It hasn’t even really been a week – just five days. Five days of my 63 days of sabbatical – a time of educational, spiritual, physical and emotional recharging. I have been thinking about this time for a long while now and I chuckle to myself about being careful what you wish for. My real refreshing will come when I travel to Israel later in the month for about 3 weeks where I will be studying, relaxing and touring around the country. It’s the meantime that makes me chuckle and where I have been thinking about the balance between serving our calling and serving ourselves; between a work ethic and an ethic of self. I have been wondering out loud what kind of balance I have struck through more than 20 years of “work” in the service of God. I love working. I have been working in some form or another since I was 8 or 9, whether it was the form of raking leaves or shoveling snow up and down our street, to day camp counselor, to sealcoating driveways, to construction, to painting, to property management, back to camp and finally to the rabbinate. 40 years of working and, for the most part, loving every minute of it. I worked hard and long hours, as those in my family and in my community did. I felt proud at my efforts, liked the money I was receiving and felt it mattered in the long run. All of my work prior to the rabbinate were part time. I worked in between my schooling and only in college did I work while i was in school to pay for college. Vacations were few and far between. My family rarely took winter vacations or spring breaks; summer was an opportunity for more work. It never dawned on me to ask why we didn’t take more time to refresh ourselves. I knew we couldn’t really afford vacations and spiritual talk wasn’t a part of the fabric of our family discussions. How did my father maintain an active dental practice for almost 50 years where I never heard him complain about it and where he went to work nearly every day? No idea. Did my dad long for a sabbatical to refresh himself. No idea. While the rabbinate and dentistry are not the same kind of work – my dad did not have nightly commitments, board meetings and federation dinners to attend – everyone needs some kind of lift of the spirit to keep ones’ passions afire. After 5 days I am itching to get back to work. I like the work. I miss the work. I know my heart and soul are not yet refreshed and that I have to train my spirit to think about what it needs as I attend to the needs of others. It’s not boredom I feel, it’s not knowing how to help my heart and soul get back to that original state in order to help the body and mind do its work in as optimal a fashion as possible. I am finding that phrase from the Torah service particularly powerful at this time: “Hashiveinu Adonai Elohecha v’nashuva – Return us Adonai, Our God and we shall be returned…” It is not a plea to have a redo in life, but rather to return to that earlier state of newness and energy to allow us to do the great things we are destined to do. I know the next 58 days will make that possible for me.