Sunset

Raymond Pena

Eng 112

New York City the land of opportunity where anyone can be who they want to be and show there true colors. Luckily there's lots of different colors in this world so you never really know which color will be used to paint the picture of New York. Being Dominican assent I was raised to be a Catholic but ever since I working in Isabella Geriatric Center I have met many different other religious beliefs from Buddhism, Conservative Judaism and Orthodox Judaism. I always found myself wondering why some of my co-workers who are Jewish were leaving early every Friday, I decided to ask what was the reason for this and I happened to catch one of my co-worker early Friday morning and they told me it was because they needed to celebrate Shabbat.

Looking into more information on what Shabbat is, I found that according to Jewish Virtual Library Shabbat "is the seventh day of the Jewish week and is the day of rest and abstention from work as commanded by God". This came to me as a surprise because I never knew certain religious types followed a different kind of week; I always followed Saturday being the last day of the week. Shabbat is the most important ritual observance and it is the most important special day more than Yom Kippur. 

In New York, most Americans work a five-day workweek but Jews take a day to eat more elaborately and in a more leisurely fashion. It was interesting to read that Greeks thought Jews were lazy because they needed to have a holiday on the seventh day. Also in ancient times, leisure was for the wealthy not for the laborer classes. Because of this encounter with my co-worker, I was able to learn and observe something that was very different from my own culture. Shabbat is just a full day when observed correctly.

Sources: Judaism 101; Encyclopaedia Judaica. © 2008 The Gale Group.