The Radical Power of Rest

Reclaiming Sacred Time in a Burnout Culture

It’s a cultural norm I’ve fallen victim to more times than I can count: Productivity is power. As someone with enough excess ambition to fuel a small village (and the occasional manic episode to supercharge it) I’ve often felt guilty for resting. Like I was wasting time. Squandering a gift. Failing to hustle hard enough.

Whether it’s the pervasiveness of social media or the deep poison of capitalism, burnout has been normalized, even celebrated. We wear exhaustion like a badge of honor. We praise those who push through the pain, who sacrifice sleep, who never stop moving.

But this isn’t a new phenomenon. Even in the story of creation, the divine pauses. On the seventh day, God rests, not out of weakness, but intention.

If our ancestors could carve out sacred time to rest, if God could, what does it mean that we don’t? What if rest isn’t laziness, but a sacred rebellion? What if stopping is the most powerful thing we can do?

The Hustle Gospel Isn’t Holy

I’m a man of a million hobbies. And throughout my short time on this earth, I’ve managed to ruin plenty of them by hustle-fying the hell out of them. By that I mean: I take something purely creative, something joyful, and slap a price tag on it. I convince myself it has to do something. Be monetized. Scaled. Worth something on paper.

At one point, I even tried to time my creative output to match my manic episodes, turning art into content, and content into currency. It wasn’t until a couple years ago, when I finally found some stability in my day job, that I began to loosen my grip. I started creating for the sake of creating. Not for profit. Not for followers. Just because I wanted to.

But those hustle instincts don’t disappear overnight. I mean, let’s be real: I’m writing this essay at 5am, weeks ahead of schedule as part of a now months-long manic sprint to prove… what, exactly? That I have a voice? A presence? That I’m still productive, even in my rest?

I’m proud that none of this is tied to money. But I still catch myself trying to wear my grind like a badge of honor. And that’s a problem, even on my best days.

Grind culture teaches us that we’re never enough. There’s always room for more optimization, more effort, more output. As a lifelong learner, part of me resonates with that. But it’s not the whole truth.

There’s something my boss likes to say: “Perfection is the enemy of progress. Good enough is often just what you need.”

In our ever-crumbling capitalist society, we’ve been trained to believe that rest must be earned. That it’s something you’re only allowed after maximum exertion. But this mindset doesn’t just push us to burnout, it actively damages out mental health. It weakens our relationships. It hollows out out well-being.

Rest isn’t a reward. It’s a right.

Rest is a Mitzvah

Rest is not something we should be ashamed of. It’s a sacred act, rooted in spiritual, ancestral, biological, and cultural traditions.

In Judaism, rest isn’t an afterthought. It’s foundational. Shabbat is established before any other holiday, before any other law. It’s the very first thing God blesses, not because it’s productive, but because it isn’t. Shabbat is a divine pause. A holy break from doing.

But rest isn’t just sacred, it’s deeply unavoidably human.

Now, stepping out of my spiritual hat for a moment, and putting on my thoroughly unqualified biology cap (I failed biology twice, so take this as you will), humans have always needed rest. Even nomadic hunter-gatherers paused. There’s evidence that we stopped to sleep, to recover, even while under threat. It’s wired into us. Out bodies demand it. Deny people sleep, overwork them, strip away rest, and what follows is physical and cognitive collapse.

When I was a middle school history teacher, I took that seriously. I used to get so frustrated with adults who teased or judged students for being tired. Sure, maybe some were up all night gaming, but others were up taking care of their siblings, or navigating homes in chaos. Either way, exhaustion was never just about laziness. It was a symptom of something larger.

I gave my students space to rest. Let them nap in class if they needed to. I believed they deserved that grace. I only wish I could offer it to myself as easily.

Reclaiming Time as a Radical Act

I’ve shared before, here and elsewhere, that I live with bipolar disorder. It’s a fairly recent diagnosis (2021), and I’m still learning, with the help of therapy and medication, how to move through its cycles. The swings between depression and mania are real, and intense, and in a society that commodifies people based on productivity, those cycles get warped fast.

Sometimes I’m praised for overproducing. Sometimes I’m punished for it. Either way, the message is clear: my value is tied to how much I can do.

Rest has never come naturally to me, even in the best of times. But Judaism challenges me to think differently. Not in a capitalistic, “self-improvement” way, but in a way that genuinely supports my long-term well-being.

When I began experimenting with Jewish practice, Shabbat was the first ritual I reached for. I didn’t do it the “right” way (and still don’t). But I took its spirit seriously. I tried to carve out sacred time, even if my brain refused to shut off.

There’s no version of Shabbat, for me, that’s free of all productivity. I’ve accepted that. But what I’ve also learned is that rebellion doesn’t have to be perfect to be real. Even small acts of refusal, a nap, a pause, a “no thank you”, are enough to loosen the grip of a system that wants to own every part of me.

Reclaiming time from the world, whether that means work, study, or endless obligations, isn’t laziness. It’s defiance. It’s saying: I decide how I live. Not capitalism. Not grind culture. Me.

And honestly, what’s more powerful than that?

My Practice of Pausing

Rest, for me, isn’t always sitting still and doing nothing. And honestly? I envy the people who find peace in that kind of stillness. But that’s not how my brain works.

When I first tried to adopt a traditional Shabbat practice during my conversion journey, I failed almost immediately. The restrictions felt suffocating. As someone coming into the tradition from the outside, I struggled to make sense of all the “lost” time Shabbat seemed to require: no technology, no writing, just family, friends, and Torah.

In theory, that sounds lovely. But in practice, it left me restless. It felt like I was giving up the very things that brought me joy. And isn’t joy part of the ritual too?

So I broke some rules. I allowed myself to write while studying Torah. Journaling has been part of my internal processing since I was 15, I wasn’t about to give that up. Then I realized I needed to get out of the house, even for just an hour. I started going to breakfast on Shabbat, reading and writing in the quiet of a diner. At that time, I was a full-time teacher with barely any space for myself. So I carved rest out of things that made me feel alive: video games, movies, reading, writing, whatever brought me joy. I told myself: For 24 hours, I get to follow my vices. That’s my Shabbat.

Fast forward a few years, and I’ll admit, I’ve gone rogue. That same spirit of rest now shows up throughout my week. I go to breakfast to read and write. I watch TV every day. I nap during lunch breaks. I’ve let some hobbies exist without monetizing them (hello, adult coloring books). To someone else, it might look busy. But I’ve never felt more rested.

Are there parts I could improve? Sure. Could I take more time off, unplug more often, go on more dog walks, spend more time in silence? Yes. But I’m done shaming the ways I’ve found peace.

Rest doesn’t have to look like a sunlit kitchen and a perfectly cooked omelet. For me, that sounds like a panic attack waiting to happen. I’ve learned to accept peace where I find it, and to let the judging happen elsewhere.

Permission Granted

If you were looking for a sign to take back your time, to value your rest, to disengage from burnout culture, this is it.

You don’t need my permission to rest. Rest is a basic human need. You are entitled to it simply by existing. But just in case it helps: you have my permission anyway.

If you’re like me and struggle to rest, especially during cycles of mania or anxiety, try starting not with stillness, but with enjoyment. Find the things that spark something gentle in you. The peace will come.

Your worth isn’t tied to what you produce. It’s tied to how you see yourself. And how can you possibly see value in yourself if everything you do feels like a burden?

So I’ll end with this challenge, to myself and maybe to you too: Celebrate your peace. Reward your stillness. Protect your joy, not just your output. Reclaim time when the world tries to steal it. And in doing so, may you find something more radical than productivity. May you find rest. May you find yourself.