cover
red_admiral 3y ago
A commandment that one shall not view one's work e-mail, nor one's Teams, nor one's Slack or anything else work-related for one day in each seven would do a remarkable amount for mental health in the modern world. It would also send a signal to employers that there's a part of their employees' souls they do not own. (Yes, emergency services and all that. Modern Israel has already thought of that one.)
- edanm 3y ago
  > (Yes, emergency services and all that. Modern Israel has already thought of that one.) Modern Israel doesn't have anything close to a commandment that one shall not view one's work email on the Sabbath :) More seriously, while a large percentage of Israel are religious Jews, a large part of it are secular Jews who don't keep the Sabbath, and a large part are Muslims. There are some things that are closed on Saturday, and there are laws about things having to be closed, but in lots of cities many things are still open. It is still true to say that a lot of stuff is closed on Saturday (most stores are closed), and this is a big problem, since for many people, Saturday is their only day off, and they can't do any shopping on that day. If you need to e.g. go with your kids to buy new shoes, you can't do it on your one day off, so it's a pain. (Fridays things are open, but close early, and most kids have school on Friday.) So all of this is a mixed bag, honestly.
- xnorswap 3y ago
  Am I weird in that I don't touch my work computer outside of my Monday-Friday work hours, and have never felt pressure to do so?
  - marssaxman 3y ago
    I feel the same, and sometimes wonder why others don't. I have never put work email or slack on my personal phone, either - that can go on a work phone, if the company cares enough to buy me one, which they usually don't.
    - ntlk 3y ago
fred92 3y ago
The unfair thing about retail and service industry establishments not being closed on sundays while white collar office jobs are, is that schools are only open during the week, thus retail and service industry workers don't get tax-payer funded child-care on those days, kids of blue collar workers don't get to hang with their parents on the weekend furthening inequality inherent in our society. Obviously noone is per se forced to work on the weekend but in practice at every retail and service industry job I have worked at throughout my life there was immense pressure to work at least one weekend day i.e you won't even get these jobs if you aren't willing to work on weekends.
- hotnfresh 3y ago
  This seemed to get a ton worse in the ‘00s. A lot more stuff used to be closed on Sundays, have no holiday hours, and close earlier.
  - rando_dfad 3y ago
    implicit assumption that having things closed one day a week is bad. It is perhaps less convenient, but that doesn't make it bad. Lived in an EU country until recently, where everything is closed on Sunday. It makes that day much more restful, and it doesn't take long to learn to get your shopping done on Saturday. Also, it is still illegal to use power tools outside on Sunday. Which means you aren't disturbed by your neighbor's leaf blower. Honestly, I prefer 1 day a week of true rest over more convenience but never a true rest.
    - hotnfresh 3y ago
      By “got worse” I mean more stores started having Sunday hours, extending open hours on weekdays late into the night, and being open on holidays.
  - ghaff 3y ago
    I'm sure the change happened at different times in different places. But in the the late 70s, even in a big city like Boston/Cambridge, almost nothing was open on Sunday. If you played sports or had other activities on a Saturday, you basically had to find a way to carve half a day out of classes etc. to run errands. And to one of the parent's points, when the debate about Sunday store closing laws came up in Louisiana in the 80s, one of the arguments against making changes was that mom and pop stores, largely staffed by the owners, couldn't realistically open for seven days while, for the big chains, it was just a dollars and cents calculation.
einpoklum 3y ago
If we weren't stuck with closed-source, corporate-owned messaging apps we could arrange it to have a rest from any work-related communications during the weekend. PS - The IWW has long advocated for reducing work hours during workdays rather than just having the Sabbath/weekend to rest from it; see: https://archive.iww.org/history/library/misc/Bekken2000/ https://archive.iww.org/history/library/misc/Bekken2000/
throw0101a 3y ago
While the seven day time period ("week") has been around for a long time in 'the West', it didn't really take hold as a form of scheduling until the early-1800s in the US: > With meticulous archival research that draws on a wide array of sources—including newspapers, restaurant menus, theater schedules, marriage records, school curricula, folklore, housekeeping guides, courtroom testimony, and diaries—David Henkin reveals how our current devotion to weekly rhythms emerged in the United States during the first half of the nineteenth century. Reconstructing how weekly patterns insinuated themselves into the social practices and mental habits of Americans, Henkin argues that the week is more than just a regimen of rest days or breaks from work, but a dominant organizational principle of modern society. Ultimately, the seven-day week shapes our understanding and experience of time. * https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300271157/the-week/ https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300271157/the-week/ * https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57615569-the-week https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57615569-the-week Yes, Christianity has been around for two thousand years, and the Lord's Day was celebrated, but in the pre-Reformation days there were many feast days for saints, both on a national and international scale, but also more local/regional celebrations, so folks had Holy Days (holidays) sprinkled between Sundays as well. People would often tell time not in day-of-week or day-month, but with regards to (liturgical) seasons and feast days, e.g.: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Crispin%27s_Day_Speech https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Crispin%27s_Day_Speech * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Crispin%27s_Day https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Crispin%27s_Day Also, pre-Industrial Revolution, most work was fairly agricultural, which was much more 'continuous' in that you couldn't really 'shut down' a farm: livestock and such had to be taken care of. It was the combination of a more Protestant and industrial US that allowed for there to be mostly one 'special' day and the ability to not have to 'go to work' (in a factory) that really solidified the week as a time period.
- OfSanguineFire 3y ago
  In the rural Europe, attendance at church on Sundays was more or less socially or even legally obligatory even among the agrarian majority, but distances from farms to parish churches were sometimes so vast that the journey to church and back could take all day (in the Nordic countries it could even take two). Therefore, the idea of Sunday as a “rest day” might not have been so well-entrenched, but it was already a “no work” day for many farmers.
incanus77 3y ago
My grandfather was a strict Methodist and wouldn’t do any housework or projects on Sundays after church, for what I’m sure was at least 50 years. Typically he would visit with people or study his bible or do other reading. He would go as far as not supporting other people working, such as going to stores or buying gas. I don’t recall whether he watched TV or not on Sundays; I seem to recall a few baseball games on.
thsksbd 3y ago
My wife's entire family are retail workers (mostly Walmart). Walmart has been very good to them, employing them despite almost zero knowledge of English. But Walmart's hours are brutal. Nominally muslims, they would love to have a day - any day - guaranteed to be free for all of them to get together.
pfooti 3y ago
My spouse and I do an internet / technology sabbath on Saturdays. No social media, no streaming services or video games. Mostly listen to the couple of records we have, read books, and do other analog things. I started after reading How to do Nothing, and thinking a lot about unplugging from the attention economy. I find that it does a really good job of resetting / breaking the dopamine cycles. Going a day without being online every so often results in me at least being less tied to the Internet for well being the rest of the week.
- KyleBerezin 3y ago
  That is an interesting view, that the cycle can be broken in 1 day. I guess looking back, if I go an entire day without using the internet, it is very easy to avoid distractions the next day. I'm going to try this our, albeit in a less rabbinical way.
  - pfooti 3y ago
    Yeah, it took a few months of the 1 day sabbaths to really impact things. The first month I was back on twitter/x as soon as the sun went down, etc. Nowadays, I'm a lot more intentional about when I use social media in particular. It may not be causation, the whole thing could just be correlations. But it feels almost rebellious to unplug like that for a day. There was a Max Headroom episode (dating myself here) where someone got in trouble for having the ability to turn off their TV. Like all of society was structured around being in front of the TV at all times.
waserwill 3y ago
An excerpt from one Jewish view of the Sabbath: The rubric under which all the actions prohibited on the Sabbath fall is referred to as melakhah. It is an expansive term, first used in the Hebrew Bible to describe the full range of activities which God engaged in to create the world. The only term which really approximates its scope is Jacques Ellul’s la technique, defined as “the totality of methods rationally arrived at and having absolute efficiency (for a given stage of development) in every field of human activity.” The heuristic which the rabbis of the Talmud used to determine melakhah is simple: if the action was performed in the course of the building of the Tabernacle, which after all functioned both as a mikrokosmos in the technical sense and as a microcosm of human society, it was forbidden on the Sabbath. https://www.athwart.org/notes-on-judaic-political-economy/ https://www.athwart.org/notes-on-judaic-political-economy/
- glorygut123 3y ago
  Jacques Ellul, a very underrated philosopher, especially concerning technology.
PopAlongKid 3y ago
When I bought a new kitchen range half a dozen years ago, I was surprised to find that several pages of the owner's manual were dedicated to something called "Sabbath mode". I guess it is a way to allow for cooking without violating Sabbath rules. Then there's this practice I only recently heard about, "The Wire That Transforms Much of Manhattan Into One Big, Symbolic Home"[0] [0]https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/eruv-manhattan-invisible-wire-jewish-symbolic-religious-home https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/eruv-manhattan-invisib...
- js2 3y ago
  It's for keeping food warm. Observant Jews don't cook on Shabbat. All the food is prepared on Friday before Shabbat starts. Elevators in some Miami Beach hotels have a Shabbat mode where they simply stop on every floor, open the doors, wait a minute, then close the doors. It's to allow observant Jews to use them without operating a switch. We Jews are a funny bunch, finding ways to work around our 613 commandments without breaking them. You're generally not allowed to tear things on Shabbat, so observant Jews will pre-tear toilet paper and set aside a bunch of squares for the day. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabbath_mode https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabbath_mode https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/613_commandments https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/613_commandments https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/484233/jewish/Am-I-allowed-to-rip-something.htm https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/484233/jewish... There are Eruvim all over the world, almost wherever there is a concentration of Orthodox Jews: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_places_with_eruvin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_places_with_eruvin
  - OfSanguineFire 3y ago
    In Israel, the cooking beforehand is done even by many non-observant Jews, just because those long-boiling recipes or the preparation of a big meal by sundown on Friday became such a big part of both Ashkenazi and Sephardi culture. My own friends in Israel are non-religious (so much so that how much they despise religious people is a frequent topic of their conversation) but their Shabbat food rituals seem impeccable, and indeed it is at people’s Shabbat dinners that I have done most of my socializing when visiting Israel.
User23 3y ago
I grew up in a heavily Jewish area and most Jewish owned businesses that didn't absolutely require the owner present just had non-Jews working on Friday evening and Saturday. Similarly I've swapped on-call shifts with non-Christians so as to accommodate religious holidays.
cwoolfe 3y ago
I love Sabbath rest and want others to enjoy it too. One very small thing we do is designate Sunday as a "no-delivery" day for our house, which you can configure here for your address: https://www.amazon.com/a/addresses?ref=ya_address_book_edit_to_address_book_breadcrumb https://www.amazon.com/a/addresses?ref=ya_address_book_edit_...
- pimlottc 3y ago
  That link just took me to my addresses page. To change delivery dates, I had to edit my home address, click the dropdown labled "Add preferences, notes, access codes and more", then open the accordian header for "Can we deliver to this address on weekends?", which reviews yes/no buttons for both Saturday and Sunday delivery.
pierat 3y ago
What Im always confused about is why Christians of most/all stripes seem to gravitate back to the Torah's "10 commandments" (which there are 20 of them).... And not go towards the Beatitudes. * 2 different sets of 10 commandments: https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/2896/jewish/What-Are-the-Ten-Commandments.htm#Two https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/2896/jewish/W... * Beatitudes https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beatitudes https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beatitudes
- brodouevencode 3y ago
  The second set of commandments is like watching a movie (the first ten commandments) with director's commentary. It's a lot of insight and clarification but fundamentally the same thing > And not go towards the Beatitudes The 10 commandments and the Beatitudes are fundamentally different and serve different purposes. The 10C gives very specific things that you should and should not do - very concrete and prescriptive. The Beatitudes are very poetic and descriptive, not prescriptive.
- dan_mctree 3y ago
  The beatitudes are much more difficult, with some of them unlikely to be prescriptive (blessed are those who are persecuted), some of them being unclear (blessed be the meek) and others that are difficult to translate to actions (blessed be the pure of heart). In contrast, the simple rules of the ten commandments, most of which just tell you not to do a basic thing you probably weren't doing anyway (thou shalt not steal) are much easier to follow and much easier to confirm you are doing well in. People resonate more with simple yardsticks like the ten commandments than with the vaguer "be a good person and it's ok if things are bad for you now" beatitudes.
- DoingSomeThings 3y ago
  People find it easier to follow rules rather than principles. The 10 commandments tell you what to do/not to do. The Beatitudes offer values and require interpretation to put into practice. They also are more ambiguous in their punishment/reward on the physical/spiritual level. Compare: "You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal." vs "3 Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. 4 Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted." ... "25 Woe to you who are well fed now, for you will go hungry."

80 points by samclemens 3y ago

Unsurprisingly, Less Wrong has covered this one too: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/p7hW7E3fHF3PDzErk/sabbath-hard-and-go-home https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/p7hW7E3fHF3PDzErk/sabbath-ha...

iamthejuan 3y ago

The only command in the ten commandments that explicitly says "Remember", guess what? The pagans removed it and replaced it with their own. They even tried but will fail, to change the order of days from Saturday to Sun-day.

camhart 3y ago

In Germany most businesses are closed Sunday.

w10-1 3y ago

My preferred way to read the first of the 10 words is as anti-religion. The minority tribe in many places wanted relief from the majority religion (then coupled with slavery/work and promoted through great works like idols and pyramids). So they essentially said: 1. Any limited or concrete representation is not authoritative 2. Any priesthood is invalid (as taking the name of the lord in vain) 3. We get a day off Interesting that the punishment for (2) was visited upon children and grandchildren - pretty serious, likely because the benefits of clothing oneself as a religious authority are immeasurable. (The punishment hasn't worked even among believers.) Most interesting for this discussion was that (3) was expressly extended to wives, slaves/workers, et al. (though without speaking directly to them as agents). The liberation theology of the 1970's-80's and Islamic radicalism both created a protected space for anti-oppression, but for the most part religion and government have renewed their mutual protection racket in every corner of the world, dropping antagonistic aspects in favor of courting each other. It's unlikely either would operate as a real limitation on the other -- ironically because we are in an era when legitimacy is so contended.

vonnik 3y ago

Anybody who likes the idea of a sabbath should experiment with a digital one. Lock the screens in a box and look around the room, or get outside. I did it accidentally by leaving my phone in a locked room overnight and it was really liberating to get off the junk dopamine train and stop reaching for my pocket.

Yeul 3y ago

[flagged]

mantas 3y ago
Resting and common time off work for community building is crucial. That's the core reason behind designated rest days in any major religion. And yes, it is specifically for the benefit of mankind. Many of today's problems arise from weak communities with no bonding.
inemesitaffia 3y ago
Sabbath originates in Judaism
bandie91 3y ago
we had sabbath rule way before compiled bibles. the argument was always composit, maybe intellectually dishonest people did not get it.

pulse7 3y ago

If a company has global support centers - for example in several time zones - one can even have 24/7 support while allowing everybody to rest on a specific day (be it Saturday/Sunday/Friday) or even mixed - according to employee personal belief or preference...

prennert 3y ago
Beliefs and their specific holidays are an interesting facette of a diverse workplace that I feel is often overlooked in hiring for oncall and 24/7 jobs. No need to have to shutdown the business or for employees to skip every second Christmas, Diwali, Ramadan, Friday prayer, Sabbath etc if you have colleagues from other religions cover for you.
- __s 3y ago
  Wait til you hear about how many days an atheist can cover

red_admiral 3y ago

A commandment that one shall not view one's work e-mail, nor one's Teams, nor one's Slack or anything else work-related for one day in each seven would do a remarkable amount for mental health in the modern world. It would also send a signal to employers that there's a part of their employees' souls they do not own. (Yes, emergency services and all that. Modern Israel has already thought of that one.)

edanm 3y ago
> (Yes, emergency services and all that. Modern Israel has already thought of that one.) Modern Israel doesn't have anything close to a commandment that one shall not view one's work email on the Sabbath :) More seriously, while a large percentage of Israel are religious Jews, a large part of it are secular Jews who don't keep the Sabbath, and a large part are Muslims. There are some things that are closed on Saturday, and there are laws about things having to be closed, but in lots of cities many things are still open. It is still true to say that a lot of stuff is closed on Saturday (most stores are closed), and this is a big problem, since for many people, Saturday is their only day off, and they can't do any shopping on that day. If you need to e.g. go with your kids to buy new shoes, you can't do it on your one day off, so it's a pain. (Fridays things are open, but close early, and most kids have school on Friday.) So all of this is a mixed bag, honestly.
xnorswap 3y ago
Am I weird in that I don't touch my work computer outside of my Monday-Friday work hours, and have never felt pressure to do so?
- marssaxman 3y ago
  I feel the same, and sometimes wonder why others don't. I have never put work email or slack on my personal phone, either - that can go on a work phone, if the company cares enough to buy me one, which they usually don't.
  - ntlk 3y ago

fred92 3y ago

The unfair thing about retail and service industry establishments not being closed on sundays while white collar office jobs are, is that schools are only open during the week, thus retail and service industry workers don't get tax-payer funded child-care on those days, kids of blue collar workers don't get to hang with their parents on the weekend furthening inequality inherent in our society. Obviously noone is per se forced to work on the weekend but in practice at every retail and service industry job I have worked at throughout my life there was immense pressure to work at least one weekend day i.e you won't even get these jobs if you aren't willing to work on weekends.

hotnfresh 3y ago
This seemed to get a ton worse in the ‘00s. A lot more stuff used to be closed on Sundays, have no holiday hours, and close earlier.
- rando_dfad 3y ago
  implicit assumption that having things closed one day a week is bad. It is perhaps less convenient, but that doesn't make it bad. Lived in an EU country until recently, where everything is closed on Sunday. It makes that day much more restful, and it doesn't take long to learn to get your shopping done on Saturday. Also, it is still illegal to use power tools outside on Sunday. Which means you aren't disturbed by your neighbor's leaf blower. Honestly, I prefer 1 day a week of true rest over more convenience but never a true rest.
  - hotnfresh 3y ago
    By “got worse” I mean more stores started having Sunday hours, extending open hours on weekdays late into the night, and being open on holidays.
- ghaff 3y ago
  I'm sure the change happened at different times in different places. But in the the late 70s, even in a big city like Boston/Cambridge, almost nothing was open on Sunday. If you played sports or had other activities on a Saturday, you basically had to find a way to carve half a day out of classes etc. to run errands. And to one of the parent's points, when the debate about Sunday store closing laws came up in Louisiana in the 80s, one of the arguments against making changes was that mom and pop stores, largely staffed by the owners, couldn't realistically open for seven days while, for the big chains, it was just a dollars and cents calculation.

einpoklum 3y ago

If we weren't stuck with closed-source, corporate-owned messaging apps we could arrange it to have a rest from any work-related communications during the weekend. PS - The IWW has long advocated for reducing work hours during workdays rather than just having the Sabbath/weekend to rest from it; see: https://archive.iww.org/history/library/misc/Bekken2000/ https://archive.iww.org/history/library/misc/Bekken2000/

throw0101a 3y ago

While the seven day time period ("week") has been around for a long time in 'the West', it didn't really take hold as a form of scheduling until the early-1800s in the US: > With meticulous archival research that draws on a wide array of sources—including newspapers, restaurant menus, theater schedules, marriage records, school curricula, folklore, housekeeping guides, courtroom testimony, and diaries—David Henkin reveals how our current devotion to weekly rhythms emerged in the United States during the first half of the nineteenth century. Reconstructing how weekly patterns insinuated themselves into the social practices and mental habits of Americans, Henkin argues that the week is more than just a regimen of rest days or breaks from work, but a dominant organizational principle of modern society. Ultimately, the seven-day week shapes our understanding and experience of time. * https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300271157/the-week/ https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300271157/the-week/ * https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57615569-the-week https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57615569-the-week Yes, Christianity has been around for two thousand years, and the Lord's Day was celebrated, but in the pre-Reformation days there were many feast days for saints, both on a national and international scale, but also more local/regional celebrations, so folks had Holy Days (holidays) sprinkled between Sundays as well. People would often tell time not in day-of-week or day-month, but with regards to (liturgical) seasons and feast days, e.g.: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Crispin%27s_Day_Speech https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Crispin%27s_Day_Speech * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Crispin%27s_Day https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Crispin%27s_Day Also, pre-Industrial Revolution, most work was fairly agricultural, which was much more 'continuous' in that you couldn't really 'shut down' a farm: livestock and such had to be taken care of. It was the combination of a more Protestant and industrial US that allowed for there to be mostly one 'special' day and the ability to not have to 'go to work' (in a factory) that really solidified the week as a time period.

OfSanguineFire 3y ago
In the rural Europe, attendance at church on Sundays was more or less socially or even legally obligatory even among the agrarian majority, but distances from farms to parish churches were sometimes so vast that the journey to church and back could take all day (in the Nordic countries it could even take two). Therefore, the idea of Sunday as a “rest day” might not have been so well-entrenched, but it was already a “no work” day for many farmers.

incanus77 3y ago

My grandfather was a strict Methodist and wouldn’t do any housework or projects on Sundays after church, for what I’m sure was at least 50 years. Typically he would visit with people or study his bible or do other reading. He would go as far as not supporting other people working, such as going to stores or buying gas. I don’t recall whether he watched TV or not on Sundays; I seem to recall a few baseball games on.

thsksbd 3y ago

My wife's entire family are retail workers (mostly Walmart). Walmart has been very good to them, employing them despite almost zero knowledge of English. But Walmart's hours are brutal. Nominally muslims, they would love to have a day - any day - guaranteed to be free for all of them to get together.

pfooti 3y ago

My spouse and I do an internet / technology sabbath on Saturdays. No social media, no streaming services or video games. Mostly listen to the couple of records we have, read books, and do other analog things. I started after reading How to do Nothing, and thinking a lot about unplugging from the attention economy. I find that it does a really good job of resetting / breaking the dopamine cycles. Going a day without being online every so often results in me at least being less tied to the Internet for well being the rest of the week.

KyleBerezin 3y ago
That is an interesting view, that the cycle can be broken in 1 day. I guess looking back, if I go an entire day without using the internet, it is very easy to avoid distractions the next day. I'm going to try this our, albeit in a less rabbinical way.
- pfooti 3y ago
  Yeah, it took a few months of the 1 day sabbaths to really impact things. The first month I was back on twitter/x as soon as the sun went down, etc. Nowadays, I'm a lot more intentional about when I use social media in particular. It may not be causation, the whole thing could just be correlations. But it feels almost rebellious to unplug like that for a day. There was a Max Headroom episode (dating myself here) where someone got in trouble for having the ability to turn off their TV. Like all of society was structured around being in front of the TV at all times.

waserwill 3y ago

An excerpt from one Jewish view of the Sabbath: The rubric under which all the actions prohibited on the Sabbath fall is referred to as melakhah. It is an expansive term, first used in the Hebrew Bible to describe the full range of activities which God engaged in to create the world. The only term which really approximates its scope is Jacques Ellul’s la technique, defined as “the totality of methods rationally arrived at and having absolute efficiency (for a given stage of development) in every field of human activity.” The heuristic which the rabbis of the Talmud used to determine melakhah is simple: if the action was performed in the course of the building of the Tabernacle, which after all functioned both as a mikrokosmos in the technical sense and as a microcosm of human society, it was forbidden on the Sabbath. https://www.athwart.org/notes-on-judaic-political-economy/ https://www.athwart.org/notes-on-judaic-political-economy/

glorygut123 3y ago
Jacques Ellul, a very underrated philosopher, especially concerning technology.

PopAlongKid 3y ago

When I bought a new kitchen range half a dozen years ago, I was surprised to find that several pages of the owner's manual were dedicated to something called "Sabbath mode". I guess it is a way to allow for cooking without violating Sabbath rules. Then there's this practice I only recently heard about, "The Wire That Transforms Much of Manhattan Into One Big, Symbolic Home"[0] [0]https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/eruv-manhattan-invisible-wire-jewish-symbolic-religious-home https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/eruv-manhattan-invisib...

js2 3y ago
It's for keeping food warm. Observant Jews don't cook on Shabbat. All the food is prepared on Friday before Shabbat starts. Elevators in some Miami Beach hotels have a Shabbat mode where they simply stop on every floor, open the doors, wait a minute, then close the doors. It's to allow observant Jews to use them without operating a switch. We Jews are a funny bunch, finding ways to work around our 613 commandments without breaking them. You're generally not allowed to tear things on Shabbat, so observant Jews will pre-tear toilet paper and set aside a bunch of squares for the day. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabbath_mode https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabbath_mode https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/613_commandments https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/613_commandments https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/484233/jewish/Am-I-allowed-to-rip-something.htm https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/484233/jewish... There are Eruvim all over the world, almost wherever there is a concentration of Orthodox Jews: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_places_with_eruvin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_places_with_eruvin
- OfSanguineFire 3y ago
  In Israel, the cooking beforehand is done even by many non-observant Jews, just because those long-boiling recipes or the preparation of a big meal by sundown on Friday became such a big part of both Ashkenazi and Sephardi culture. My own friends in Israel are non-religious (so much so that how much they despise religious people is a frequent topic of their conversation) but their Shabbat food rituals seem impeccable, and indeed it is at people’s Shabbat dinners that I have done most of my socializing when visiting Israel.

User23 3y ago

I grew up in a heavily Jewish area and most Jewish owned businesses that didn't absolutely require the owner present just had non-Jews working on Friday evening and Saturday. Similarly I've swapped on-call shifts with non-Christians so as to accommodate religious holidays.

cwoolfe 3y ago

I love Sabbath rest and want others to enjoy it too. One very small thing we do is designate Sunday as a "no-delivery" day for our house, which you can configure here for your address: https://www.amazon.com/a/addresses?ref=ya_address_book_edit_to_address_book_breadcrumb https://www.amazon.com/a/addresses?ref=ya_address_book_edit_...

pimlottc 3y ago
That link just took me to my addresses page. To change delivery dates, I had to edit my home address, click the dropdown labled "Add preferences, notes, access codes and more", then open the accordian header for "Can we deliver to this address on weekends?", which reviews yes/no buttons for both Saturday and Sunday delivery.

pierat 3y ago

What Im always confused about is why Christians of most/all stripes seem to gravitate back to the Torah's "10 commandments" (which there are 20 of them).... And not go towards the Beatitudes. * 2 different sets of 10 commandments: https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/2896/jewish/What-Are-the-Ten-Commandments.htm#Two https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/2896/jewish/W... * Beatitudes https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beatitudes https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beatitudes

brodouevencode 3y ago
The second set of commandments is like watching a movie (the first ten commandments) with director's commentary. It's a lot of insight and clarification but fundamentally the same thing > And not go towards the Beatitudes The 10 commandments and the Beatitudes are fundamentally different and serve different purposes. The 10C gives very specific things that you should and should not do - very concrete and prescriptive. The Beatitudes are very poetic and descriptive, not prescriptive.
dan_mctree 3y ago
The beatitudes are much more difficult, with some of them unlikely to be prescriptive (blessed are those who are persecuted), some of them being unclear (blessed be the meek) and others that are difficult to translate to actions (blessed be the pure of heart). In contrast, the simple rules of the ten commandments, most of which just tell you not to do a basic thing you probably weren't doing anyway (thou shalt not steal) are much easier to follow and much easier to confirm you are doing well in. People resonate more with simple yardsticks like the ten commandments than with the vaguer "be a good person and it's ok if things are bad for you now" beatitudes.
DoingSomeThings 3y ago
People find it easier to follow rules rather than principles. The 10 commandments tell you what to do/not to do. The Beatitudes offer values and require interpretation to put into practice. They also are more ambiguous in their punishment/reward on the physical/spiritual level. Compare: "You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal." vs "3 Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. 4 Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted." ... "25 Woe to you who are well fed now, for you will go hungry."