Shabbat is the original detox from being constantly available

The phone was zipped into my suitcase, under a pile of linen shirts and vague intentions. But by the end of day one, I’d convinced myself that a quick look wouldn’t count. Ten minutes later, I was watching a video of a dachshund in a ruff dancing to Vivaldi. Detox: defeated. My gut was flourishing; my screen time, less so.

But even as I slipped back into old habits, something deeper was stirring – a memory of another kind of pause. One I grew up with. One that still echoes, even if I no longer observe it in the way I once did: Shabbat.

Our family didn’t keep Shabbat in the strictly traditional sense. It was more of a pick ’n’ mix approach to Jewish law. No driving, no writing – but the TV stayed on. We had Friday night dinners with chicken soup, challah, and a softness that’s hard to describe. Shabbat wasn’t strict or silent; it was warm, grounding, and, as I reflect on it as my close to 50 year old self, oddly beautiful in its rhythm. A kind of weekly exhale.

I don’t keep it now. The phone stays on. The world, with all its noise and need, continues to buzz. But I understand Shabbat. And lately, especially on retreats like this, I find myself craving what it offers.

Because Shabbat is the original detox. Not from food, but from the exhausting demands of being constantly available, constantly responsive, constantly productive. It is a sacred rebellion against the tyranny of always being “on.” For 25 hours, it says: stop. You are not your output. You are not your inbox. You are enough.

I once heard a story from a Holocaust survivor – an account that stayed with me ever since. In Auschwitz, one Friday night, a man softly began reciting the Kiddush. There was no wine, no candles, no bread – only memory. A few others gathered near, whispering what they could remember, closing their eyes to recall the warmth of their homes, the sound of their parents’ voices. For a few precious minutes, in a place designed to strip them of everything, they were not prisoners. They were Jews. They were human.

That story lives inside me. Because it reveals what Shabbat really is: not just rest, but resistance. A refusal to forget who you are, even when everything around you tells you to.

Last Friday night at the retreat, I didn’t light candles. I didn’t say the blessings. I didn’t keep Shabbat. But I wanted to. And in that longing, there was something meaningful. I sat outside under the Portuguese sky and thought of my grandparents, of the traditions they passed down with gentle insistence. They didn’t keep every rule, but they honoured the idea that time – real time – could be held, treasured, protected.

I’ll return to Jason’s retreat, without a doubt. It’s a tonic, for both body and soul, and my gastrointestinal tract is always profoundly grateful. But next time, I might try a deeper kind of fast. I might turn off my phone at sundown on Friday, not because anyone told me to, but because I know what that space can offer.

Because in the quiet of Shabbat – whether you observe it religiously, culturally, or just nostalgically – there is something radical. It tells us we are more than our productivity, more than our screens. We are part of something enduring. And in a world obsessed with “doing”, Shabbat reminds us that there is holiness in simply being.