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alizamiriam's review against another edition
informative
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced
3.75
This book has been my shabbat reading all year. I think I might have enjoyed it more/gotten the thesis better had I read it in a more concise window of time. As a Jew who has been shomer shabbat for several years now, this book both reminded me why I kept (and continue) to observe shabbat according to Jewish law, challenged me to think about what it means for me — in the presence and absence of community around this ritual practice — and informed me on the history of shabbat/sabbath in the context of American Judaism and Christianity, more broadly. This book would also be of interest to people in my life who are curious about shabbat, even if only from an intellectual place or to help better understand my choices and our relationship.
dngoldman's review against another edition
challenging
hopeful
informative
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
The Sabbath World: Glimpses of a Different Order of Time by Judith Shulevitz is an insightful review of the historical meaning of the Sabbath and its significance today. The author explores the specific customs of the Sabbath observed by Jews and Christians throughout the ages, as well as the social and political forces that shaped those customs.
Shulevitz's unique perspective on the Sabbath informs her analysis and provides valuable insight into the significance of the Sabbath in contemporary society. The result is a fascinating and at times poignant mix of history, psychology, philosophy, and religion. While the book is engaging, it can sometimes feel a little scattershot, making it difficult to see the through-line of the entire book or even a single chapter. Nevertheless, there are a few major themes that stand out.
- When we observe the Sabbath, we are doing more than creating a "cathedral in time" as Herschel poetically put it. We are creating time in social space. The Sabbath cannot be observed alone, but must be done in a group with shared values and customs. The Sabbath has introspective elements, but it is not purely an emotional or spiritual activity.
- The Sabbath is a philosophical statement that adds meaning to work, while also protecting us from the mechanization of daily life.
- Attitudes toward the Sabbath, ranging from rejection to strict enforcement, can be seen through a Marxist lens. They were shaped by what capitalist society needed them to be - strict when the value of work and the workday needed to be emphasized, and relaxed when Ford realized that workers needed time to shop.
- Rest is an active part of creation, not simply the absence of work.
- There is little physical evidence for the Sabbath outside of the Bible. The Sabbath cannot be compared with similar institutions in the cultures that surrounded the land that became Israel and Judah, as it appears to have been an invention of the inhabitants of those two nations.
- Christians initially rejected the Sabbath, but the Luther revolution provided people with direct access to the Bible. The Pilgrims left England for religious freedom, which included the observance of the Sabbath.
apetruce's review
3.0
Terry Gross interviewed this author and the book sounded really good. I had to go through inter-library loan to get it. Bit it wasn't what I thought. It was still pretty good. I thought it was going to be a reality-show type of book with her perceptions of what it was like to live a year with one day a week of a strict sabbath. But, instead, it's an academic tome researching the history of the sabbath. Totally not what I thought and dense...the sort of book you have to re-read some sentences a few times. But, I learned a lot and some passages just glided along, rapt with information.
lazygal's review
3.0
This book had been mentioned a while ago, and I'd flipped through it at a bookstore, but I hadn't thought of reading it until I learned that the author would be speaking at RUSA's annual Literary Tastes Breakfast. She was funnier in person than the book suggests.
The Sabbath World is a rather dry look at the history of the Sabbath and how we react to the idea today. Ranging from the post-exile Jews to today's (mostly lapsed) blue laws, and from Talmudic discussion to Sabbatarian thought, we learn how this "fenced off time" united a people and even won the approval of the Supreme Court. What's missing is how current faiths celebrate the day, or perhaps it's more accurate to say how current faiths recommend celebrating the day.
Copy provided by publisher.
The Sabbath World is a rather dry look at the history of the Sabbath and how we react to the idea today. Ranging from the post-exile Jews to today's (mostly lapsed) blue laws, and from Talmudic discussion to Sabbatarian thought, we learn how this "fenced off time" united a people and even won the approval of the Supreme Court. What's missing is how current faiths celebrate the day, or perhaps it's more accurate to say how current faiths recommend celebrating the day.
Copy provided by publisher.
kaimetcalfe's review
2.0
I expected to get a lot more out of this book than I did. Read like a textbook more than a spiritual autobiography. It was dense and rambling and hard to follow. The last chapter was the best chapter. I do feel like I have a better and deeper understanding of the sabbath but... I don't know if reading this book was really worth the energy. Might be a different story if you're more well versed in theology and philosophy than I am.
settingshadow's review
1.0
Well, that was a huge chore. Shulevitz ostensible set out to explore the history of Shabbat and whether it still has meaning in the modern age. I would still read the heck out of that book, if anyone would like to write it.
But not Shulevitz. I will never read anything she writes ever again. I've read a lot of bad books, but rarely finished a book with such a strong antipathy for an author. It's not just Shulevitz's writing style, although there's certainly a lot to complain about there:
*the prose is disorganized and often self-contradictory (some examples: in one portion Christians celebrating Sabbath on Sunday were considered anti-Shabbat, and in another the same activity is considered Sabbatizing; Christians don't celebrate a Sabbath in the Roman world because it's too hard when you're a minority group, but in the previous chapter, being a minority group is given as a reason that Jews persisted in celebrating Shabbat);
*the topic selection is eclectic enough to be completely dismissive of the reader -- pages of quoting Wordsworth because he once wrote a poem in which a single line references the Sabbath? An entire section on the author's experience in a talmud study group with no discussion of Shabbat at all? Why not, I guess...
*the completely undeserved authoritative tone. At one point Shulevitz quotes several rabbis saying one thing and then follows that up with "but I think [the complete opposite]", without any reason, then continues on as though her point of view is clearly the correct one. In another, following several pages of quotes from the New Testament about Jesus breaking the Sabbath she says "Obviously, the historic Jesus observed Shabbat." Really, obviously? We'll just take it as a given that Jesus was shomer shabbat in face of all available evidence because...Shulevitz says so?
But also, the slim autobiographical sections displayed the same personality. In writing about her mother becoming a rabbi in her 50's (P.S. I would totally read that autobiography), Shulevitz relays that because no congregation would accept a female rabbi, her mother became a hospital chaplain. She then dismisses reports that her mother got extremely good feedback on her bedside manner by saying "my mother never had patience for the sick." Then follows that up with the most offensive statement I've ever read in a modern book: "she was basically a glorified nurse". Yes, that's right, chaplains? Glorified nurses. As someone who works alongside both chaplains and nurses, I struggled to decide on whose behalf I was more horrified. She then states that the whole situation was so troubling to Shulevitz (Why? Unclear.) that she had to go to psychoanalysis.
As an aside, Shulevitz loves psychoanalysis. She starts the intro by comparing Shabbat to psychoanalysis, because they both are considered antiquated, but are valuable. Or, I mean, psychoanalysis is a completely debunked form of pseudoscience, but whatever. She then spends the first chapter writing about Jewish psychoanalytics, including Freud, and speaks extensively and lovingly about Freud in the conclusion.
More evidence that Shulevitz is exactly as she portrays herself: A hilarious passage in which she says that she was frequently asked if she was going to become a Rabbi, since she knew scripture so well. She appears to have no insight into the fact that her knowledge of scripture, consisting of a single adult Talmud class, is quite lean.
Beyond my antipathy towards Shulevitz, the book was also frustratingly not any one thing. She never even articulates what a standard Shabbat would look like to an Orthodox family, instead strictly equating "Sabbath" with "free time" except for one confused passage where she tries to distinguish different types of Sabbaths, but puts Dickens' Sabbath in as contrasting subtypes "romantic" and "scientific" in different paragraphs. She seems to have done no research at all, which she excuses by calling this book an "autobiography". And yet, for an autobiography, there's really not much there, either. I know that Shulevitz was raised Jewish and didn't like religion. She went to a Jewish overnight camp, where she felt the least educated in Judaism. Then she went on one date with an orthodox guy. Then she went to the synagogue that was the set for the Melanie Griffith/orthodox movie, because it was the movie set, but kept going back and crying in the back. Then she went to an adult talmud class, where she developed a crush on the rabbi. Then she stopped going to synagogue. Then she started going to synagogue again, because she got married. Now she tries to keep Shabbat, but mostly fails. Her children go to Jewish day school, but don't believe in G-d. That is literally the entirety of the autobiographical information in the book, with no more exploration into why these things have happened or what they mean to her.
I almost gave back a star for the admittedly interesting study of the Sabbatarian sects of Christianity, including the Anabaptist schism and the heaving Judaized Christianity of Transylvania. That was cool and novel to me. But less than 10% of the book, and given her error-prone statements in the parts of the book where I had background knowledge, I just can't trust anything she says.
But not Shulevitz. I will never read anything she writes ever again. I've read a lot of bad books, but rarely finished a book with such a strong antipathy for an author. It's not just Shulevitz's writing style, although there's certainly a lot to complain about there:
*the prose is disorganized and often self-contradictory (some examples: in one portion Christians celebrating Sabbath on Sunday were considered anti-Shabbat, and in another the same activity is considered Sabbatizing; Christians don't celebrate a Sabbath in the Roman world because it's too hard when you're a minority group, but in the previous chapter, being a minority group is given as a reason that Jews persisted in celebrating Shabbat);
*the topic selection is eclectic enough to be completely dismissive of the reader -- pages of quoting Wordsworth because he once wrote a poem in which a single line references the Sabbath? An entire section on the author's experience in a talmud study group with no discussion of Shabbat at all? Why not, I guess...
*the completely undeserved authoritative tone. At one point Shulevitz quotes several rabbis saying one thing and then follows that up with "but I think [the complete opposite]", without any reason, then continues on as though her point of view is clearly the correct one. In another, following several pages of quotes from the New Testament about Jesus breaking the Sabbath she says "Obviously, the historic Jesus observed Shabbat." Really, obviously? We'll just take it as a given that Jesus was shomer shabbat in face of all available evidence because...Shulevitz says so?
But also, the slim autobiographical sections displayed the same personality. In writing about her mother becoming a rabbi in her 50's (P.S. I would totally read that autobiography), Shulevitz relays that because no congregation would accept a female rabbi, her mother became a hospital chaplain. She then dismisses reports that her mother got extremely good feedback on her bedside manner by saying "my mother never had patience for the sick." Then follows that up with the most offensive statement I've ever read in a modern book: "she was basically a glorified nurse". Yes, that's right, chaplains? Glorified nurses. As someone who works alongside both chaplains and nurses, I struggled to decide on whose behalf I was more horrified. She then states that the whole situation was so troubling to Shulevitz (Why? Unclear.) that she had to go to psychoanalysis.
As an aside, Shulevitz loves psychoanalysis. She starts the intro by comparing Shabbat to psychoanalysis, because they both are considered antiquated, but are valuable. Or, I mean, psychoanalysis is a completely debunked form of pseudoscience, but whatever. She then spends the first chapter writing about Jewish psychoanalytics, including Freud, and speaks extensively and lovingly about Freud in the conclusion.
More evidence that Shulevitz is exactly as she portrays herself: A hilarious passage in which she says that she was frequently asked if she was going to become a Rabbi, since she knew scripture so well. She appears to have no insight into the fact that her knowledge of scripture, consisting of a single adult Talmud class, is quite lean.
Beyond my antipathy towards Shulevitz, the book was also frustratingly not any one thing. She never even articulates what a standard Shabbat would look like to an Orthodox family, instead strictly equating "Sabbath" with "free time" except for one confused passage where she tries to distinguish different types of Sabbaths, but puts Dickens' Sabbath in as contrasting subtypes "romantic" and "scientific" in different paragraphs. She seems to have done no research at all, which she excuses by calling this book an "autobiography". And yet, for an autobiography, there's really not much there, either. I know that Shulevitz was raised Jewish and didn't like religion. She went to a Jewish overnight camp, where she felt the least educated in Judaism. Then she went on one date with an orthodox guy. Then she went to the synagogue that was the set for the Melanie Griffith/orthodox movie, because it was the movie set, but kept going back and crying in the back. Then she went to an adult talmud class, where she developed a crush on the rabbi. Then she stopped going to synagogue. Then she started going to synagogue again, because she got married. Now she tries to keep Shabbat, but mostly fails. Her children go to Jewish day school, but don't believe in G-d. That is literally the entirety of the autobiographical information in the book, with no more exploration into why these things have happened or what they mean to her.
I almost gave back a star for the admittedly interesting study of the Sabbatarian sects of Christianity, including the Anabaptist schism and the heaving Judaized Christianity of Transylvania. That was cool and novel to me. But less than 10% of the book, and given her error-prone statements in the parts of the book where I had background knowledge, I just can't trust anything she says.
cstadler's review
3.0
I didn't find this very moving or anything, or that it had strong argument, but the history parts were pretty interesting. Like the Soviet experiment with a 5-day week, how Sunday became the Christian day of rest, and seventh-day sabbatarianism. Yeah there was actually maybe more about Christianity in here than the Jewish sabbath, which was kind of odd.