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Glimpses of a Different Order of Time
Random House
April 2010
On Sale: March 23, 2010
288 pages
ISBN: 1400062004
EAN: 9781400062003
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction Religion
“Everyone curls up inside a Sabbath at some point or other.
Religion need not be involved.” The Sabbath is not just the holy day of rest. It’s also a
utopian idea about a less pressured, more sociable, purer
world. Where did this notion come from? Is there value in
withdrawing from the world one day in seven, despite its
obvious inconvenience in an age of convenience? And what
will be lost if the Sabbath goes away? In this erudite, elegantly written book, critic Judith
Shulevitz weaves together histories of the Jewish and
Christian sabbaths, speculations on the nature of time, and
a rueful account of her personal struggle with the day.
Shulevitz has found insights into the Sabbath in both
cultural and contemporary sources—the Torah, the Gospels,
the Talmud, and the writings of the Apostolic Fathers, as
well as in the poetry of William Wordsworth, the life of
Sigmund Freud, and the science of neuropsychology. She
tells stories of martyrdom by Jews who died en masse rather
than fight on the Sabbath and describes the feverish
Sabbatarianism of the American Puritans. And she
counterposes the tyranny of religious law with the equally
oppressive tyranny of the clock. Can we really flourish
under the yoke of communal discipline, as preachers and
rabbis like to tell us? What about being free to live as we
please? Can we preserve what the Sabbath gives us—a time
outside time—without following its rules? Whatever our faith or lack thereof, this rich and resonant
meditation on the day of rest will remind us of the danger
of letting time drive us heedlessly forward without ever
stopping to reflect.
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