Short excerpt from a YouTube interview where Speaker B describes how observing Shabbos (the Jewish Sabbath) became a formative, restorative practice during their spiritual journey. The speaker recalls warm, intimate Shabbos dinners organized through Hillel at the University of Florida and mentions Rabbi Yona Schiller and his wife as influential figures.
There, like, a trigger or point where you realize, like, this is the way I want to live life. Was there, like, a moment or is it more gradual?
It was really. One of the major shaping pieces was Shabbos. Like, when I was beginning my journey right, Shabbos became like this oasis in time and space and place. Like, I remember, like, there was a. There was a rabbi who came out to the Senior University of Florida, Rabbi Yona Schiller, God bless him, and his wife, Rebbe Shiller. And I remember, like, they were there as an adjunct, like, staff to help within the Hillel House students grow. And it was beautiful. They really knew how to, like, find, like, students and get to them in a way that was very meaningful. I remember, like, going to, like, these massive, like, Hillel Shabbos dinners, and then, like, Rabbi Yona being like, hey, okay, let's go. Like, where are we going? And he would take us to his house. It would be, like, a meal for, like, five of us, and, like, we would have Shabbos dinner there. And it was warm, intimate, homemade hummus with, like, homemade earthenware.
Free food, of course.
We Food.
Oh, that's great.
Yeah. But it was just, like. It was a certain warmth and. And. And just, like, depth that you can't feel in sometimes in the masses. And. And that really started opening me up being, what is the Shabbos thing? And I realized, I really. I always say that, like, Shabbos saved my life. Shabbos saved my life. It's actually a very deep idea. I feel like Shabbos really opened me up to spirituality that I never would have realized beforehand and opened me up to.
