Secular Sabbath

When Mark Bittman, the popular The New York Times “Minimalist” food columnist, wrote earlier this year of his desperate need for the Sabbath as a day of real rest from the mind-numbing pull of wireless internet and cellphones, he found himself speaking for a movement gaining traction everywhere: the Secular Sabbath, a concept that has time-starved people unplugging one day a week.

Last fall Bittman began a self-imposed Saturday day of rest, with most of the same no-work, no-electronics restrictions as the Jewish Sabbath. Skeptics ask, what’s left? Meals with friends, going for walks, reading, sleeping, singing, and conversation are a few suggestions offered by secularsabbath.org. Bittman says, “There has to be a way to regularly impose some thoughtfulness, or at least calm, into modern life. … I had time to think, and distance from normal demands. I got to stop.”