The World Will Still Be There

t’s 1 a.m., and I am wide awake in my third-floor single in Leverett’s G-Tower. For the third night in a row, I am up late, scrolling on Instagram, the bright fluorescent light of my screen reflecting against my glasses as I rest my head on my pillow. Every once in a while, I swipe down to check my phone’s lockscreen. I see dozens of texts from different group chats, from different people. I ignore them all and keep scrolling mindlessly.

I often joke to my friends that I am chronically online, though I can never seem to answer a text. Yet there’s a pit in my stomach, because I know that it’s not really a joke. Lying in bed, I wonder: How did I get here?

I can’t seem to look away.

***

I used to be good at disconnecting. As an Orthodox Jew, this tendency comes naturally; every Friday at sundown, my phone and devices go dark for 25 hours.

Growing up, I relished the act of slowing down. My mother, sister, and I would begin Shabbat by singing the blessing over the candles together. We would sit on the couches of our living room, singing and praying as the delicious smell of my mom’s fresh chicken soup wafted in from the kitchen. At dinner, my dad would lead us in the traditional blessing over the wine (or for me: grape juice in a tiny silver cup).

Breakfast the morning after would be Entenmann’s donuts, eaten over the New York Times’ weekly news quiz, before we went to synagogue for Saturday morning services. Afternoons were filled with reading books and playing games at the kitchen table. In the evening, we’d always know that Shabbat was over when my grandmother called our landline to ask: “How’s all?”

Shabbat was my oasis. It was the one day a week where work couldn’t keep my parents from family dinner; the one day that my brother would play CATAN with me instead of me watching him play “The Legend of Zelda”; the one day my older sisters, six and eight years my senior, were forced out of their rooms to spend time with little old me.

For 25 hours, it was almost as if time stopped entirely. Nothing was allowed to be more urgent than the people sitting across the table. No one could be reached, and so no one was expected to be. The world kept turning without me, and I learned that it could.

Throughout high school, no matter how busy my weeks became, Shabbat was always a day for myself. Whatever there was to worry about was Sunday’s problem — until I found I could no longer be the person who could unplug easily.

***

While I was studying in a religious seminary during my gap year in Israel, the unthinkable happened. On Oct. 7, 2023, slowing down and disconnecting — what had always felt like peace — suddenly felt dangerous.

In the weeks that followed, I felt like I constantly needed to be tapped in. If there was a rocket siren, I needed the app on my phone to warn me; if I was traveling, I needed to be able to refresh the news to make sure there were no new terrorist attacks. I listened to the radio like a broken record: what of the hostages? What of the soldiers and reservists?

In September 2023, the students at my seminary began every morning by tucking our phones away in big, hanging pocket holders by the door to the building. By the end of October, there wasn’t a single person in the Beit Midrash who didn’t have her phone close by at all times.

***

After my year in seminary, I chose to stay for another year in Israel. This time, I completed national service (Sherut Leumi) where I worked at Israel’s press office, mainly managing its English-language social media account.

As part of my job, I was constantly online. When I wasn’t working on a specific task, I was reading the news — understanding how foreign media outlets reported on Israel and looking for any media bias. The news cycle surrounding Israel in 2024 was relentless, and much of what I read was painful.

The effects on my mental health were tangible; I spent many days on the phone with my parents, crying that I had made the wrong choice, that I had taken on the wrong job, that I had realized just how bad of a place the world could be.

I started down the path of ignoring my texts and calls if they didn’t have to do with work. Since then, I’ve ignored messages from friends and fallen out of contact with those with whom I wish I could still talk. I haven’t cleared out all my WhatsApp notifications since August 2024. I did this not because I was busy, but because the thought of being always available to everyone became unbearable.

And yet, throughout my two years in Israel, I kept observing Shabbat.

In the immediate wake of Oct. 7, it was harder to do so; the attack, after all, had happened on a Shabbat. The following Saturday, I stayed with my great-aunt and her family in the coastal city of Herzliya. I remember feeling grateful that she and her family were less religious, because it meant that I could overhear the radio and updates.

But I quickly realized how important these Shabbats were in maintaining my sanity and sense of normalcy. Over the week, I lived inside the news, but on Shabbat — this one day — it couldn’t reach me. The war was still on my mind, but the singing, the walks, and the long, quiet afternoons reminded me that life was still happening alongside the war, and that I was still allowed to be part of it.

It was also an act of trust, and a hard one. Letting go of my phone meant accepting that I might not know something the moment it happened. And it also meant remembering that my knowing wouldn’t change the outcome anyway. Every Saturday night when I turned my phone back on, the world was still there, and so was I.

***

Last fall, I arrived on campus for freshman orientation almost directly from Israel. The first few days, I felt glued to the world I had left behind. After the long orientation day and nightly entryway meeting, I would trudge back to my room and focus my energy into the world on my screen, instead of the world out in the yard.

Then came the first Shabbat of the semester. From the wide windows of Harvard Hillel’s Smith Hall, I watched the sun slowly dip behind Quincy House to the soundtrack of 15 new friends singing together with me. At dinner that night, I talked to total strangers as if we had known each other forever, while we sipped our bowls of HUDS chicken soup. I returned to my room at 4 a.m., bleary-eyed and content with my newfound community.

Since then, Shabbat at Hillel has been my mainstay. It is a reminder that I can be present somewhere without being present everywhere; I can let the world reach me when it reaches me, rather than constantly reaching for it myself.

***

Back in my G-Tower single, I lose track of time. It is Thursday night — no, now it is already Friday morning, somehow. A few days ago was the third anniversary of Oct. 7, and I lie tapping through countless memorial posts on Instagram, again glued to my screen.

And yet, tomorrow night when Shabbat begins, I know I will put down the phone for a day, as I always manage to do. When my screen goes dark, I will trust that the world will still be waiting for me.

For a brief 25 hours, I’ll let myself look away.

—Magazine writer Sarit O. Greenwood can be reached at [email protected], except on Saturdays.