Is there some subterranean -- even subversive -- connection between spring celebration of the Earth and spring celebration of work and time for rest?

The practice of Shabbat is not only a spiritual response to the timeless commandment given to my ancestors to keep the Sabbath holy. It is a political act. I am keeping the Sabbath radical. That too is my heritage.

For some in the Jewish world, the Kiddush has become an elaborate feast at which sumptuous food and fine wines and liquors are offered to those, both members and guests, who come to pray. This new phenomenon is healthy in some ways and deeply unsettling in others.

A recovering productivity junkie, I've only begun learning how to slow down my pace long enough to rest on the Sabbath. But time is sacred. So, for at least one day a week, I try to bask in the peace that God promises.

There is nothing wrong with loving work. It is good to enjoy our professions and to support our families. However, there is a line that is very easy to cross, where we become servants to our jobs, and not simply because of our employers, but because of ourselves.

King David danced in our midst, and so (so to speak) does God! We now stand in the Courtyard with our divine Majesty, savoring this greater intimacy. But there remains some distance.

At the end of this sabbatical journey, I realize the journey has just started. Experiencing, seeing and understanding some of the things I did on my sabbatical away from Church is not enough. Now is the time to act.

There is nothing sweeter in this life than blessing one's children, especially on a Friday night. When Anna and Adam were little I'd drop to my knees to so that they could look into my eyes and tacitly understand that blessing them was an act of thanksgiving and humility for me.

Sabbatical is about rest and recuperation. It is about communing with God in a restorative way. For a lot of church-going people that is not the way they would describe Sunday mornings.

In one Jewish community after another, the prevailing wisdom is that the "spirituality of Shabbat" is to be experienced by becoming more quiet and still. But this is not the only way.

After giving birth alone in her home, a Jerusalem Haredi woman hid her baby under her dress with the umbilical cord still attached, hid the placenta i...

We are so overwrought with fear, some of it legitimate, some of it manufactured, that we can't stop and see what is truly happening, even when people point it out to us.

Jesus called us to prayer, compassion, service and love... in order to make a point about an issue and to speak truth to power when needed, he did so with a prophetic and often shocking word.

In 2009, an assistant manager at Walmart encountered threats of termination and disciplinary action because he observed the Sabbath. The devout Mor...

On a Friday evening, I tweeted three times and posted three Facebook updates at three separate times -- and I wasn't even online.

In traditional synagogues, many Jews refrain from playing instruments on the Sabbath. I treat this instrumental limitation as an opportunity to creatively explore the musical and spiritual possibilities that exist outside of instruments.

I cannot describe the pain I felt that day. It was like being deeply in love for 18 years, only to learn suddenly that the relationship was "maybe" over.

So what does a postmodern Earth Day altar call look like? People pledged to learn to live in smaller circles -- to bike less and walk more, to eat locally, to plant gardens. Many pledged to take a digital sabbath -- "no screens on Sunday."

Religious ritual is a way of structuring time so that we, not employers, the market or the media, are in control. Life needs its pauses, its chapter breaks, if the soul is to have space to breathe. Otherwise, we may not be in Egypt, but we can still be slaves.

The idea that external indicators of faith -- whether that is manifested as wearing a yarmulke or a cross -- are stand-ins for actual religiosity -- that is, the degree of one's faith -- is fraught with problems.

While Sabbath observance is often dismissed as archaic, attitudes are changing as the pace of information and methods of delivery are unrelenting.

What is there to love about Shabbat? It's a day to rest? It's a day to sleep? Or perhaps, like thousands of of men and women profess after their first full Shabbat experience, it's the food.

Depriving someone of sleep is used as a torture tactic. How strangely sadistic that we inflict this violence on our own bodies by denying ourselves sufficient sleep.