Rabbi Levi Yitzhak of Berditchev was looking out over the town square. Everywhere he saw people rushing. He called out to one man, “What are you rushing for?” The man replied, “I’m running to make a living.” 
Levi Yitzhak replied, “What makes you so sure that your livelihood is in front of you so that you have to rush to catch it up. What if it’s behind you? Maybe you should stop and let it catch up with you.”
True then, it’s become more so in our time. Ours was supposed to be the age of leisure. Yet many people work harder than ever. One parent at work has become, in many cases, two.
Too many people I know feel endlessly pressurised, especially over the past few months, trying to juggle home and work, family and career, ambition and recreation. We have to run to stand still. When do we stop, out of choice, to let our blessings catch up with us?
Which is why holy times are important. For me, Friday nights around the Shabbat table, with the candles, the wine and the challah are the high point of the week.
It’s when Jewish husbands sing the song of praise to their wives. Parents bless their children. Together we share words of Torah. We sing zemirot, the traditional melodies.
For a day the pressures of the outside world disappear. There are no phones or emails, no radio or television, no working or shopping. In ancient times Shabbat was a protest against slavery. Today it’s an antidote to stress, the most effective I know.
Rest sets everything else in perspective. When life becomes an endless succession of pressures, we lose the natural rhythms of work and rest, running and relaxing, striving and enjoying the fruits of our striving. We move so fast that we miss the view.
We travel so often that we forget where we’re going. At regular intervals we need to stop, pause, breathe, cease becoming and just be. It makes a difference.
And that is what Elul is about; taking a moment in the year, as Shabbat does for us in the week, to slow down, appreciate the view, and realise that our blessings are right there behind us, waiting for us to rest so that they can catch us up. Chodesh tov. Shabbat shalom.
