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Stop Look Listen book review: The spiritual beauty of Shabbat

Nehemia Polen argues the ultimate purpose of Shabbat is to bring us to a zone of enhanced spiritual awareness

March 10, 2023 15:32
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1 min read

Stop Look Listen — Celebrating Shabbos through a Spiritual Lens
Nehemia Polen
Maggid, £22.99

You’ll often hear Shabbat championed these days as an opportunity for “digital detox”, when we can switch off the electronic devices that hold us captive for the rest of the week and enjoy the company of family and friends.

The social and mental health benefits of a release from the “tyranny of technology” may be good as far as they go, argues Nehemia Polen, but we need more than a utilitarian motive to keep the Seventh Day.

Instead, the ultimate purpose of Shabbat — or Shabbos, as he calls it — is to bring us to a zone of enhanced spiritual awareness in which we celebrate the day “as a gift from God to us and an offering from ourselves to God”.

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