Jakub Chlouba; Unsplash
A few years ago, I was going through a particularly challenging mental health chapter and was seeking new tools for support. A friend recommended acupuncture and I tried it for the first time. The acupuncturist asked various questions, including one that especially resonated with me: “What is your relationship to rest?” I realized it was a question I’d never asked myself. I told her that I didn’t know the answer and I proceeded to spend the next several weeks thinking about it a lot. I decided to try something that I called Project Nourishment: for three months, I would try to keep work confined as closely as possible to a 40-hour week, and I would ensure that almost everything outside of those hours was connected to rest, joy or pleasure. I knew there would be roadblocks along the way—there would be things I had to do out of practical necessity or out of obligation. But I wanted to see what it felt like to hold those nourishing categories much more centrally than I normally would.
The experience was powerful. One of the loveliest parts of it was sharing about my experiment with others and seeing their faces shift and relax as they considered the question for themselves: what brings me rest, joy, or pleasure?
As the Jewish year of 5782 comes to an end, we’re also finishing a shmita year. Shmita literally means release, and it refers to the final year of a 7-year cycle. In the shmita year, we are expected to aim for a much deeper level of rest and release than we would otherwise. The land goes unplanted, many debts are forgiven, and some private resources are opened to the collective. Some people also think of it as a time to think differently about our own labor and obligations and prioritize rest in a deeper way.
As this particular shmita year ends, I wonder: what lessons should we be taking into the coming year, 5783? How can we learn from the Nap Ministry, founded by Tricia Hersey and grounded in the theology of Black liberation, to articulate the premise of “rest as resistance”? How can we continually reach for a more comprehensive understanding of community care and healing justice? I hope the resources below offer insight into what that might look like, and I hope we all can go into the next 7-year cycle inspired to hold rest as sacred, to consider what we can put down and how we can hold each other with greater care and mutual support.
— Sarra Alpert, Director of The Avodah Institute for Social Change
Recommendations
Teaching
Shmita
As the shmita year comes to a close, Rabbi Miriam Liebman invites us to reflect on the theme of rest through Jewish texts and guiding questions as a part of the Institute’s High Holiday resource, Transformative Teshuvah.
Teaching
The Value of Rest
Rabbi Rory Katz asks us to examine the value of rest in our life and the possibilities that might emerge from deepening a shmita ethic in our society.
Video
Speak Torah to Power: Ending Hunger on College Campuses and Creating True Food Equity
Rachel Sumekh, Avodah alum and former CEO of Swipe Out Hunger, reflects on how the concept of shmita inspired her to take a step back and consider how she can deepen her activism to work in solidarity with those most impacted by hunger.
Sourcesheet
Not Like Egypt: A Jewish Response to Agriculture
Nati Passow, the founder of the Jewish Farm School, brings us back to the literal roots of shmita with Jewish agricultural traditions and values that grew out of the Israelites’ experiences in Egypt.
