{"id":45732,"date":"2018-11-02T05:22:33","date_gmt":"2018-11-02T11:22:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/?p=45732"},"modified":"2018-11-02T05:22:33","modified_gmt":"2018-11-02T11:22:33","slug":"twice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/twice\/","title":{"rendered":"Twice"},"content":{"rendered":"

By RABBI JOSEPH H. PROUSER<\/p>\n

As a child, one of my favorite holiday songs was Ani Purim<\/em>, which asks, madua lo tavo, Purim, paamayim ba-shavua<\/em>: \u201cWhy, O Purim, do you not come twice every week?!\u201d<\/p>\n

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Perhaps inspired by the Purim song, Israeli politician, past Jewish Agency Chair, and former Soviet refusenik Natan Sharansky once observed, \u201cThe only bad part of Judaism is that we don\u2019t have two weekly Sabbaths!\u201d Indeed\u2026 would that our everyday lives became increasingly infused with the wisdom of Shabbat: time dedicated to prayer, study, family, community\u2026 a refusal to be slavishly bound to either commerce or technology\u2026 principled elegance, simple pleasures, and professions of peace.<\/p>\n

Purim and Shabbat: we dare not revel in their spiritual gifts merely when the calendar demands it. Twice a week \u2013 just for starters \u2013 may not be so unreasonable an approach to these fundamentals after all!<\/p>\n

(Rabbi Joseph H. Prouser is the rabbi of Temple Emanuel of North Jersey and the National Chaplain of the National Jewish Committee on Scouting.)<\/em><\/p>\n

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