1. The Nature and Purpose of Sacred Time
Introduction
We have spent considerable time exploring the mission God has given us
to be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. Most recently, in this journey,
we studied sacred space and learned fundamentally that we experience the
holy in such space with the aim of spreading the holy beyond and
throughout the world. In our next two sessions, we will study sacred time -
what makes certain time sacred and how we experience it as such. We will
considerhow we can infuse more of the regular time of our lives with
holiness - inspired, instructed, and refreshed throughour experience of
sacred time.
One could say that when the world is made sacred and all the days are
made sacred, we will have helped bring about the day when “God shall be
One, and God’s Name shall be One.”
What are the sacred times? What do we learn from them? And how can
experience of them make one more holy and enabled to expand the holy
into regular time? These are the fundamental questions we’ll explore in
these sessions.

2. Before we begin, and as a part of this introduction, I want to speak a bit
about some fundamental features of sacred time as taught by the great
early 20th century sage and philosopher,Franz Rosenzweig, who wrote on
liturgical time, in his masterwork, The Star of Redemption.
Rosenzweig teaches fundamentally that through sacred time, time is
stopped, bent, and formed in a spiral that travels unceasingly toward the
Divine goal of redemptive fulfillment. In secular time, this is not the case.
There are no Divine interruptions, with little purposeful, regular return to
earlier time or experience of future time. Rather, in its coldest sense, it’s
one moment after another, that is, time that appears inexorably and
ordinarily to move to death.
Sacred time, in contrast, puts us in the experience and re-experience of the
Divine blessings of creation, revelation, and redemption- all with a big
purpose. Essentially, we come to understand and live in the eternal through
living in sacred time, which produces “glimmering pictures onto heaven.”
First, in looking to the past and focusing on creation, we learn and know
that God was and is the cause of miracles. We see this in the creation of
the world, the creation of each of us, the possibility of continuing creation,
and, mostly, the predictionof further miracles, especiallythe miracle of
relationship with, and revelation from, God.A new reality was and is
created by creation.
In the experience of revelation, we understand, among other things, a new
and powerful answer to death. Revelation begins to respond to death with

3. the overwhelming sense of the present moment with God that is filled with
love. In this on-going present, God calls us into an enduring relationship,
one of love - love of God for us and love of us for God. This is the principal
feature of our creation - this powerful presence and present moments in
which the miracle of this relationship and this love will ultimately result in a
victory over death. Revelation achieves this by pointing and leading our
way to redemption.
In redemption, we move from present to future. Redemptionoccurs through
this new Divine-intended relationship involving God, us, and others in the
world, which itself is a product of the love that naturally overflows through
the love God gives each of us. This flow of love drives us, as Rosenzweig’s
friend, Martin Buber, teaches, to an I-Thou manner of living. Love, thus
extended outward, has a redeeming effecton the world and, importantly,
redeems us now and forever.
As Rosenzweig says so profoundly, the liturgy of the festivals of sacred
time is the “reflector, which focuses the sunbeams of eternity in the small
circle of the year.” So, through our sacred experiences inthe year that both
correspond to realities of the seasons and bring back memories of our
history with God and their lessons, we transcend through the past, present,
and future of ordinary time to find life with God forever. We’llunderstand
this better as we look at each of the festivals in greater detail.
First, today, we’ll look at the commonfeatures of sacred time. Also,we’ll
look at the Sabbath specifically - its elements and purposes.

4. In the next session, we’ll continue our look at the sabbatical idea in the
sacred time of the sabbatical and jubilee years and study those sacred
times that teach the meaning and purpose of creation, revelation, and
redemption. We’llconsider and discuss what makes those experiences so
vital to our mission and its work.
Before we begin, let me ask you this: whatever thoughts or memories your
mind turns to, what meaning do you give the term, sacred time? What
value? What purpose?
(Time in which the soul gets its way? Soul time? Discussion.)
I-XVI.There are sixteen mitzvot prohibiting work and commanding rest on
eight holy days, including the Sabbath. We’ll talk about these holy days
individually, but now I want to focus on the idea of refraining from work and
experiencing rest on them. Let’s read the ones regarding the Sabbath, just
to see the language in the Bible. Read Exodus 20:10 and Exodus 34:21.
A. Why would we refrain from work and engage instead in rest in sacred
time?

5. (1. First, we know that God worked for six days and rested on the Sabbath.
So, we emulate God when we do so. We, also, acknowledge and support
God’s sovereignty when we do so. Just as the Sovereignwho created the
world rested on the seventh day, we who are, at God’s service, sovereign
of our lives, rest on the seventh day.
Second, we create time for other important activity during sacred time by
removing the secular enterprise of work (which can be engulfing) from the
agenda during such time, and sanctifying and declaring the time as holy.
(Such activity would include, as we’ll discuss in a moment, rest. This
activity also includes making special offerings to God,involving worship,
meditation, reflection, and other similar uses of time. It also includes re-
charging, studying, and re-orientation to God’s ways and restoring
ourselves to those ways, especiallythose featured on such holy days.)
2. What does the Bible mean by work? What are we to avoid?
(Furthering the everyday of the material. Business. Working at one’s
occupation or profession. In the oral law, then the Mishnah, this included
such things, commonto the work of that day, as sowing, planting, reaping,
binding, threshing, spinning, weaving, slaughtering, building, demolishing,
etc. What would or should such activity include in our own time?

6. Discussion.)
3. Indeed isn’t rest, in a manner of speaking, a certain activity that, in part,
substitutes for work in sacred time? What is rest?
(Is it the avoidance of the everyday grind? Avoidance of the possibilityof
being caught up fully or even chained to the material world? A time purely
for the soul, in which it’s protected from the demands of the material?
Could it be a vacation from the tensions of everyday life? A touch of the
eternal? A time in which all can equally touch the special of what’s eternal?
A time of openness to the other special splendors and intentions of sacred
time?
Can we agree, specifically,it begins with simple physical rest? The body
should rest and be restored from the fatigue of regular work. The mind
should rest from the demands of regular work and material progress and be
turned to the contemplation of advancing our spiritual progress. The soul
should rest and be free from the pulls and tensions of the everyday and
instead be open purely to formal encounter with God.

7. We are comforted during rest. We are free of the exertion of other days and
their troubles. We are entitled to be full of relaxation and tranquility of body,
mind, and spirit. We feel shalom, an inner sense of peace. At bottom,we fill
the vacuum created by avoiding work in sacred time by filling it with
serenity.)
B. How, specifically, do we avoid work and engage in rest during sacred
time? And, to be provocative, let me ask a question that should actually
precede that question: do we believe it’s important enough actually to avoid
work and engage in rest? And why?
(Possible examples of activities of rest: time in our places of worship. Time
with family and friends. Time devoted to our loved ones. Time in study and
worship and offerings. Naps. A focus on returning to regular time in better
ways to live more in accord with God’s expectations.
In addition to the discussionabove, a fundamental point about why we
should make this rest important is this: the mitzvot of sacred time are
instructive to our living out our mission of being a kingdom of priests and a
holy nation, which is important to God. Putting the material aside on a
periodic basis gives us the time, energy, guidance, and focus to prepare for
the work of that mission. We learn about and experience the sacred in
sacred time. This readies and enables us for going back into regular time
with a strengthened capacity to extend the sacred into that time.)

8. XVII-XXVII.Further, we are specificallyinstructed to bring offeringsand
rejoice in sacred time. To get a flavor of these expectations for the holidays
generally, let’s read these mitzvot - Leviticus 23:8,Deuteronomy 16:14.
A. First, why would we bring additional offerings during all such sacred
times?
(Recall our discussionof offerings. We don’t see them any longer as
animals and grains to be put up on the altar. But we do see them as prayer,
meditation, devotion, dedicating resources that support sacred enterprise,
and drawing closerto God.In that light, it seems entirely right that we
would bring special offerings on the occasionof sacred days.
We come to sacred space on holy days full of awe, respect, and gratitude
for the meaning and purposes of these times. These days speak of the
history, culture, lessons, and miracles from which our Way of life was born.
Sacred time gives these experiences and miracles a depth and texture
through which we can better understand their meaning and continuing
purpose in our lives.
Thus, on these holy days, we particularly seekto be near God, to sense the
Divine holiness, so that we might be better able to live as God expects in
the ordinary days of our lives. Through these additional offerings, we both
support the work of sacred enterprise and strengthen the relationships and

9. commitments that enrich our lives with the lessons sacred time conveys.
Chinuch: these offerings help us “to take to heart the greatness of the day
and its sanctity, and the miracles and the acts of kindness that the
Almighty, blessed be He,bestowed upon us at that time.”
B. Why are we commanded to rejoice on sacred days, including the
sounding of trumpets?
(We want to be open to the dramatic power of the sacred and readier to
grasp its meaning. We are also to rejoice in its beauty and glory.
Sometimes this joy may involve singing, dancing, and celebrating.
Sometimes there are special foods.
But, in all cases,we are to feel spiritual uplift from the experience of sacred
time, and, in this rejoicing, the peace, happiness, and enduring wholeness
that God intends for us by blessing us with such time in our lives. Joyful on
such days, we are inclined to spread the meaning and purpose of such
time to all time.)
XXVIII-XXX.Read Exodus 20:8. We’re commanded to rememberthe
Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Recall at the beginning of Vayikra when God
tells Moses to tell the people, “Be holy because I, the Lord your God, am

10. holy.” The next verse, Leviticus 19:3,says, “you must observe my
Sabbaths. I am the Lord your God.”
We’ve talked about requirements for the holy days, which apply to the
Sabbath, too. Do you have further reflections on the specificmeaning and
purposes of this day, the Sabbath day?
(It is a time in which we principally become acquainted with Divine holiness
and its importance to us. We are to emulate God in holiness. And we do so,
first, in seeing ourselves as co-creators with God in the world, who refrain
from work and rest on the seventh day.
God interrupts the natural flow of time, separates the seventh day from the
others and ceases work. So should we. We can all share in these sacred
moments each week. And, in them, free of our burdens and the toil of our
work, we live for a time in an eternal realm, near God,in peace.
There we can be healed, inspired, and instructed in holiness and God’s
ways. As Rosenzweig says, the Sabbath provides a “steadyflow” of peace
through which “whirlpools of the soul are created.”
In a sense, God suspends the secular clockeach seventh day, makes time
timeless, and shows that it is not the flow of things that rules. Rather, it is
the Creator, who, as we will discuss, is also the Revealer and the
Redeemer,Who rules.

11. Brought back to Divine purpose and service, we then can re-enter ordinary
time, enabled and strengthened to touch that time and our secular affairs
with a bit more of the holiness that God invests in us.)