What Does Judaism say about Vacations?

Rabbi Melanie Aron

August 22, 2003

We shouldn't be surprised that Biblical Hebrew has no word for vacation- agricultural life doesn't lend itself to days off. The English language had no word for vacation well into the late middle ages, and even then it was more likely to use the word vacation to refer to a release from some activity, rather than the modern meaning of a time of freedom, or respite.

Talmudic Hebrew has the word Pagrah- which means to be idle, and is used to refer to days on which a teacher took time off from teaching. It is also used when someone is neglectful of their duties, giving us perhaps a clue to how the rabbis viewed vacations. Afterall, there's no build it vacation from mitzvoth.

We find no evidence of travel for pleasure, but there was a custom in Babylonia in the third and fourth centuries of adult men taking time from their regular occupations to study. This adult study, called Kallah, took place in Elul, the late summer month which preceded the High Holidays, and during Adar, the early spring month which precedes Passover.

The British use the word holiday rather than vacation, hinting at an earlier understanding of the meaning of days off.

Modern Hebrew sometimes uses the Talmudic term pagrah as in court recess, bank holiday or in the phrase busman's holiday. More familiar to me is the word chufshah, from the root chofesh- freedom, or nofesh, a combination of the word chofesh for freedom and nefesh for soul. In this way, the creators of modern Hebrew hinted that a vacation is something more than taking time off from work.

I think Shabbat is the closest thing that Jewish tradition has to vacation. In addition to being a time of cessation of work, Shabbat is a time of refreshment. It offers the opportunity for renewal that we associate with vacations.

For many of us this weekend marks the end of summer, the end of a season with less deadlines and time pressures. Perhaps you had the opportunity to take some vacation. Hopefully it left you with memories that are as sweet as Shabbes wine.

On Saturday nights as the Shabbat draws to a close, we linger, savoring the last minutes of the day. Then when three stars appear, we gather as a family and receive, through the symbols of the Havdalah service, some reassurance that Shabbat will return.

In a similar way as summer draws to a close, we may want to tarry just a bit, to take a moment to savor this less pressured time of year. Perhaps just as Jews through the centuries needed a reminder that Shabbat would return, we seek some hope that our lives will not completely return to rushing about, overly stressed and harried. Perhaps through the Shabbat we can make some unpressured time for our families this fall so that the feeling of summer is not totally lost to us.