Pre­sent­ed as a diary of a year-long search, this book explores Sab­bath-keep­ing from the point of view of a doubt­ing Jew try­ing to make sense of what has become a quaint, mod­ern­ly obso­lete prac­tice. Although it relies upon cen­turies of philo­soph­i­cal thought, all read­ers will find the book acces­si­ble, direct, and often humor­ous, aimed at oth­ers who, like me, can­not blind­ly ​“obey,” but demand a sen­si­ble basis for their prac­tices. Remem­ber the Sab­bath and keep it holy. What does this mean? And why is it a moral oblig­a­tion ranked high on a list that includes refrain­ing from mur­der, lying, curs­ing, and pic­tur­ing God? What is the Sab­bath rest sup­posed to accom­plish any­way? I final­ly boiled things down to this: Is there a good rea­son to keep the Sab­bath? Part mem­oir and part philo­soph­i­cal argu­ment and filled with wis­dom and wit, this is a book that will appeal both to con­tem­po­rary skep­ti­cal Jews seek­ing to pre­serve per­son­al auton­o­my while con­tin­u­ing fam­i­ly tra­di­tions and to the count­less ​“spir­i­tu­al seek­ers” of all reli­gions in search of the root­ed­ness that tra­di­tion sup­plies with­out hav­ing to engage in what they might regard as hypocrisy.