| Every Friday around sunset, I close my laptop. For 24 hours, my work is done. No email. No news. No social media. If it's work-related, it waits. What I try to do is — nothing at all. Or, rather, I spend time with people I love, usually outdoors. I swim or surf. I share a meal with friends and family. Sometimes, I just lay on my back in the park enjoying the sun. It has rekindled a sense of joy I last felt when I was a kid with nothing to do, and gratitude for whatever miraculous series of events led me here to this moment. For years, this one-day pause seemed untenable. For many, it's virtually impossible to set aside an entire day for rest free from responsibilities to work and family. But on the verge of burnout a few years ago, I began to practice a Sabbath. Giving myself permission to stop doing was hard. My brain betrayed my intentions, unconsciously leading me to flick open my phone, check work emails or scurry ahead to a Monday that hadn't yet begun. Disconnecting took practice, and still does. But as the weeks rolled on, I discovered a freedom I hadn't known I'd lost. My Sabbath jolted me out of a daze. For millennia, religions have regarded this ritual rest as a spiritual necessity. Yet clergy are now arguing this practice, whether in a secular or religious context, can help redirect the world's societies away from catastrophic climate change. In their view, it's as essential to the future as any clean-energy technology or electric vehicle. A shared day of rest, at a minimum, might slow the pace of consumption, curb emissions or ease the burden of so many people working weary weekends. But slowing down, even for a day, may also be at the heart of a cultural change convincing society that a more sustainable way of life is not only good for the planet, it's good for them. Here's how a green Sabbath may be the right idea for one's soul, and the world. What is a day of rest? The modern weekend is a recent invention established in the 1930s, an armistice between unions fighting for more time off and employers, who finally recognized enshrining a two-day rest was better than enduring mass absenteeism during "St. Monday," workers' unofficial holiday after Sunday's excesses. But the human yearning for a weekly respite dates back at least 2,600 years. The first reference to mandated rest likely appears in the Torah, where ancient Israelites were commanded to cease their toil from Friday evening until Saturday at sunset, a period known as Shabbat in the Jewish calendar. The commandment was holy enough to earn its place among the top ten: Leave the world as you find it by keeping the Sabbath, a temple built in time. Is a day of rest in decline? Most people no longer observe a strict Sabbath. In the United States, restrictions prohibiting everything from liquor sales to hunting to opening shops were once common on Sunday. While some counties still mandate some businesses stay closed on Sunday, and 28 U.S. states restrict some alcohol sales that day, many of these "obsolete and nonsensical" laws, as one American University legal scholar put it in 2022, have been repealed or struck down. Why is it important? Technical civilization is the product of man's exertions for power, gain and satisfying physical needs, writes Abraham Joshua Heschel in his classic 1951 book "The Sabbath." But the day of rest is "the day on which we learn the art of surpassing civilization." Pope Francis agreed, arguing not resting is not just bad for the soul, it's bad for the Earth. "We tend to demean contemplative rest as something unproductive and unnecessary, but this is to do away with the very thing which is most important about work: its meaning," he wrote in his 2015 Laudato Si', an encyclical about caring for the natural world. Even the secular world, has concurred. In 1884, the U.S. Supreme Court declared laws prohibiting some commercial activity on Sunday served a vital social mission to "protect all persons from the physical and moral debasement which comes from uninterrupted labor … especially to the poor and dependent, to the laborers in our factories and workshops and in the heated rooms of our cities." How does this help the climate? In 2019, Jonathan Schorsch, a professor of Jewish religious and intellectual history, founded the Green Sabbath Project to incite a "mass movement to observe a weekly day of rest" for the secular and religious alike. This is not a spa day, but a modern version of what the ancients practiced: avoiding work in factories and offices, or even in front of our laptops. Opting out of driving or flying, or engines of any kind for the day. Putting off shopping. Preparing food in advance. The cessation of incessant doing. The immediate effect among millions of people, he calculates, could dial back emissions for at least one day a week with no new technology or spending. But the practice of doing nothing, he argues, can make people change the way they live year-round, not just on the Sabbath, by appealing to an ancient human ritual, rather than reason or even religion. Is this practical? Many are taking incremental steps toward this ancient wisdom by observing a technology Shabbat, eschewing screens for 24 hours. Mexico City and Bogotá are handing over their streets to tens of thousands of bicyclists and pedestrians every Sunday. And spiritual practices can explode into mainstream culture with profound consequences: Witness yoga. In the 1950s, the meditative practice from India was virtually unknown among Americans. By 2017, more than 33 million people were practicing it in the United States, roughly 14 percent of the population, becoming firmly embedded in American medical, fitness and spiritual practices. How do I do nothing? There's no right way to practice a day of rest. Mine is by no means perfect. My to-do list sneaks up on me. I fight the gravitational pull of notifications and alerts. I sometimes miss my deadline on Friday at sunset. But I find the rewards keep growing. Along the way, I've learned a few tricks to keep responsibilities and demands at bay, if only for a day. - Pick something you love just for the pleasure of it.
- Find a community to share it with.
- Any amount of time can be a Sabbath.
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