Center for Creative Ministry — The following quote is from Judith Shulevitz, a columnist for the New York Times Magazine. It appeared on Mar. 2, 2003, and gives us much to consider.

"Whenever I dream of living in a society with a greater respect for its Sabbatarian past—a fantasy I entertain only with anxiety, since Sabbatarians have a long history of going too far—I think of something two rabbis said. Rabbi Judah Loew of Prague, best known for his tales of the golem, pointed out that the story of creation was written in such a way that each day, each new creation, is seen as a step toward a completion that occurred on the Sabbath. What was creation's climactic culmination? The act of stopping. Why should God have considered it so important to stop?

"Rabbi Elijah of Vilna put it this way: 'God stopped to show us that what we create becomes meaningful to us only once we stop creating it and start to think about why we did so.' The implication is clear. We could let the world wind us up and set us to marching, like mechanical dolls that go and go until they fall over, because they don't have a mechanism that allows them to pause. But that would make us less than human. We have to remember to stop because we have to stop to remember."

Paul Richardson, Center for Creative Ministry director