Our Thoughts
Shabbat in the Age of Notifications
Over the past few weeks, it has felt almost impossible to escape noise.
Every time you open a phone there is another alert, another breaking headline, another opinion, another argument, another crisis demanding your attention. Within seconds we move from political debate to financial news, from war footage to WhatsApp groups, from Instagram clips to emails we forgot to reply to three days ago.
And somehow this has become normal.
The term “doomscrolling” now exists because people endlessly consume negative news online, often late into the night, unable to stop refreshing for the next update. Recent studies suggest the average person now checks their phone between 90 and 150 times a day, whilst adults spend well over 4 hours daily on their phones. Despite all this connection, levels of anxiety, distraction and mental exhaustion continue to rise.
What struck me recently was not only how noisy the world has become, but how uncomfortable silence now feels. A queue is no longer just a queue, it is time to check notifications. A train journey becomes content time. Even a short walk is often filled with podcasts, music, messages and endless stimulation.
We have become brilliant at consuming information, but much less comfortable simply stopping.
And then the Torah arrives with a radical idea.
Pause.
Every time you open a phone there is another alert, another breaking headline, another opinion, another argument, another crisis demanding your attention. Within seconds we move from political debate to financial news, from war footage to WhatsApp groups, from Instagram clips to emails we forgot to reply to three days ago.
And somehow this has become normal.
The term “doomscrolling” now exists because people endlessly consume negative news online, often late into the night, unable to stop refreshing for the next update. Recent studies suggest the average person now checks their phone between 90 and 150 times a day, whilst adults spend well over 4 hours daily on their phones. Despite all this connection, levels of anxiety, distraction and mental exhaustion continue to rise.
What struck me recently was not only how noisy the world has become, but how uncomfortable silence now feels. A queue is no longer just a queue, it is time to check notifications. A train journey becomes content time. Even a short walk is often filled with podcasts, music, messages and endless stimulation.
We have become brilliant at consuming information, but much less comfortable simply stopping.
And then the Torah arrives with a radical idea.
Pause.
In this week’s sedra we read about Shemittah, the Sabbatical year. For six years the land is worked, planted, built and developed. Then, in the seventh year, everything pauses. The Torah introduces this mitzvah with the words וְשָׁבְתָה הָאָרֶץ שַׁבָּת לַה׳ (“And the land shall rest, a Sabbath for Hashem”).
The Sforno explains that Shemittah is not merely agricultural, it is spiritual. A society that constantly produces eventually begins to believe that success comes only through human control and endless effort. Shemittah reminds us that the world does not belong entirely to us.
The Ramban develops this even further and explains that Shemittah is a declaration of faith. An entire nation pauses its economy and steps back from productivity in order to remember that there is something bigger than endless striving.
Perhaps that is one of the great struggles of modern life. We know how to work, consume and react, but many of us have forgotten how to pause properly. Not laziness. Not escapism. Pause in its deepest sense. Time to think, breathe, notice our family, sit at a table without checking a phone halfway through a conversation, pray slowly, sing properly and reflect honestly.
Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch writes that Shabbat is the moment when a person stops trying to dominate the world and instead reconnects with their purpose within it. For one day each week we are reminded that our value is not only based on productivity.
That idea feels almost rebellious today because modern culture quietly tells us the exact opposite. Keep moving. Keep scrolling. Keep updating. Keep producing.
And Judaism says something extraordinary: you are allowed to stop. More than that, you need to stop. Not because ambition is wrong, but because endless motion without reflection eventually empties us.
Perhaps that is why Shabbat still feels so powerful. In a world screaming for our attention every second, Judaism creates sacred pauses. Shabbat. Yom Tov. Shemittah. Moments where the noise softens long enough for us to hear ourselves again.
As we prepare for Shabbat, perhaps we can each try to reclaim a little bit of stillness. To put the phone down slightly earlier. To listen slightly more carefully. To be slightly more present.
Because in a world that constantly tells us to speed up, perhaps one of the most spiritual things a person can do is pause.
And on that note… looking forward to singing with you, together with the choir, this coming Shabbat.
Chazan Eitan