|
 By Rabbi David Lyon
Our personal life is filled with opportunities to bring our own offerings to God in the form of prayers, shared rituals, and communal worship. The altar to which our ancestors brought their offerings was, in effect, not much different than the altar to which we bring our prayers. At home, the altar is the Sabbath table we set with a white tablecloth, beautiful candlesticks, silver Kiddush cup, and fancy challah plate. Now, the Sabbath table is ready for our rituals. There we recite the blessings for candles, wine, and challah, and we partake of them accordingly. With our family and friends around us or in our thoughts, our heads and hearts are attuned to the sanctity of the time and place that we create, together. While we can’t tune out the noise of the busy streets around us, we do make our homes holy (set apart) spaces where our words of blessing can be heard by God.
A custom that many enjoy around the Sabbath table is the opportunity to interject personal words of gratitude for the joys and blessings of the past week. After all, the Sabbath is not a day to create or work; it is a day to rest and give thanks. A husband might share words of gratitude for his family and his wife. It wasn’t long ago that husbands traditionally recited Proverbs 31:10–31, also known as “A Woman of Valor,” on Shabbat, to highlight the role of the woman of the house. Although today many women are opposed to its gender-based message, its purpose is clearly to honor the woman of the house. Similarly, everybody at the table, including the children, can recite words of gratitude for everyone else.
Words at the Sabbath table easily become words we use in the synagogue. It is but a small leap from our home to the synagogue, where we open the prayer book to participate in a worshiping community. There with others, we sing and read our prayers to express to God our gratitude as well as our wants and needs. Another small leap we can make is from the Sabbath table to private moments when we open up ourselves to offer to God the meditations of our hearts.
The habit we create through regular Shabbat ritual at home on Friday night and worship in the synagogue can lead us to value the power we possess to choose our words and offerings in every part of our life. Our desire to be heard by God is vital to our sense of wholeness. Our desire to be heard by our spouses, partners, children, and friends is also vital to our sense of well-being. The words we choose and how we convey them to God should be identical to the words we speak and how we convey them to the most important people in our lives.
The above excerpt, “The Importance of Shabbat” by Rabbi David Lyon, is from God of Me: Imagining God throughout Your Lifetime © 2011 David Lyon. Permission granted by Jewish Lights Publishing, P.O. Box 237, Woodstock, VT 05091; www.jewishlights.com.
*********************
Rabbi David Lyon is an innovative spiritual leader and educator recognized for making ancient teachings accessible in contemporary spiritual life. He is author of God of Me: Imagining God throughout Your Lifetime. Senior rabbi at Congregation Beth Israel in Houston, Texas, he is vice chair of the Board of the Institute for Spirituality and Health at the Texas Medical Center and an active participant in interfaith activities.
Rabbi David Lyon is available to speak on the following topics:
-
Imagining God throughout Your Life
-
OMG: Finding God in Jewish Texts
-
New Ways to Welcome God into Your Family
-
When Life Hurts, God Answers
-
God of Me, God of You
Click here to contact the author.
|
