What almost forgetting Shabbat brought up for me.
I almost forgot to do my Friday night Shabbat ritual.
How was this possible? I love making time for Shabbat on Fridays, but two weeks ago, I nearly forgot to do it.
It was 5 p.m. and starting to get dark outside. Now the winter nights are here in Portland, it gets dark way earlier than I’d like. After a long day, I was on my way to sit by our fire and read. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I spotted my Shabbat candlesticks tucked into my tea nook. With a jolt, I realized oh! It’s Friday, isn't it? I haven’t done anything to prepare for Shabbat!
That moment stopped me in my tracks. What struck me wasn’t just that it was Friday, and that I hadn’t prepared for Shabbat like I normally would. What shocked me was that it no longer felt habitual to plan for Shabbat as I used to. When I clocked that, it just didn’t feel right.
In the past, Shabbat was like second nature—I’d light the candlesticks, bake challah throughout the day, and there would be a general intention setting for the evening and day ahead. But since enrolling in grad school, so much of that has fallen by the wayside. I’ve stopped doing many of the little things that once grounded me, and it’s left me feeling depleted.
Preparing for Shabbat no longer feels like a habit, and I hate that.
When I started grad school, I knew I’d have to make sacrifices since I’m still working full time. Classes are on Fridays and Saturdays, so it was bound to disrupt my usual weekend schedule. That’s a choice I made—giving up certain rituals and routines in my life for school. In the first year, it felt manageable. I told myself that it was something I was willing to do, a sacrifice that I was okay with. I tried to keep up with Friday Shabbat as best I could week after week, even though I didn’t get home from class until long after 8 pm. I can’t say I was super successful.
Now, a year and a half in, it feels very different. As things have slipped, I’m feeling a deep sense of missing the replenishing parts of my routine.
There are things in my life I’ve simply stopped doing because I don’t have the time or energy. I’m worried I have let Shabbat become one of those things. I got to a place where I could have forgotten it completely. It made me realize that self-care has been so low on my priority list recently that many habits that make me feel better have been falling away.
And with Shabbat, it’s not as simple as letting a self-care ritual slide.
Oct. 7th, 2023, was a terrible day for the global Jewish community and a significant moment for me in my relationship with my Jewish heritage. It hit me recently how the timing of this coincided with me slowly, and perhaps unconsciously, stepping back from parts of my Jewish identity (like Shabbat) due to other life obligations. That realization hit hard–a stark recognition that a key piece of who I am has become… let’s say, scary to be openly proud of. It’s a piece of myself I realize I’m longing to reconnect with and celebrate.
I wouldn’t call myself a religious person. However, I am very much culturally Jewish, and I love embracing Judaism in this way. Growing up, Shabbat was always a time for my family to spend together. My mom would make the same dishes every week, we would light the candles, and we would say the prayers over the bread and wine. It was a celebration of our culture that we went out of our way to make time for. It helped us take a pause from the week we just experienced and transition into the weekend.
I wanted to be proactive about this tradition again. So, this past Friday night, I lit my Shabbat candles and set the intention to try and be better about doing the things that I love. It felt really good not just to honor Shabbat on Friday, but to also take the day on Saturday to just hang out, read, and relax. I took a long bath and just really let myself recharge. I can’t remember the last time I did this. It was comforting to come back home to that ritual.
Traditionally, Shabbat is a day of rest where you're not supposed to do any work. I’ve adapted this concept into something that works for me. I see Saturdays as my personal day of respite, a day to focus solely on doing the activities that bring me joy.
On Saturdays, it’s hard to reach me because I get absorbed in the activities that recharge me. I might spend the day cooking, working on a craft like pottery, or, like this past weekend, sitting and reading all day. (The God of the Woods by Liz Moore is hard to put down, btw.) It’s a day where I don’t feel bad about not responding to friends on my phone or not getting my to-do list done. In my adult life, Shabbat has become my day of freedom from the “shoulds”—the constant pressures of what I think I should be doing. Instead, I focus on whatever will help me recharge and feel whole.
I’m reaffirming my commitment to myself to always try to make an effort to honor Shabbat, even when life makes that difficult. And maybe draw a bath here and there until graduation in June.