Shabbat and our Mental Health

One of my pursuits last summer was reading. I would begin by watching interviews with authors on YouTube, and if I were interested in what they had to say, I’d follow up with their books. One such experience was with Dr. Anna Lempke’s best-seller, Dopamine Nation. Put one way, Lempke deals with the question of why we do what we do. From a neurological perspective, it is all about Dopamine. In layperson’s terms, Dopamine is that chemical in our brain that tells us to get more when we experience something good. I now understand why no one can eat just one potato chip or a spoonful of ice cream and be satisfied. It’s because, once satisfied, our brains are chemically programmed to get another and then another taste of the delicious snack. This process, the author explains, is the first step to addiction. 

Not so fast, I said to myself. If I want to, I can always walk away. The author explains why it is more complex. Other factors are the degree of pleasure and the ease and speed of getting more. The faster the reward and the easier it is to get more, the more likely an addiction will develop. The book goes on to look at some of the social ills that our society is currently experiencing that are addiction-related. For example, the urge to pull out our phones and check for messages, invites, news, games, etc… That, says the author, is a result of addiction. We crave the social interaction and entertainment that the internet provides, and we have an ever-abundant, instantly available supply at our fingertips. Lembke writes,

“Because we’ve transformed the world from a place of scarcity to a place of overwhelming abundance: Drugs, food, news, gambling, shopping, gaming, texting, … Facebooking, Instagramming, YouTubing, tweeting . . . the increased numbers, variety, and potency of highly rewarding stimuli today is staggering. The smartphone is the modern-day hypodermic needle, delivering digital dopamine 24/7 for a wired generation.”

In the book’s latter chapters, Lembke tackles the problem of resetting the brain to break free of addictions. Recovery, she says, begins with abstinence through self-binding. She writes: “Self-binding creates literal and metacognitive space between desire and consumption, a modern necessity in our dopamine-overloaded world.” It was here that my Jewish radar (Jewdar), ever on the lookout for connections to the Torah’s teachings, kicked in. The Torah states: “On the seventh day, G-d completed the work he had been doing; [And He] “va-yish-bote” on the seventh day from all the work he had undertaken. (Genesis 2:2)” The standard translation of the verb va-yish-bote is, “and he rested.” A more literal translation is, “and he stopped.” On the seventh day, i.e., the Creator “refrained” from creating, an expression closer to the idea of abstention than rest. That’s what we do.

Motivated by a covenant with the Sabbath, we refrain from work-a-day pursuits, flipping off certain switches in the pathways of our brain, and stop. The National Institute of Health (NIH) reported that for Jews who refrained from smoking on the Sabbath, the craving to smoke, and to a lesser extent, irritability, was lower during the Sabbath. The NIH also reported that Sabbath-observant Jews reported significantly fewer adverse reactions while abstaining from electronic media devices on the Sabbath than on a weekday.

In modern terms, the lesson is that Shabbat allows us to stop and reset the brain’s reward pathway and renews our capacity to experience joy and simpler pleasures. As Lembke concludes, “pressing on the pain side resets our balance to the side of pleasure…” “promotes awareness, enhances intimacy, and fosters a plenty mindset.” Thus, fulfilling the words of the Hebrew essayist Asher Hirsch Ginsberg (a.k.a. Achad Ha’am), “More than the Jews have kept the Sabbath, the Sabbath has kept the Jew.”

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Tzvi Berkson