The Happiness Lab with Dr. Laurie Santos - Happiness Lessons of The Ancients: The Day of Rest
Episode Date: April 12, 2021Sarah Hurwitz worked 24/7 at Harvard, and barely took time off as she built a career in DC writing speeches for first Hillary Clinton and then Michelle Obama. Sarah would even take her cell phone in...to the shower.But as she explored the teachings of Judaism, she began to appreciate the vital importance of the commandment to observe a day of rest, and found that sometimes doing less made her happier.Sarah is author of Here All Along: Finding Meaning, Spirituality, and a Deeper Connection to Life in Judaism (After Finally Choosing to Look There). Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Pushkin. There are plagues and floods and desert wanderings. And there are even smaller domestic stories of bitter sibling rivalries and loving reconciliation.
People have argued about and debated this text for thousands of years.
How literally should we take the words on the page?
How should we apply the text to the modern world?
And do we really understand its true meaning?
But there's one instruction from the Torah that is crystal clear.
Take a day off.
From the very, very beginning, when the Torah first describes the making of the universe,
it clearly explains that the creator took a whole day-long break from his work.
That idea of 24 hours of rest is even included as one of the Ten Commandments.
Now, I'm not usually one to flout the commandments,
but taking a break from work isn't an instruction that I find all that easy to observe.
And neither did Sarah Hurwitz.
She and I both grew up sharing a college culture
that seemed to almost frown upon enjoying downtime.
Going to college at a school like Harvard,
you know, there's almost this like cult of hardcore-ness
where it's like, how many all-nighters do you pull
and how much work can you do? There was a sense that, oh, good, Saturday's more time for work.
It's so easy to fill every available hour with work. I remember we would look at classmates
who were laid back and who just enjoyed themselves and be like, oh, that person's just... They're
kind of a partier. They're're not, you know, they're not. What a loser. What a loser. I mean, it was like so ridiculous. And by the way, I have to say, I think about the
guys down the hall for me who were like partiers and who kind of, you know, had a lot of fun and
relaxed and they're all like millionaires. Like they founded some company and became so wealthy.
So I'm like, okay, clearly they were onto something then.
After college, I stayed in academia and took a job in the Ivy League,
which isn't usually known for its chill slacker vibe.
But Sarah moved on to an even more extreme workplace,
one that's famously on 24-7, the White House.
You really have no life, right?
Like work, you are just constantly working.
You're never off, right?
You're always available.
That's kind of the definition of a really good political staffer is always available.
You know, anytime you call email, I will pick up. I will answer within seconds. That's what kind of distinguishes a really great staffer.
exhausted. I was working on Hillary Clinton's campaign for president in 2008. And I dropped a glass in my kitchen one night just when I was making dinner. And I just thought... I was just
looking at all the shards on the floor and just thinking like, Oh my gosh, the idea of cleaning
this up is so exhausting. And so I just didn't clean it up for weeks. I would just wear flip
flops in my kitchen, which is like, that's really extreme, right? It's just exhausting.
And it starts to feel a little bit dehumanizing, right?
You just start to feel like you are just kind of plowing for your days in this kind of state
of work.
Not a great way to live.
You got so few breaks.
You couldn't even take a break when you were like taking a shower, right?
There was one time when I took my phone into the shower in a plastic bag because I was
afraid of missing a call.
This was on a political campaign.
And yeah, it was a bit much.
Now, these sorts of behaviors might sound a bit extreme.
But many of us struggle to keep work from invading our lives, from our mealtimes to our gym sessions, even to our date nights.
The good news is that Sarah eventually found a solution to this happiness-sapping
obsession with work. And she found that solution in Judaism. Welcome back to Happiness Lessons
of the Ancients with me, Dr. Laurie Santos. As we learned in the last episode, Sarah Hurwitz
found herself struggling to feel happier in her mid-30s and was looking to make some changes.
So she decided to learn more about Judaism, the religious faith she'd not given much thought to since she was a kid.
You can read about it in her book, Here All Along, finding meaning, spirituality, and a deeper connection to life in Judaism after finally choosing to look there.
One of the biggest revelations Sarah took from
Judaism was about overfilling her life with work and striving. She learned that joy could be found
once you start questioning that 24-7 work culture. You know, it's funny, I look back to my childhood
in the 80s, and there was like all this unstructured time. You know, I think about the
weekends, you know, as a child and like, you child and my dad would take us hiking or bowling
or fishing and there was no rush. We weren't rushing to get anywhere. We were just being.
We were just sitting there fishing or we were hiking and looking out or my brother and I were
playing outside or going biking. There was not this sense of franticness, of rush, of like,
I have to achieve all of these things. There was actually a
real break. And I think in our modern times, and also as an adult, I really lost that.
It's so relentless. It is so relentless. And it really is fueled by this very consumerist ethic,
which is like, you don't have enough. You are not enough. That is the core fundamental consumerist
ethic is not enough. And so what you have to do to alleviate
that is you have to get stuff. And to get stuff, you have to work harder. And so you work harder
so that you can get more stuff, which requires you to work harder so that you can get more stuff.
It's this endless cycle of working and getting, working and getting. And ultimately, getting all
the stuff, it doesn't necessarily make us happier. As know, as I'm sure you know, right, there is a limit to the minimum income after which point you don't get happier. And it's
much lower than you would think. Yeah. I mean, the research shows that in some of the research,
it shows it's around 75K, you know, which is much lower than many people think. But we still feel
like, you know, if we could get more money, get more stuff, just not cease doing whatever,
we would be happier. But this seems to conflict with one of the like
earliest passages in the Torah, maybe one of the most important, right? And so talk to me about,
you know, where Judaism says that this sort of approach might not work very well.
Yes. So it's actually in the Ten Commandments, believe it or not, where one of the Ten
Commandments is basically to celebrate Shabbat. It's to rest on Shabbat, which is generally
understood to be Friday evening
to Saturday evening, about 25 hours.
And not only are you supposed to rest,
but you are, the Torah says,
to let your servants, your animals,
and the stranger within your midst.
That's just like if someone outside the tribe,
like a non-Israelite is visiting,
everyone has to rest,
which is kind of amazing to think
that like your animals even have to rest, right?
Like that's like, like really? Like the cattle rest. But I think that, you know, like with much
interpretation of the Torah, I really look at this much more metaphorically of, you know, when we are
just constantly endlessly working and striving and feeling like not enough, you do begin to feel a
little like an animal, right? Like you're like a workhorse with blinders on just kind of plowing
the fields. You know, you can, you feel like a servant. You really feel like
you're just serving whoever it is you're serving your boss, the almighty dollar, whatever. And you
can start to feel like a stranger in your own life, kind of alienated from yourself. And so
that wisdom that says actually stop, like get off of this, not enough, need more train and just create an entirely different space
for those 25 hours. And this is something that like God in the Torah actually embodied himself,
right? In the beginning. Yes. Right. Like after creating the world over a period of six days,
God rests, right? Like God does the first Shabbat basically in the Torah.
In the book, you mentioned this idea, you know, we think of Shabbat as being about rest, but the translation isn't exactly rest when you think
about it, right? You're exactly right. It's not rest. That's a different word. Shabbat really
means stop, cease, pause. So it's kind of funny because, you know, you could say, well, I think
it's really restful to watch Netflix and, you know, catch up on my email and go and spend a lot of money
at local stores. And that might actually be restful for you. But that's not what Shabbat is.
Shabbat is actually a pause from your weekday life. So if you observe Shabbat in a very,
very traditional way, there are so many rules. I mean, it almost seems a little crazy where it's
like you don't use electricity, so you can't, you know, you can't be on screens.
You don't spend money.
So you can't go out and buy things.
So many rules, which before I really started understanding Shabbat, I looked at it and
just thought like, got all these rules, like, come on, you know what?
You can't take the elevator.
So it's what, is it really more restful to walk up seven flights of stairs?
Like that's silly.
But I now understand that what people who observe Shabbat in this rigorous way are doing is they are basically plugging up every nook and cranny
through which the secular world, the workday world can see. And they're creating an entirely
different space. So when I've spent time with Jews who are observing Shabbat in this really
rigorous way, it's like time has a different texture. There are no phones. No one is looking at their
phone. Nothing is buzzing or beeping or grinding. There's none of that mechanical noise. No one is
rushing to go anywhere. They're not driving places. They're not rushing to go places.
It feels different. Everyone is there. People are present. When you add a Shabbat meal with
people who are really in it,
people are actually talking to each other in this super engaged way. Kids are just running around,
playing outside, and time feels languid. It just stretches out before you and it's really beautiful.
It feels so different from the rest of the week. And I think in a way, Shabbat helps us recapture
some of that 1980s childhood sense of just this long day stretching ahead of you,
where there's nothing to achieve. There's nowhere to be. There's nothing that has to be done on some
schedule. There's just a sense of openness of just instead of doing, it's being. And that is
a really powerful transition and one that I think so many of us just desperately need now.
And it's so hard to do. Do you think folks who are really observing Shabbat in that way are
happier in those moments? I do. I really do. I mean, so many Jews who I know who observe Shabbat,
they're like, oh, Shabbat saves my life every week, right? Like it just gets you off that train
of I'm not rich enough, thin enough, beautiful enough, this enough, that enough. And you just
say, no, I'm enough.
I'm just enough.
And I think that during the week, you're so often listening to so many other people's
voices, right?
Your boss, all the ads that are barraging you from TV, Facebook, the internet, whatever.
And on Shabbat, you literally shut all of that off.
So whose voices are you listening to on Shabbat?
The voices of people you love and your own voice. Like for me, you know, I actually tried in the White House
for a period of months to have a pretty rigorous Shabbat practice. And my colleagues were super
supportive. They were so wonderful. Like I explained to them, like, look, if you an emergency,
you can call me, but I'm not checking email. And they were like, great. We're so proud of you.
And, you know, when I had this practice, it was like the first time that I actually had space to just
hear my own voice and hear my own thoughts rather than constantly thinking like, okay,
what would Mrs. Obama want to say? Or what do my colleagues need? And I actually think that
that space was what allowed me to kind of germinate and generate this idea for this
book on Judaism
that I wanted to write. You know, I think that it sort of allowed that idea to actually take root
and grow. And I think so often we just aren't able to create space for those things within us.
And so things don't take root. We don't flourish in a way that we really could.
So I'm picturing like, you know, this White House staffer who has like decided now that she's going
to like, you know, take a few days off on the weekend in the middle of a campaign.
And so talk about what that decision was like when you were thinking about it and how people reacted and things.
I think it was 2016 and I was doing all this reading about Shabbat and I was like, I'm just going to try this out.
Like, this sounds amazing.
And, you know, I emailed my colleagues and said, OK, I'm going to start doing this.
Here's what it means.
And they were just so supportive. You know, they just sent me back these notes saying, like, we'm going to start doing this. Here's what it means. And they were just so supportive. They just sent me back these notes saying like,
we're not going to bother you. Good for you. That's so great.
And you know what? It actually was fine. I would just get back online Saturday night
and do the work then. It was actually okay. But I'll tell you, if I had been on a campaign,
if I had been in a more crazy time, that would have been very hard.
And the truth is, after a couple months, a few months, I was like, it just felt like too much
for me. Things were getting really busy and hectic. We were traveling a lot. And it actually
became hard for me to do. Now, if I had felt like, no, this is really important to me, I am an
observant Jew, I would have done it. And this is why I actually really admire the way that my friends who are observant,
who are quite religious,
for them, it's not optional, right?
It's not something they can pick and choose as they see fit.
For them, it is like, it's mandatory, right?
That is part, like they feel a real sense
of being commanded by God to do this.
So it's not an optional thing.
And that works really well, right?
They just make it work.
Whereas for me, it was optional. And when works really well, right? They just make it work. Whereas for me,
it was optional. And when something like this is optional, turns out you end up taking the option
of not doing it so rigorously. We're now going to take a quick break. But when we return,
Sarah will explain the benefits she's seen in observing a day of rest. We'll see how all of us,
even those too busy to take a whole day off, can introduce some time of pause
into our lives. The Happiness Lab will be back in a moment.
In her book, Sarah Hurwitz describes just how much she learned from ditching her round-the-clock
working habits and enjoying a day of rest as instructed in the Torah. One of her most interesting insights,
one that matches with the science, is the fact that enjoying the Sabbath can help you reappraise
your tendency to be a bit of a control freak. You actually don't have control over when Shabbat
starts, right? It's just like, you gotta stop stop. Like if you're in the middle of some intense work project, you have to step away, which is kind of amazing, right? It's actually,
you know, the whole point of Shabbat is that in this moment, you stop creating,
you stop imposing your will on the world, and you actually just feel yourself as a creation,
right? I think that's Rabbi Jonathan Sachs, who of blessed memory, he, this amazing British rabbi
who talked about,
you go from relentless creating to actually feeling yourself as a creation. What an interesting thing. Like when you are a creation, that's not something you control, right? You're kind of just
in a way stopping and just saying like, I'm not going to impose my will on the world. I'm not
going to control everything and manage everything and create everything. I'm just going to take a
break from that for a second. And I think that shift in mindset is just so powerful
at a moment when so many of us feel like
we're so frantically trying to control everything,
change everything, manage everything
because modern life is hard
and we have very little support in this country
to care for our families.
So many people are struggling right now
and it's really heartbreaking to see.
Another thing you mentioned as a benefit is that like taking a Shabbat can actually help
us to sort of fight consumerism and materialism.
You know, all this stuff on the podcast, we talk about people being into, but it doesn't
really positively affect our happiness.
Yes.
You know, it's like to actually have a day where you're forced to stop spending, like
we were forced to stop getting things and striving and trying
to be something other than you are. It's such a shift in mindset. And actually, when you step
back into that weekday consumerist mindset, you realize it's almost jarring and it's depressing.
And you're like, wait a second. I don't like this feeling of never enough. I don't like this feeling
of feeling inferior and like, I have to keep striving
and like something is broken in me that I have to keep fixing. Because like, let's be very clear,
that is the message of every advertisement ever. It's like, something is wrong with you,
our product or service will fix you. That's what this attitude is. And to actually say like,
no, I'm really grateful. I'm really... I'm really all like, in a way, the opposite of
that consumerist never enough mindset is gratitude. Like that's actually the opposite of that mindset.
And you're right. It makes us much happier. That consumerist mindset does not make us happy.
And this idea of kind of getting in touch with like, no, I'm actually enough as it is,
it gets to another benefit of taking some time off, which is that Shabbat can actually help
you get to know yourself a little bit better. Absolutely. It's funny. Oftentimes,
people on Shabbat, they will go to a Friday night service at the synagogue or in a Saturday
morning service. And those are moments where you're offline. You're actually in moments of
prayer and reflection and quiet where you actually just have time with your own thoughts. You actually
are listening to a voice other than that from your phone or your boss or your colleagues or whatever.
And I think it does put you in touch with something deeper. It does. It really puts you
in touch with something that's more true. It can help you, I think, kind of re-engage with yourself.
It also offers you kind of a critical perspective on the other
six days a week. If you're constantly in that workday consumerist mindset, you never have the
critical distance from which to examine it and question it and kind of wonder about it.
In those 25 hours, when you're out of that mindset, suddenly you can think like,
wait a second, do I really like this job? Or like, hmm, is this relationship really a good relationship that I'm
in? Like, hmm. You can start to hear those voices that kind of exist on the edge of your consciousness
during the week and there isn't space for them. Suddenly there's space for them. And that can be
hard because sometimes they're voices you don't want to hear. You're like, oh,
just stop. I'd rather stay in this relationship because it's easy. I'd rather stay in this job because it's easy. But you can hear those voices that say, hey, this isn't you.
This is not you. Like, what are you doing? And I think that can lead to a lot of growth.
Another set of voices you can hear are just the people around you, right? Like your family,
your friends, right? I mean, another huge benefit of taking some time off is that we can actually
connect with other people better if we have a bit more time.
Exactly right. I mean, like, think about how often like I'll walk sometimes I'll
walk by I live in Washington, DC, and in the summer, everyone's eating outside. And you'll
walk by a table and see like four people on their phones. And they're all sitting with each other.
I'm like, Hey, guys, I want to like wave in front of their faces be like, look, there are all these
people around you. I mean, think about how often when you're spending time with other people,
at least one person's on their phone
and they're not there.
So like you kind of have half their attention
or you're kind of paying attention,
but not really.
On Shabbat, if you're observing in a rigorous way,
there are no phones, right?
There's no TV, there's no screens.
There is nothing to distract you
from the people around you.
And I think people listen to each other
differently on Shabbat.
I think they are present with each other differently on Shabbat. I think they are present with each other
differently on Shabbat.
And I mean, what a great way to strengthen relationships
and strengthen families.
And, you know, so much research shows that,
you know, one of the biggest hits right now
to our happiness is that many of us
don't feel like we have these strong social relationships.
Many of us aren't connecting.
We're not listening, you know,
and that's actually leading to an epidemic
in some ways of loneliness and things like that.
Yes. And that is, and look, it's like we have all this freedom, right? That is the secular ethic, freedom, no obligations, do whatever you want. So everyone just kind of
does their own thing and it's kind of lonely and isolating. And what you see in Jewish communities
where everyone's observing Shabbat is there's some constraint, right? There's an idea of like, no,
we all have to take on this obligation to observe Shabbat. But with that constraint comes such beauty. You have an entire community where
everyone is like walking to the synagogue, seeing each other, celebrating this Shabbat together,
eating meals together. They're all over each other's houses. It's almost... It reminds me of
what my dad used to talk about growing up in the 1950s, where it's like all the neighbors knew each
other. They were in each other's... Out of each other's houses. There was a sense of a really rich, thick community.
And I think we've kind of lost that, again, in this consumerist world where so many of us are
working so hard. Who has time? You're working one or two jobs trying to support your family.
And a lot of kids are just endlessly striving and working because they realize they've got to get
into college in order to make enough money.
So they're doing all these activities.
And it's like, oh, my gosh, guys, we've just lost that sense of connection.
And I think we've just lost this idea that we can take a break at all.
And that gets to kind of one of the final benefits I wanted to talk to, which fits with the science, which is this idea of gaining a little bit of time affluence.
So time affluence is this concept that social scientists talk about where it's your objective sense that you have some free time. It's like the opposite of what
many of us go through on most days, which is sort of time famine, where we're starving for time.
And the research just shows that just the simple act of feeling like you have some time
can improve our well-being. In fact, there's one study that shows that if you self-report being
time famished, that's as bad of a hit to your well-being as if you self-report being unemployed.
You know, we know unemployment is like super bad for well-being, but time famine is this too.
And I think basically what Shabbat is trying to do is to like stop the time famine at least for one day and give you back a little bit of like affluence.
I love that.
You know, you're right.
It actually is a sense of time affluence because, you know, every single week I've got these 25 hours. Every single week. It's never a question. It's
never in doubt if you're someone who kind of really observes it rigorously. That's so
interesting. You're right. It's time affluence. You're basically being granted this 25 hours of
time that's mandatory. And so now I want to get slightly personal because as I've mentioned on
this podcast before,
you know, I follow lots of my happiness advice, but time affluence is one that I really struggle with with my busy schedule. And so if you're like me and you're struggling with this, like,
how can you build in a little bit of Shabbat time, even if it's not the full observant version?
You know, how did you go about actually like opening that time up for yourself?
Yeah. You know, I think like so many people I've talked to
about this, they're just like, I can't do the 25 hours, right? If you're not orthodox, if you don't
have that sense of commandedness and it is optional, they're like, this just isn't realistic.
You know, especially if you have kids and they have things going on that you need to care for
them or you have, you've got to work these hours because you need to pay your bills. I'm like,
of course, right? Like that's okay. It doesn't have to be an orthodox observance
to be a meaningful observance.
I think the quality is really more important
than the quantity, right?
So I actually think just saying, okay,
I can't do the whole 25 hours,
but starting on Friday night at 7 p.m.
to midnight on Friday, I'm doing a rigorous Shabbat.
Everything's shut down.
Like no electronics, no electricity.
Like I am just gonna be so present with people, not gonna answer no electricity. I am just going to be so present
with people. I'm not going to answer any emails. I'm going to be just in it. And just feeling that
experience. Just having that experience. And if that's all you can do, great. And maybe you can
try Friday night and maybe Saturday morning until noon. You can experiment and try different things.
But I think the point is to actually get a taste of that really, really different mindset,
that like different kind of Shabbat time.
By Abraham Joshua Heschel called it,
I think he, I believe he called it a sanctuary in time.
Like it's actually kind of carving out time,
which is something that Jews do throughout the year.
And I think that's so beautiful
because we're so obsessed now with things
and accumulations, but to actually say,
no, time can be something
that we carve out and that we actually kind of gift ourselves, I think is very powerful.
And so when you've actually taken the time to do that, which I know is hard in your very
busy role, you know, what have been the benefits?
I mean, the personal benefits in terms of your own joy and happiness.
Oh my gosh.
I just, you know, it's funny when I was in the White House and doing it, I would start
Shabbat being
so frazzled and just obsessively thinking about like, okay, did I miss this edit from Mrs. Obama?
Did I get this thing right? Was the ending of the speech okay? And it would just be these thoughts
spinning around in my mind. But as I went to a Shabbat service or a Shabbat dinner with friends,
I would kind of get in the rhythm of it. Those thoughts would kind of get quieter and quieter.
I would kind of get in the rhythm of it, right? Like those thoughts would kind of get quieter and quieter.
And by, you know, eight or nine at night,
I just kind of calmed down and I would come home
and my apartment would be so quiet.
There'd be no phone to look at.
Everything would just be really peaceful.
And I would really feel myself
starting to kind of settle in, you know?
And I felt the effects on my own anxiety levels.
Like I felt like it really calmed me down.
I felt like I kind of own anxiety levels. I felt like it really calmed me down.
I felt like I transitioned into a much more reflective space where I was actually thinking deeper thoughts. During the week, so many of my thoughts were these kind of... They were work
thoughts. It was like, okay, did I get this sentence right? Did I get the speech to the
right people? Oh, this colleague had an edit. Okay, let me make sure I respond to the email.
But it was a slower pace for me. And it was me thinking like, okay, let me make sure I respond to the email. But it was a slower pace for me. And it was me
thinking like, okay, what do I want to do with my life? And how is this friendship I have going?
Do I want to kind of reconsider that? How is my family? I really just transitioned into a
different space. It was almost like transitioning from head to heart. It was just like a deeper,
more spiritual space. I felt more spiritually connected on Shabbat.
And I really do think it helped me decide that I wanted to write this book on Judaism.
That was a pretty unusual post-White House career move. I think most people were like,
oh, you're going to write a book on speechwriting or Mrs. Obama or politics, or you're going to help
Mrs. Obama with her memoir. And those were all great options, right? I could have been like a speechwriter to the stars
or whatever.
There's so many great options.
And I was thinking, okay, I should do those things.
But Shabbat actually let me listen
to these quieter voices,
which are hard to hear
among all those clamoring voices
telling me what I should do.
And it was like, oh, wait a second.
Maybe I don't want to do those things.
Maybe I want to write this book
to share the radical transformative wisdom that I found in Judaism. And I think it actually let me do that.
It actually kind of let those thoughts take root and flourish enough so that I could actually
feel comfortable doing that. I think if I hadn't had that space, I don't know if I would have ever
developed that confidence to do what I really wanted to do next.
And another thing, when I think about doing this,
like when I think about like, you know, actually taking 25 hours off, I'm ashamed to admit this,
but my immediate emotion is like anxiety, right? That it's just like, what am I going to miss?
Oh my gosh, I'm maybe going to know what to do with myself. I mean, did you go through that a
little bit when you started? Oh, totally. Right. There is this fear of it's the FOMO. It's the
sense of, oh, I'm getting behind, right. Everyone else will be working then or achieving then. And like, what am I doing taking this time
off? Oh my gosh. And that is so much the consumerist mindset. It's the always having to
be on, always having to be doing. So I definitely had so much of that anxiety. But I think once you
commit to it and actually do it in whatever form that you do, you see the benefits. You really do
see the benefits in your life. And I actually think... I mean, look, the point of Shabbat
is not to take a break so that you can work harder the other six days. You work hard the six days
in order to get the break in Shabbat. It's not a rejuvenate so you can just crush even harder.
That is not what Shabbat is. But once you can push through that anxiety,
you'll be amazed at how much you can find to enjoy on Shabbat. Where people are like,
what will I do with myself? You realize like, oh, I can just curl up and read a book. I can
take a walk with a friend. I can just enjoy a meal with people I love. I can take a nap.
Taking a nap is like a big Shabbat thing. A lot
of people nap on Shabbat. I can just like stare out my window and look at the scenery around me.
I mean, these are such simple things that people used to do back in the day and that we've lost
sight of. And they're such simple joys and pleasures, but Shabbat really does give you
a lot to savor. And so if there's a listener who's hearing this, who's getting a little like Shabbat curious, you know, either because they're, you know,
like not Jewish, but kind of want to try it out or, you know, maybe like you were like Jewish,
but like really, you know, weren't observant and weren't fitting it in before. What would
be your advice to them to get started? Yeah, I would say like, welcome in, man. This is great.
And I would say like, it doesn't have, you know, people, I think, set themselves up for failure
when they think it has to be perfect. I have to do it 25 hours and I have to follow every single rule ever.
And if I don't do that, then it's all or nothing. And it's not all or nothing. I think the general
rule is like, look, the more you can do the better, but do whatever you can. Just do whatever
you can. And I think the really key idea is to make it feel different from the rest of the
week, to make it a real pause from the rest of the week. So think carefully about, okay,
what defines my week? Is it this frantic work churn? Is it kind of driving kids to every
possible place on the planet? Okay, how can I carve out some amount of time where I'm not
doing those things and I'm doing something different? I think that's really the key.
Regular Happiness Lab listeners know that I really, really struggle with this stuff.
Taking a break and reducing my workload is a huge challenge for me, but I've learned a ton
from talking with Sarah. I'm going to try to follow some of her advice, even if it means
marking out just a tiny space in my week that isn't for work or admin or chores. We'll be moving on from Judaism
now, but our next episode will explore insights from another religious faith, one that's very
much built on these foundations, Christianity. Specifically, we'll look more at what Christianity
can teach us about coming to terms with upsetting events in our lives through the practice of
forgiveness. So please come back next time
for more happiness lessons of the ancients with me, Dr. Laurie Santos.
The Happiness Lab is co-written and produced by Ryan Dilley. The show was mastered by Evan Viola, and our original music was composed by Zachary Silver.
Special thanks to the entire Pushkin crew, including Mia LaBelle, Carly Migliore, Heather Fane, Sophie Crane-McKibben, Eric Sandler, Jacob Weisberg, and my agent, Ben Davis.
The Happiness Lab is brought to you by Pushkin Industries and me, Dr. Laurie Santos.