Should One Sacrifice Their Job for Shabbat?

Question: I am completely convinced that Shabbat should be observed, but to do so I would need to sacrifice my job. This puts me in a difficult dilemma. What should I do?

Answer: The questioner's feelings are very understandable, given the significant sacrifice required in this situation. But as with any life issue, one must examine and weigh the gain against the loss, and decide accordingly. On one hand, there is the significant consideration of losing a job with all the difficulties and problems that entails.

But on the other hand, remember that the following considerations stand on the other side of the scale, each of which is true in itself and very weighty: A. My eternal state versus my temporary state. B. The obligation to obey my Creator - the Creator of the world. C. One does not lose by observing Shabbat.

Let's briefly explain them: A. My eternal state versus my temporary state. As known from numerous extensive studies conducted by renowned scientists such as: Prof. Ian Stevenson, Prof. Kenneth Ring, Dr. Raymond Moody, Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, Dr. George Ritchie, Dr. Maurice Rawlings and many others, it has been definitively established even to researchers that the true "I" of each of us is the inner spiritual person wrapped in a body woven of flesh and bones, and that this spiritual "I" is the one that feels, rejoices, hurts, loves, plans and yearns. (The research was conducted on topics: A. Reports from clinically dead people who returned to life. B. Reincarnation. C. Dybbuks. D. Appearance of souls as in their lives. E. Regression (returning to previous lives through hypnosis) F. Séances.

You can read more about this in the booklet "Nine Answers and a Question" from the "Torah from Heaven" series, and in the many studies appearing in the book list there). As the Torah of Israel has claimed for thousands of years. The most interesting and shocking result from all these studies is that our true "I", meaning ourselves, continues to live forever even after leaving the physical body!(That is, the phenomenon we call "death" is nothing but a kind of second birth, like a fetus shedding the placenta that envelops it and serves as its garment, and emerging from a dark, water-filled world into a completely different world - huge, illuminated, colorful and noisy, where it lives in a completely different form of life than its previous one). Equally important is the clear data that our state in the spiritual world depends on our actions in the physical world.

As written in the Torah of Israel and according to the testimony of many who are already "there". And now, a simple calculation will lead to the clear conclusion that the decades we live here in this world are nothing compared to our permanent and eternal life in the world of truth. And if so, when it comes to risking eternal life, it is certainly worth leaving a job in this temporary life and looking for another job with all the difficulty and risk involved, for the sake of our eternal future.

And indeed, the greater the difficulty and pain, the greater the reward. As the Mishnah states in Pirkei Avot (Chapter 5, Mishnah 23): "According to the effort is the reward." And it is further stated there (Avot 2:14-16): "And faithful is your Employer who will pay you the reward of your labor." B. The obligation to obey my Creator - the Creator of the world. A slight contemplation of the tremendous difference between the Creator and the created, between God Most High and man, immediately diminishes all considerations that stand in opposition to the Creator's commandments, and erases them completely.

For since He who created me among countless details of the universe, and I and all that is mine - is His, and His instruction regarding my property, health and life is carried out without question, and His determination is decisive throughout the vast universe, if He commands me to rest from work on a certain day, there is no doubt that I will obey His words.

Especially since He has declared and announced to all of us that the only beneficiary of performing mitzvot is the person himself, and only for this purpose, to benefit humans, was the entire creation intended. C. From observing Shabbat, one never loses. Besides the great reward and true pleasure in eternal life reserved for the Shabbat observer, especially if one had to sacrifice for it as mentioned above, it has been proven countless times that even in this world, one does not lose from observing Shabbat. For example, the airline El Al.

As we all remember, when the company management was required to ground its planes on Shabbat, members of the management cried out in the media: "The company is already accumulating losses that are growing from year to year, and if we rest on Shabbat, the company might collapse completely!" Yet surprisingly, immediately after the company began to ground its planes on Shabbat, it stopped losing money.

And in the following years, it began to report profits, until in the last year it was reported that the company distributed a portion of its profits among the employees! (Yet absurdly, there are still some management members who demand to operate the company on Shabbat to increase its profits... they have eyes but do not see to learn from the lessons of the past).