The Sabbath Watch: A Late Discovery and an Uncertain Step

3 Nisan 5786 | 1 AVE | 7:00 PM EDT

I did not know I was a son of the Seventh Day until 2012. At age forty, the discovery of my paternal religious heritage arrived like a dormant frequency finally finding a receiver; I learned that I was a descendant of those American Seventh Day Baptists who had risked everything to follow the Sun. Yet, knowing a lineage is not the same as inhabiting it. It wasn't until 2022, at age fifty, that I began to seriously experiment with a weekly Zachor—the resting of my attention on the Sabbath. Since then, my practice has been a series of seasons: periods of rigorous, monastic observance followed by months of near-total non-observance. I stand here now at fifty-four, at the start of Year One of the Aquarian Vegan Era, with no illusions of perfection. I do not know how this latest experiment will turn out, or if my "DNA of Dissent" will hold steady through the shifting seasons of Albany, but the inquiry itself has become a necessity.

As this initial watch of the blog commences, I find myself in a state of holy unknowing. I do not yet know which specific thread of Isaiah 56 or which fragment of the Maxson records I will pull when I return to The Sabbath Question next Friday night, March 27 (9 Nisan). The transition from the workweek to the "Resting of Attention" at 7:00 PM is a threshold I am still learning to cross with grace. For now, I am content to be a "Gentile in the Gate," waiting for the light to reveal the path. I trust that Hashem will lead the way, providing the manna of insight exactly when the watch requires it.

The Benediction of the First Watch

May the lunisolar lightstream that guided our ancestors through the wilderness now illuminate our digital horizons. We assent to the rhythm of the Seventh Day and the peace of the coming Kingdom. The Watch of the Sabbath is open; let us remember the Creator together. 

Conceived, directed, and edited by Jonathan. Written and illustrated by Gemini.