Why Is the Fourth Commandment Hard to Follow?

Remembering to Remember the Sabbath

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been asking myself whether I follow the Ten Commandments. If you want to catch up, you can read about my conclusion that I do follow the first commandment, definitely follow the second, but sadly fail to follow the third.

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Moses Delivering His Ten Commandments, David Courlander, c. 1950s

There was a time when my wife and I observed what we called “Tech Shabbat.”

The practice was simple. Sunset Friday to sunset Saturday, we stayed off our devices. No iPads, no television, and most of all, no cell phones.

Depending on how you observe Shabbat, this may sound like a lot to give up or a little. All I can say is that for us, it represented a meaningful change in our day-to-day habits.

And y’know what? Tech Shabbat felt great.

I try not to moralize on The Wondering Jew. But I think we can all agree that cell phones are evil and bad and rob us of our time, our memory, our attention. Putting them aside for a full day, it’s like you feel your brain breathing this slow, steady sigh of relief.

But alas, the dopamine addiction is real. These tech moguls with their algorithms, they know what they’re doing.

My wife and I had two daughters… Exhaustion levels climbed… Temptation to spend time letting our brains soak in a warm bath of memes, pictures, and takes proved too strong.

And Tech Shabbat fell by the wayside.

Which brings us to the fourth commandment.

Remember the Sabbath, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work; but the seventh day is a Sabbath unto the Lord Your God, in it you shall not do any manner of work, you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your man-servant, nor your maid-servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger that is within your gates; for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested on the seventh day. Wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and made it holy. (Exodus 20:8-11)

As you’ll notice, this is pretty lengthy, as commandments go. The eighth commandment, for example, is the pithy, “You shall not steal.”

The fourth commandment supplies not just the command itself (Remember the Sabbath!), but also some clarification as to exactly which day we’re talking about, plus all the people it applies to, plus the commandment’s rationale, and a reminder that God made heaven and earth and everything else.

I’d say the tone sort of presumes a counterargument, as if God expects that there’ll be some pushback on this one: “Hey, God created, y’know, everything in six days. You can’t get your work done in six days? God rested on the seventh day, but you’re going to check your email on Saturday anyway?”

As ever, there’s insight into the human condition to be found here.

You’d think it’d be easy to sell us on a day of rest, but ultimately we’re more habit-driven than lazy, and what we do Sunday through Friday is going to inform how we spend our Saturdays.

The Torah seems to appreciate that the fourth commandment can be hard to follow. A day of rest isn’t easy! Shabbat demands effort and attention, its own set of habits, rituals, and practices.

The variety of habits, rituals, and practices of Shabbat mirrors the varieties of Judaism.

But the breaking of our workday habits, the separation of time, the cordoning off of a space for ourselves and for God—it is well worth doing. We need rest. We need the break.

The fourth commandment is good for us. If only we could follow it!

A row of iPhones, or, Forgetting Shabbat, visualized

Yes, my family and I celebrate Shabbat every week. We have rituals and traditions that are meaningful to us.

But Tech Shabbat remains a thing of the past.

And in acknowledgment of that unfortunate reality, I am going to declare that I do not follow the fourth commandment.

It’s not so much that I feel I’m not doing enough by the standards of Jewish law. This is more a case of missed opportunity.

I know I could observe Shabbat more fully and meaningfully and beneficially… If I could just stay off my phone!

But guess what? Just this past week, my wife and I were discussing bringing back Tech Shabbat. My older daughter has started asking for a phone. And if she can’t have one because we think it’s bad for her, the least we can do is model good behavior one day a week.

So the fourth commandment? I’m going to say no, for now. Hopefully today’s No will be a spur to action.

I want to give myself the gift of paying attention to the world outside the edges of my screen.