Mijal: My brain on Shabbat feels like a different brain. My soul feels like a different soul. My family feels like a different family. My friendships feel like different friendships. I do not know what what kind of life I would have if I didn’t have Shabbat, which is extraordinary.
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Noam: Hey everyone, welcome to Wondering Jews with Mijal and Noam.
Mijal: I’m Mijal.
Noam: And I’m Noam and this podcast is our way of trying to unpack those really big questions being asked by young people about Israel, about Judaism, and the Jewish experience with the goal of leaving every episode in a better place than where we started. We absolutely don’t have it all figured out. But we love working through it all with you and I love working it through together with you, Mijal. Well, I mean it.
No, it’s the first time you’ve said that. That sounds really genuine.
Noam: We’re proud to be collaborating with Sefaria and The Simchat Torah Challenge, on this episode along with all of the other episodes of our “In the Beginning” mini-series in which we’re unpacking the foundational questions of Jewish life. We’re big fans of these incredible organizations and you can learn more about the amazing work that they do through the links in the show notes.
Mijal: And if you’re interested in sponsoring an episode of Wondering Jews with Mijal and Noam or even an upcoming mini-series, be in touch at, you guessed it, wonderingjews@unpacked.media
So Noam, I want to talk to you about Shabbat. Shabbat, the seventh day of the week starts Friday night at sunset and Saturday night at… Three stars. Is there a name for that? Stars? No, One is really dark. Nightfall.
Yes.
Noam: Just one quick note on that. Think about it outside of a Jewish context, if you’re like, when there three stars out at night, that’s when something ends or begins. You’re like, what are you talking about? So there isn’t a name for it that I know of in English, but the point is it’s a 25-hour experience from sunset till when there three stars outside. So it’s not 24 hours, it’s 25 hours.
Mijal: Yeah, so now a question that I heard from our producer actually, if Shabbat wasn’t part of Jewish commandments, like let’s say like suddenly, right, we got a message that no, actually Shabbat is not one of the Ten Commandments, it’s not one of the things we’re supposed to keep, like the seventh day, no special significance, no list of things you cannot do and things you should do, would you still keep Shabbat?
Noam: So the way I think about that is I would like to think that the answer is yes, but I think that the human condition would argue that it’s no, you would like to think that.
Mijal: I’m asking about the Noam condition, like what would you?
Noam: So I think that it’s because of the commandedness that I have the ability and the luxury to add so much to my life, which allows me to observe Shabbat. But if I didn’t have that commandedness, if I wasn’t part of a community that had this for 3,300 years, I don’t think that I would necessarily have the discipline to allow myself to experience such a joy.
Mijal: Right, right. It’s funny when I was younger, like a kid in elementary school, I really did not like Shabbat because especially when I lived in Uruguay, I went to a school where I was one of the only kids who observed Jewish ritual to some extent.
So Shabbat for me back then represented limitations. My parents, we’ll get soon to why we have this limitation, but my parents wouldn’t let me go to parties. They wouldn’t let me go to friend’s houses who were doing, I wasn’t really allowed, like socially it was very hard for me. And I remember being so resentful about Shabbat.
Noam: What age is this?
Mijal: Maybe I was like nine or 10, I don’t know. I was like annoyed, I couldn’t hang out with my friends.
Noam: So I had that in high school. The Jewish school that I went to, the vast majority of the families, the vast majority of the families, did not observe Shabbat in a traditional way. So I remember, I’m a bit older than you, Mijal, I remember Y2K,do know what Y2K is? The year 2000 so I was a freshman in high school, was a ninth grader, and my high school, the kids had just a rocking party, and it fell out on a Friday night, everyone was going to that party, everyone. If you were a kid at this high school, you were going to this party, and you were gonna have a darn good time at this party. And I didn’t go, I couldn’t go, because it was on Friday night, I’d have to drive to it, and it would be a very not-shabbat kind of party, and so I couldn’t go to it.
Mijal: Right, right, it’s funny though, like as an adult, even if I didn’t have to keep Shabbat from the way that I understand Jewish law and command in this, I could not imagine my life without it. I think it is the, you used the word joy. It is the greatest gift, privilege. I don’t even know what words to use about how much I love Shabbat. My brain on Shabbat feels like a different brain. My soul feels like a different soul. My family feels like a different family. My friendships feel like different friendships. I do not know what kind of life I would have if I didn’t have Shabbat, which is extraordinary.
So I want to break down Shabbat a little bit, I think depending on who you’re talking to, people often have assumptions. Let’s just say some people you ask them Shabbat, they give a lot of prohibitions they heard about it. Oh, you can’t do this, you can’t do that, you can’t turn on lights, you can’t whatever. Some people will focus on like certain ritual, like you make a blessing on the one, you make a kiddush, you do hamotzi, blessing on the challah, you go to synagogue. Others will focus on other, on aspects like you get to rest, you get to pause, the environment, you know what I mean, connection with the world, all of that.
So I want to touch a little bit on, on many of these aspects. But first, I want to start, Noam, with almost like a primer to explain in very technical terms, before we get to the spirit and the meaning and the reason why you call it a joy and I’m calling it a gift and it’s all of that and more, before we get into that and why it is such a necessity, I believe, for us right now in this world to have Shabbat, I want to just explain it technically.
We’re not going to go super in depth a different time, I think we should, but just like in a very technical level, what is Shabbat and how is it observed? And I’ll also say, because we both really value the pluralism and diversity of the Jewish experience, that there’s many ways to celebrate Shabbat and to observe Shabbat. We’re going to start with a more traditional way of explaining how to observe Shabbat.
Shabbat is introduced to the Jewish people in the book of Exodus, right? And the Bible doesn’t give out all the list of prohibitions that we have today. And we’re going to get to those prohibitions. Noam, give examples for observant traditional Jews. If you ask them what can’t you do on Shabbat? What would you say? me some examples
Noam: Rub sticks together and make fire.
Noam: . Okay, you cannot make fire. Give me contemporary examples.
Noam: Right, so that’s an example. These are called the 39 prohibited acts, the milahot.
Mijal: ut like today, what are things that observe?
Noam: Observant Jews would say, you can’t do Shabbat, they would say you can’t drive. They would say that you can’t carry things. Without an eruv.. Which we have to do a whole separate episode.
Mijal: outside of like a certain area.
Noam: Yes, you can’t use electricity. That’s like a major one right now. Electricity which means turning on TV, turning on your phone, using your phone.
Noam: You cannot engage in certain commerce. You cannot engage in business back and forth. can’t handle money and use it to make a transaction.
Mijal: You cannot cook, cannot bake, you cannot do like a whole range. If you’re a mechanic, you cannot fix a car. There’s also, by the way, disagreement. So for example, do you ride a bike on Shabbat? I’m not putting you on the spot here.
Noam: I do not ride a bike.
Mijal. I ride a bike on Shabbat. So I know that’s like, that sounds like a small disagreement. Not all Sephardim agree with me. So sometimes my kids would ask me, because I have taught them to observe Shabbat in this way. example, if they are coloring or something, I’m like, it’s Shabbat. Yeah, as a parenting side point. My kids don’t always listen to me with everything I tell them. But if it’s Shabbat and by mistake, my daughter, let’s say, like, didn’t realize and picked something up. And I’m like, it’s Shabbat. No questions asked. It’s like perfect parenting like okay.
Noam: I’ve said to my seven year old,seven year old, and like Wednesday if she can’t do something, I’m like, it’s Shabbat. That’s malpractice. No, but you’re absolutely right. This notion of just saying, hey, can we do this, it’s Shabbat. It’s just like this guiding, it’s like the North Star. You don’t even have to go into depth on it. As you get older.
Mijal: And I would say that when I’ve been with friends who aren’t Jewish or individuals who are exploring joining the Jewish people, sometimes it can feel a little bit overwhelming because it ends up being like thousands of little rules that we might not even notice. Like how do you make coffee on Shabbat? I’m like, I leave a hot water thing plugged in from…
Noam: didn’t even know that these things are such Jewish things that you’re like, I had no idea.
Mijal: Or like a hot plate, right? They live with like a timer to warm up food because you can’t cook or this or that. So there’s like a ton of laws that really shape the way that we observe Shabbat. Just in terms of like the technical origin of this, so Noam, you began to say this before, the rabbis of the Mishnah and the Talmud identify 39 creative activities that were used, it’s a bit convoluted, that were used in the wilderness by the Israelites to create the tabernacle. The tabernacle, the mishkan, the portable temple in the wilderness, right? So imagine this like temple that is made up of beautiful fabrics. And there were basically like 39 creative activities from baking the bread that you had to serve in it to sewing the fabrics to dyeing the fabrics, all of that. And the rabbis identified those 39.
So keep Shabbat, build the tabernacle. The rabbis look at this and they said, this is how we learn what we are allowed to do on Shabbat. And now because the rabbis always do this from this 39 creative activities, within each of them they find hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of things that you cannot do. And it even evolves to modernity. So we don’t have technology. Like my son asked me when I said this to him. And he said, well, Ema, they didn’t have iPads back then. Why can’t I use my iPad on Shabbat? You know, and I had to explain to him. I said, well, I didn’t use this words with him, but I was like more modern rabbis, right? They extended Jewish law and they identified electricity as something that is part of like turning on a fire, for example, which is like.
Noam: Or building.
Mijal: Right. So they locate modern things in this ancient 39. Yes. So that’s basically like a primer on Shabbat and everything that you’re not allowed to do.
Noam: But you know what’s so interesting? Yeah. And maybe you’re going to get to this. You started with the 39 prohibited acts from the Book of Exodus as the storytelling of Shabbat. And where my mind goes is the storytelling of Shabbat is actually the first two chapters of Genesis.
Mijal: Yes I think you’re going to get into the positive meaning. Why do we keep Shabbat? Right?
Noam: Yeah, it could be, very much one of the reasons why I would like to think when you asked me that question at the outset about would I observe Shabbat if not for the commandment to observe Shabbat and I said I’d like to think that I would, but the commandingness is very essential to my ability to do it and having the discipline. But a better version of me, a better version of Noam would say, well, my goal is to always to imitate God, to engage in imitatio de. And imitatio de is this concept of working, producing, creating for six days, and then on the seventh day having this radical idea that we imitate God and we positively rest and we focus.
Mijal: You’re right, maybe we should have started with that. like we have in the Bible like the zachor and shamor, remember like on Shabbat, you are to remember. And then you have to have a shamor, or like observe. Protect, right. So Shamor is associated by the rabbis with all the negative commandments, all the things you cannot do. Right. Like, don’t do this, don’t do that. And I think very often people do what I just did, which is let me talk about everything I can do. But there’s the heart, which is why do we do this? And according to our tradition, there’s two main reasons as to why we keep Shabbat. Right. One is and we mentioned them when we make Kiddush, the plastic over the wine. One is to remember the act of creation. So as you’d describe right now, Noam, in Genesis we are told that the world is created, like the act of creation, like God uses the first six days to create the universe, and on the seventh day God seizes activity. Some people say God rests.
Mijal: I grew up with a father who was very insistent on Jewish grammar. So my dad always says, ceases, right? Ceases, activity as opposed to resting., what I just heard from you, Noam, is to say, well, part of what we’re supposed to do here is that we have this, we learn from God. God produced, created for six days and then there’s one day in which you stop and the day in which you stop becomes actually like the most sacred day of all. It almost becomes like the climax after those six days for the seventh day. The second reason by the way that we mention in Kiddush and traditionally we say is that we observe and celebrate Shabbat remembering the Exodus from Egypt, that God intervened in history and took us out.
And I’ll say there that there’s something there really interesting that Egypt represents bondage, right? It represents incessant work, right? In which you do not control your time. You do not control like what you produce. It controls you. And leaving Egypt.
Which is all consuming.
Yeah, it’s almost like the capitalist nightmare. I’m not saying that capitalism is bad, but the nightmarish version of it is Egypt, right? And then you have Shabbat, which is liberation. And it’s not like do nothing, but it’s you have control over your time and over what you want to do.
Noam: Yeah, exactly. So then the two different aspects of the Kiddush that you’re referring to is that God created the world and then also God intervenes in the world.
Mijal: Yeah, it’s Genesis and Exodus. It’s creation and liberation that are both falling into Shabbat. But I would say just going back to what you were mentioning earlier, Noam, I think that people celebrate Shabbat in different ways, and there’s different levels of observance, different attitudes towards observance. As an example, just to make it more understood, the conservative movement, for example, there was a very famous responsa in the 1950s, in which the rabbinical assembly of the conservative movement, for example, decided that at a time in which Jews were moving to the suburbs and they were living further away from each other, they were going to allow driving on Shabbat if you wanted to be part of a Jewish community that would celebrate Shabbat.
Noam: They would allow driving on Shabbat to the synagogue. Yeah. Okay, just so that’s important.
Mijal: Yes, if you wanted to be part of a Jewish community that celebrates Shabbat to the synagogue, which means that you have Jews who celebrate and observe Shabbat in different ways right now.
Noam: And that ruling allowed for Jewish people to not congregate in one very specific area also in many ways because it said that you don’t have to be in walking distance to a synagogue.
Mijal: Right, a different way of saying that, Noam, is that there is not just a theological and legal difference, but a sociological difference between those who drive on Shabbat and those who don’t drive on Shabbat. If you do not drive on Shabbat and you want to be part of a Jewish community, you literally have to think about your home and your kid’s school. you have to about…
Noam: And potentially real estate prices. Seriously, that’s a real thing.
Mijal: Right, it’s like you have to think about everything in your zip code as allowing you to be able to walk to shul. And if you drive on Shabbat, you don’t have to have the same calculus. So it does end up shaping sociologically different Jewish experiences about Shabbat.You know, let me take a step back now.
Interestingly, I think, we have it easier than, I can say to you, because your great-grandparents were in America?
Noam: All my grandparents were born in America.
Mijal: Okay, so you and we have it easier than your Jewish ancestors who came to America in the early 1900s, because for many of them coming to America, you had to work on Shabbat, or you would not be able to make a living.
Noam: There’s a song, Ain’t Gonna Work, on Saturday. I don’t know, that’s end of what I know.
Mijal: But that was like a real, like, big, like, identity marker. A hundred percent. Right? And like many people who were, like, in Europe thinking about coming to America, there was, like, a fear, you’ll come to America, in order to make a living, you’ll have to, like, work on Shabbat. I would say today, the idea of, a two-day weekend has become really prevalent. By the way, Jews were the first to have a weekend. Our producer reminded us that the Romans, when Jews wouldn’t work on Shabbat, they just thought of them as, like, lazy. But today, like, the idea of weekend has been pretty mainstreamed around the world. So what makes Shabbat countercultural today, I would argue, is not that you don’t work on Shabbat, but is that you don’t use your phone for 25 hours.
Noam: That this concept of the digital detox that has become so in vogue, so popular throughout society is something that the Jewish experience has demanded for a very long time.
Mijal: Yeah, for a very long time, but I would say not for a very long time because we are only in the digital age now. So one of the things that I always think about is that in many ways like Shabbat has given us gifts that we never knew we would need.
Noam: Right, it’s the, your father wouldn’t appreciate this, but it’s the revolution of rest. That’s what Shabbat is. It’s the revolution of seizing. So you spoke about the early Roman thinkers and Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel has this magnum opus.
Mijal: The Sabbath. And also his quote on Shabbat. He Shabbat is a palace in time. A palace in time. That’s A palace in time. Heschel and others talk about how one of Judaism’s great contributions to the world is to have sacred time. We often think about like sacred space, but sacred time is amazing because you can do it anywhere.
Noam: But the thing that Rabbi Heschel speaks about in the Sabbath, and I think the Sabbath is probably one of the most important, and it’s such a small, it’s not a it’s very accessible, and anyone could read it and learn from it and be like, wow, this feels contemporary. This feels like it could have been written in 2025.
And what Heschel talks about is this debate between what he viewed as the Roman approach, or what he specifically talks about, Philo. Philo was a first, or Greek approach, first century Hellenistic Jewish thinker. He explained that Shabbat is a day of rest to regain strength and to reduce energy, meaning the purpose of Shabbat was pragmatic, it was for luxury, it was for leisure. That’s how he understood it.
Mijal: So shabbat in the service of the other six days.
Noam: Yes, exactly. Shabbat exists in order to invigorate you, to energize you for the six days. What Heschel talks about, he says, no, the Sabbath is not for the sake of the weekdays. The weekdays are for the sake of Sabbath. And he said it’s not about recuperation, but elevation. What we are talking about is sacred time, a spiritual peak.
That revolution that the purpose of existence is not our work, but the purpose of existence is something that is much more elevated. This liberation, this ability to say that time belongs to me and I could exist within that time. When you have six days of work and you’re constantly thinking of production, you’re constantly thinking about achieving, it’s very hard to actually pause and appreciate and reflect.
Mijal: It’s funny, Noam, you’re actually making me think of my Saba, my mother’s father, Saba David, and of blessed memory. And he was famous amongst all the grandchildren for really loving Shabbat, right? So like treating it as like the pinnacle of his week. So we would always make fun of him in a loving way, because let’s say he would go, he loved to go to the market and like buy fruits in Israel. So let’s say he would go on Monday or Tuesday, whatever, and be like, my god, these are the most beautiful fruits. I’m gonna buy it for Shabbat. But then the next day he would find better fruits. And it’s like, no, no, this is the fruit for Shabbat.
And there’s something there that any individual, like I’m thinking a little bit about Marx right now, sorry, like Karl Marx? Yes, Karl Marx, not that he’s like, whatever, I don’t want to put him and my grandfather in the same sentence. Sorry. But Marx wrote about individuals like alienation from labor and the products of what they do. And there’s something about Shabbat in which you are able to see yourself almost like, I’m trying to not romanticize it too much, but I do love Shabbat. Be like.
Noam: I think it’s the most romantic thing we do.
Mijal: Beautiful, you’re like a king or queen, like you’re like, I am, like Shabbat, I’m gonna have a beautiful foot on a beautiful table and I grew up with like different tablecloths for Shabbat, different clothing for Shabbat.
Noam: But it’s very democratic also, very egalitarian. It’s like meaning everyone, there’s equality. There’s equality. cannot, you cannot.
Mijal: And everyone can make it special. You can make it beautiful and special.
Noam: I will say that this idea of what we just quoted from Heschel and spoke about Heschel versus Philo, that’s a really important distinction. I like thinking of, I’m with non-Jewish friends, how do you explain Shabbat to your non-Jewish friends? I like thinking that way, or to Jewish people who don’t observe Shabbat. I think the way people would think about it, just instinctively, is like, it helps you recuperate for the week. No, what Heschel does is he says, no, it’s not about recuperating for the week. The week is about getting to Shabbat. It’s an inversion.
And this inversion is also spoken about by his contemporary, Rabbi Joseph Ber Soloveichik, in his unbelievable work that needs to be studied. Again, the Sabbath is a work that we should put in the show notes. By Heschel? By Heschel. The other book that we should put in the show notes is Lonely Man of Faith by Rabbi Joseph Ber Soloveichik. What Soloveichik speaks about is there two different personae that reside within each and every one of us.
There’s Adam 1, which he refers to as the persona that’s about production, that’s about, he talks about from the biblical verse that says, the purpose of life is to conquer, meaning to produce, to achieve.
And for me, one of my acronyms that I try to live by, and my colleagues know this about me, my friends know this about me, is GSD, get stuff done. I don’t want to talk, I want to know that we are all getting stuff done. Produce, produce, produce. Well, yeah. But production is what it’s about. At the end of the day, it’s about production.
Yeah, success. What that looks like. But that success is overly seductive and it can’t be the purpose. And if you switch the means for the end, then you’re engaging in something that’s a little bit maybe even unethical. The end is Adam, is the other part of our persona that exists within each and every one.
The other one is the answer.
They have to somehow merge with each other. There’s a thesis, there’s an antithesis, and is there a synthesis? Unclear, but the other persona is this persona of Adam 2, which is the one that’s not passive, but it’s an existence of one that is…I would call it in modern parlance, mindful, present, aware, not just about accomplishing, not just about GSD, not just about getting stuff done.
Mijal: It’s also about being a servant, not just someone who does things with somebody who’s serving the world.
Noam: Exactly, exactly. And so that is the two different aspects of our sense of selves that need to interact with one another. And I view Shabbat in many ways as the ability to live within the realm of Adam too.
Mijal: Right, and Soloveitchik is drawing there from, if we read Genesis carefully, there’s two creation stories. Exactly. Right, so we have almost like two, like God creates within us multiplicity about what our purpose is, and in many ways
Noam: I think without Shabbat it’s harder to be, to live with the Adam too.
Mijal: Right, right. By the way, just in the last couple of years, I’ve also just been thinking about the benefits of Shabbat in terms of social media and mental health. you know how like Chabad is known for like trying to convince people to do certain like commandments? That’s not really my thing. I don’t go around telling people.
Tefillin, for example.
Mijal: Yes, but I feel like especially after October 7th was going to my students and being like please please just like no social media on Shabbat just like let your brain breathe and heal and be good and like I was almost like begging them from like a mental health perspective just saying like like my brain feels like a different brain this 25 hours and it is absolutely priceless to have this
Jonathan Haidt says no smartphones until like 14 or something like that. And he says no social media until 16. I’d forget his other rules, but I would add to his list of rules and just be like, take 25 hours off from.
Yeah, I really want to recommend it. Like even if you are Jewish, not Jewish, observant, not observant, just try it out. Try it out. Try it out. And I just want to say like from like a mental health happiness perspective, also like you communicate with your family in such a different way. I think there’s no way to pretend like we don’t love Shabbat. That’s the issue. We could talk about all different aspects. It could be a lot. It could be difficult when you travel, this and that. But at end of the day, it’s
Why would we pretend we don’t
Mijal: So worth it. So worth it. It’s just worth it.
Noam: What’s interesting is historically Jews have not always observed Shabbat so seriously, right? the majority of world Jewry is not observant of Shabbat right now. And Chada Am, one of the great Zionist thinkers, Asher Ginsburg famously said, more than the Jews have kept Shabbat, Shabbat has kept the Jews.
Mijal: What does that mean to you?
Noam: I don’t know. I don’t know. We should unpack it. Yeshayahu Leibowitz, a great Israeli philosopher, really doesn’t like that.
Mijal: Let’s say, I think it means that we often think, we have to keep Shabbat. But really when you think about the institution of Shabbat, when it’s observed, it does so much for us in terms of our spiritual strength and family life that it’s almost like it’s a talisman of sorts. It protects us and keeps us.
Noam: Yeah, and I think that’s why some modern philosophers don’t love that line because then what we’re doing is we’re instrumentalizing a gift.
Mijal: So what you’re saying is like when I’m like keep Shabbat because your brain will be good. SoYeshayahu Leibowitz would be like no keep Shabbat because God said so. Do not put any other meaning. Okay, well that’s Now let’s move on to the following. What is one thing that you enjoy doing on Shabbat that is like your thing?
Noam: I think I spoke about this in our previous episode, a couple of hours about Friday night service.
Mijal: That was not my question. What’s like one thing? Give me an example.
Noam: Okay, I’ll give one about my daughter. Can I do that? It’s the same thing. I have a son and three daughters. Thank God. And they’re conditioned from early in their lives that when they wake up from Sunday through Friday, they watch Mickey Mouse as babies. Okay. One or two years old. That’s what they’re doing, they’re watching Mickey Mouse. And they’re getting like a regular breakfast. Now I am embarrassed to say that every single morning my two-year-old now gets pancakes every single morning.
And she is hilarious because when she wakes up and you go into her room, the first thing that says is, pancakes? Pancakes? And she’s conditioned to say pancakes. Okay, this is crazy. But every single kid, it was very hard when they started getting older. You can’t watch Mickey Mouse in my house on Shabbat because we take a digital detox. We take 25 hours off from screens. We don’t do screen time. But they don’t really get it. And in fact, I can’t say to my one and a half, two year old, it’s Shabbat. And that doesn’t work for her.
So instead what we do is I’ve been doing this is my son who’s 12. It’s so nice and my my my last child my daughter who’s now who’s now two what we’ve conditioned them to do is I’d go in their room they wake up at 6 45 a.m. it’s like clockwork and she says pancake Mickey Mouse and I say it’s Shabbat I have a cookie.
Mijal: And she like the cookies more than pancakes.
Noam: So what I do every single Shabbat morning every single—
Mijal: It’s like Pavlov, what’s it called?
Noam: Pavlovian, exactly. So she, every single Shabbat morning, she says to me now, I love this, cookies and quack quacks because we go for a walk at 7 a.m. so that my wife could sleep, kids, older kids aren’t up yet, and we take a walk with cookies and we look for ducks. That’s what we do every Shabbat. Exactly, Mickey Mouse turns into ducks, Donald Duck, and pancakes turn into cookies. What about you?
Mijal: You changed Mickey Mouse for Donald Duck. Very nice. Well, I’ll just say like selfishly on Shabbat I try to read. I try to have like time that is mine and that I get to read for no purpose.
Noam: When you say no purpose, do you read for things that you could then teach about later in the week?
Mijal: No, no. So, okay, so usually my Friday night and Shabbat morning, I’m preparing like the Torah portion. So I’m reading, you know what I mean? Like things that I have to read. And then in the afternoon, I try, I don’t always get it, but I try to at least have half an hour where I’m reading like just for me. I have to do more of that, that’s great one.
Yeah, yeah, it feels really good. And it’s like my Shabbat reading. What do you read? Right now? I’m it’s like I wanted you to ask that. No, just kidding. Yeah, what are you reading? Right now I’m reading The Power Broker by Robert Caro about Robert Moses.
Noam: Why are you reading it?
Mijal: Honestly, I started this other ritual with my son and my daughter that whenever we are in Lower Manhattan for Shabbat, we go to the Strand Bookstore before Shabbat and we buy books. So everybody gets to choose two books for Shabbat. It’s a bit expensive habit, but it’s lovely. And a few months ago, was telling my son, I’m like, oh, you see that book about New York City? It’s very, very, very good.
Noam: From the library?
Mijal: I don’t always remember to go to the library on time and return books. whatever. It’s money well spent. It’s books. Don’t judge me.
Noam: No. Books are great.
Mijal: So I told my son, I’m like, you see the book over there? I’m like, people who read the book are like, they’re really cool. I bought it because he was watching me. And then I told him, I am not buying for myself another book from The Strand, yes, from Amazon, but another book from The Strand until I finish The Power Broker. So they actually watched my progress. And it’s very, very long book. Each page has like a million words.
So I’m midway through right now and I’m enjoying it so much. There’s nothing there that relates to my work. That’s the key. But I’m just enjoying it. It’s well written. It’s good history. I walk around New York City. I’m like, wow, Robert Moses probably built this. And my kids are following it with me and it is so lovely. And I love Shabbat so much.