The World Is Learning to Do Nothing: Judaism Has Shabbat

In 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, when billions of people around the world were suddenly forced to slow down, Dutch journalist Olga Mecking published a book that captured the mood of the moment: Niksen: Embracing the Dutch Art of Doing Nothing.

Before long, the concept attracted international attention. Wellness centers embraced the idea of teaching people how to “do nothing” without guilt, while major newspapers explored why a culture exhausted by constant productivity had become so fascinated by deliberate idleness. The Western world, it seemed, had discovered that it needed a method for stopping.

But the Jewish people have been stopping once a week for thousands of years.

When the Torah was given to the Jewish people, an entire day each week was set apart from ordinary work and creative activity: Shabbat.

Of course, Shabbat was not given to prevent burnout or encourage relaxation. It is a divine commandment, a remembrance of Creation and the Exodus from Egypt, and a weekly declaration that a person is more than what they produce.

The interesting question, then, is not “who came first?” Shabbat does not need validation from contemporary psychology, nor does it need to compete with a Dutch wellness trend. The more fascinating question is this: What happens when modern culture tries to recreate something Jewish tradition has preserved all along—and what does it inevitably miss?

Niksen vs. Shabbat

Niksen is a Dutch term describing a state in which a person consciously avoids purposeful activity. It is essentially time without a task or goal, an opportunity to simply do nothing rather than constantly trying to accomplish something.

Shabbat is something entirely different.

It is not empty time, but full time—filled with prayer, meals, songs, Torah study, family, and community. It is not simply about avoiding activity, but about entering a different mode of existence: moving from “making” the world to simply “being” in it.

The forms of labor forbidden on Shabbat are not necessarily physically strenuous activities. Rather, the melachot represent acts of creation and control. For one day, a person steps away from the role of master over the physical world and recognizes that the world ultimately belongs to its Creator.

This difference is not merely technical. It points to a much deeper question: Is rest simply the absence of doing, or can it be a meaningful form of existence in its own right?

Choice vs. Obligation

Niksen is a personal choice. A person decides that they need a break and gives themselves permission to take one. If they decide to skip it today, nothing happens.

Shabbat is the opposite. It is a commandment, not a suggestion. It arrives every week regardless of our mood, workload, or desire, and it obligates us even when stopping feels inconvenient.

At first, this seems paradoxical. How can obligatory rest feel like genuine rest?

But perhaps the obligation is precisely what makes Shabbat so powerful. When stopping is not something you have to negotiate with yourself every week, you are freed from the exhausting question: “Have I done enough to deserve a break?”

Shabbat does not ask. It simply arrives.

The Individual vs. the Community

Niksen is largely an individual practice. A person sits quietly and gives themselves permission to do nothing—but the world around them keeps moving. Messages continue arriving, social media keeps updating, and everyone else appears to be getting on with their lives. That can create the very fear of missing out that the break was supposed to relieve.

Shabbat, by contrast, is communal.

When Shabbat begins, families and communities stop together. You are not one person attempting to rest while everyone around you continues chasing tomorrow. You enter Shabbat alongside everyone else.

That shared experience changes the nature of stopping. There is less sense that something important is happening somewhere else, because your family and community have stepped away from ordinary weekday life with you.

No Structure vs. Structure

Niksen is defined largely by what it lacks: no task, no objective, no need to accomplish anything. But without firm boundaries, that freedom can easily dissolve. A moment of boredom is enough to reach for a phone or find something “productive” to do.

Shabbat takes almost the opposite approach. It is built around an extraordinarily detailed structure: defined beginning and ending times, the 39 categories of melacha, prayers, Kiddush, and meals.

At first glance, so many rules may sound like the opposite of freedom. Yet the structure itself creates freedom. When the boundaries have already been established, there is no need to continually decide whether you should answer that message, finish that task, or squeeze in one more piece of work.

The decision has already been made.

Psychology vs. Holiness

Niksen belongs largely to the modern conversation about well-being: reducing stress, preventing burnout, and creating a healthier relationship with productivity.

Shabbat belongs to an entirely different conversation.

Shabbat is about holiness, not convenience. Its rest is not primarily a means of achieving another goal—better health, greater creativity, or improved productivity. It has value in itself, rooted in Creation and in the relationship between Hashem and the Jewish people.

And that raises a fascinating question: Can a sacred concept ever be translated into a practical modern wellness technique without losing precisely what made it meaningful in the first place?

Why Does Rest Need a Sales Pitch?

In recent years, bookshelves and social media feeds have filled with ideas encouraging people to slow down. Alongside Dutch niksen, concepts such as Danish hygge and Swedish lagom have popularized ideas of comfort, moderation, and balance.

There is also a growing body of discussion around intentional rest, digital detoxes, switching to basic phones, taking breaks from social media, and establishing a “right to disconnect” from work outside office hours.

All these ideas have something interesting in common: They need to persuade us.

Niksen needs a book to explain why doing nothing is acceptable. Research about rest needs to reassure us that slowing down does not make us lazy and may even make us more productive. Right-to-disconnect laws require debates and legislation just to establish that workers should sometimes be unavailable.

And after all that, rest remains optional. You can read the book, agree with every word, and return the next morning to exactly the same frantic pace.

Here lies one of the fundamental differences.

Judaism did not need to convince us that stopping was worthwhile. It did not present Shabbat as a productivity hack or explain how resting today would help us accomplish more tomorrow.

It simply established one day each week on which ordinary work stops.

But—and This Matters

It would be easy at this point to conclude that Shabbat is simply the “best” or most effective method of rest. But that would place Shabbat inside the very framework this comparison is trying to distinguish it from.

Shabbat was not designed to improve Sunday.

It is not a tool for producing a more efficient worker, a more patient parent, or a more creative person during the following six days—even if people may experience such benefits.

Observing Shabbat merely to “recharge” misses something essential. Shabbat is an end, not a productivity tool. It is a covenant, not a more sophisticated time-management technique.

There is another danger in describing Shabbat as the Jewish version of niksen: it reduces something sacred to a tool for individual well-being.

Shabbat asks a person to step beyond themselves. For one day, the focus shifts away from producing, acquiring, controlling, and accomplishing. Instead, we recognize that the world is not ours and that there is a Creator from whom everything comes.

The sages describe Shabbat as “a taste of the World to Come.” Once a week, a person receives a glimpse of a reality in which human worth is not measured by output or achievement.

So is Shabbat simply niksen thousands of years ahead of its time?

Yes and no.

Yes, in the sense that Shabbat addresses something the modern world is struggling to rediscover: human beings need to stop.

But no, because Shabbat was never given merely to solve the problem of exhaustion.

Modern culture is increasingly searching for ways to give people permission to rest. We import ideas from other cultures, download apps, read self-help books, take digital detoxes, and debate new workplace laws—all in an attempt to convince ourselves that stopping is acceptable.

Thousands of years ago, long before anyone spoke about workplace burnout, smartphones, or social media detoxes, Shabbat gave the Jewish people something far more radical: a weekly reminder that quiet is not wasted time and stopping is not weakness.

Shabbat does not ask whether we have finished everything.

It arrives anyway.

And once a week, it reminds us of something our productivity-obsessed world finds remarkably difficult to accept: We can stop. The world will continue without us. Really.