One of the ways Moses instructed the Israelites to honor the Sabbath was to acknowledge a “Sabbath year” every seventh year. Farmers were to allow their land to go fallow every seventh year in order for it to rejuvenate. Working people, like farmland, needperiodic rejuvenation beyond one or two weeks. Ideally, everyone in the commercial world would take a lengthy break every seven years.
Sabbaticals, which go far beyond the regularly scheduled break from work, can foster intense personal development. The academic world, where professors can receive up to a year off with pay, has this figured out. A limited number of people in other professions get the opportunity to take a few months off from their regular routine; they work for firms that have formal sabbatical programs. Watson Wyatt, a benefits consulting company, estimates that about twenty percent of large companies offer some form of a sabbatical program.
Regardless of whether one is fortunate enough to work for a company that offers sabbaticals, everyone — no matter what their work or family situation — should consider taking a meaningful sabbatical during their working life. While a seven-year timeframe is typically associated with the concept of Sabbath, the Israelites also acknowledged a Jubilee year, which took place once every fifty years (Leviticus 25:8-10). It was an extra special commemoration freeing people from servitude every “seven times seven years.” This Jubilee model is more practically applicable to people in the work world today; just as the Israelites took the Jubilee seriously, American workers should take a sabbatical no less frequently than once every fifty years. (And don’t wait the entire fifty years to take it!)
A break of six weeks to twelve months is not primarily about rest, the way a week off is. A sabbatical experience is about trying something different, learning something new, or venturing into something experimental. This is the opportunity to write a manuscript, build a log cabin, learn a foreign language, ride a bicycle across the state, read all the works of Shakespeare, volunteer at a museum, travel or train for a marathon. The point is, a sabbatical provides the time to do something meaningful outside your routine.
The idea of taking a sabbatical may seem daunting or completely unrealistic to you. But I think far more people are in position to take a sabbatical than one might expect. In future posts, let’s look at some specifics for making a sabbatical dream come true.
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