Leisure and Sabbath: Remedying the Malaise of Work

Elliott Jones

Philosophy & Theology

Yet living as we do in an age of superficiality, rushing frenetically from one thing to another without really knowing why, and ending up as insatiable consumers and slaves to the mechanisms of a market unconcerned about the deeper meaning of our lives, all of us need to rediscover the importance of the heart. (Delexit nos, §1)

Modern Western culture has an unhealthy view of the value of work. On the one hand, work has become less tied to a sense of vocation, and has become more associated with a means to an end—namely, money or status. On the other hand, the very real necessities and obligations of work are often seen as forces that inhibit us from pursuing what is really worthwhile. Not only are these positions philosophically problematic, they are also practically problematic; holding either will eventually end in burnout—the phenomena of working desperately hard, but then feeling stressed, overwhelmed, and empty in the end. So, the deeper question is this: how can we best relate to work positively and understand its meaning and value today? To answer this, we must determine what ordinarily gives work its value—which, in my view, perhaps paradoxically, is leisure. 

Modern society’s incomprehension of leisure stems from its attempt to turn work into an end in itself and turn leisure into a means for more work. This was inevitable, suggests Byung Chul-Han, because it is more economical for a society to say You Must Work Now Without End than for it to say You Must Rest. Han argues that although societies who take this view of work do embody efficiency and speed, they inevitably become burned out, anxious, and despairing. Consequently, they foster the inability to contemplate, linger, endure, pause, or be attentive. Thus, as Han's argument goes, societies of this nature are incapable of leisure, sabbath, festivity, and rituals.

Modern social science has confirmed Han’s philosophical thesis. Today, workers are burning out at record highs in societies that valorize work. What are the symptoms of burnout? Psychologists find three main tell-tale signs: emotional exhaustion, cynicism or depersonalization, and a negative view of one’s personal effectiveness. These are the very effects that Han predicts.

Social science, however, has not yet ventured into Han’s latter argument—that a society constructed in this way is incapable of generative leisure. Yet many thinkers across the 20th century have argued that the societal incapability for proper leisure activities inhibits human flourishing. This is an idea worth exploring. 

Philosophical origins

Many writers have argued that festivity and worship are universal anthropological phenomena conducive to happiness and health. Leisure, which is not simply resting, but constitutes moments of “exaltation,” is an action that the theologian Abraham Joshua Heschel noted is necessary for flourishing. Heschel was concerned with the inability of modern society—one that viewed work as life—to engage in contemplation, leisure, sabbath, festivity, and worship. This was also a problem noted by Josef Pieper, the German philosopher.

At the heart of both Pieper and Heschel’s thought is the belief, which Han put so eloquently, that “true life begins when concern for survival…ends.” If true, all activity should be ordered to ends which are beyond survival. All action and all societies tend toward this naturally, as Aristotle writes, for “the first principle of all action is leisure.” Furthermore, Aristotle argues in Metaphysics Book 1 that the progression of the servile arts to the liberal arts is the natural state of affairs for any society. This suggests that the development of society naturally tends toward ends and values beyond mere survival (e.g., religion, knowledge, art). Furthermore, Pieper and Heschel can help us discern what this might look like in our individual lives, while leaving the political question to the development of further interlocutors. In contemplating their writings, we become acquainted with the forgotten wisdom of Aristotle that the pursuit of life is not for mere living but for living well.

Work and Leisure

In his classic Leisure: the Basis of Culture (1948), Pieper argues that in modern society, human nature has been distilled into its capacity for work. This is a reduction from human flourishing to the horizon Pieper calls the “world of total work.” The world of total work is a society in which the goal and end of every action is work or reducible to work to fulfill a need or utility. Pieper proposes that if the world of total work was  transcended, then human nature and the possibilities for human flourishing would expound.

Such actions that transcend the world of total work fall under leisurely actions done for their own sake, such as philosophical contemplation, aesthetic contemplation, disciplines of study such as the artes liberales (liberal arts), festivity, and worship. Incorporating such actions into a human life expands the definition of human nature beyond “worker.” The implication is that this leads to the flourishing of humanity. Indeed, Harvard’s Human Flourishing Program, in their recent Global Flourishing Study, finds evidence to this effect: individuals with higher rates of religiosity, education, and love relationships are, on average, happier. 

If the highest values of the world of total work are activity, toil, and utility, then the highest values of the world of leisure are passivity, celebration, and uselessness. Compared with the highest values of the world of total work (i.e., activity, toil, and utility), the “soul of leisure” requires an attitude of passivity, a pause in toil, with no reference to utility. Yet as Pieper argues, the soul of leisure does not stand antithetically to one’s work life. 

So, the question is: How can one integrate the values of work and leisure? Pieper argues that a society of total leisure would be as destructive as a society of total work. Not only would it be materially impossible, but it would negate the goods that come from and are work. Work, put simply, is not to be destroyed. Instead, it is a good that requires a proper relationship to leisure. Most important, leisure—done well—gives a “soul” to our work. This soul allows us to take delight not only in the fruit of works but in work itself. Thus, leisure is a good to be pursued. 

If it is the case that one is able to affirm the fruit of one’s work, then one adopts something like the Biblical attitude that affirms the goodness of the world. And if it is the case that affirming the fruit of our labor is affirming the world’s goodness, then this is cause for celebration. In this sense, celebration is central to the soul of leisure. It is celebration, as the soul of leisure, that is the origin of Pieper’s theory of festivity.

Celebration consists of the “affirmation of the universe and [one’s] experiencing the world in an aspect other than its everyday one.” Not only is one engaged in an activity that transcends the workday world, but one also views this world differently through an internal disposition oriented towards a proper end in itself. Celebration, Pieper argues, is the root of festivity. A proper festival, as Pieper noted from his witness of festivals around the world, is defined as “performing and showing, in a not everyday fashion, one’s already established affirmation of the world and of existence.” Festivals are inherently leisurely because they require celebration. Festivals of course are not just adorned by religious ritual but also the arts of singing, dancing, music, and the like. Unfortunately—in the era of so-called total work—festivals are becoming less and less common. Indeed, this loss was first observed nearly a century ago by T.S. Eliot’s “East Coker” in the Four Quartets.

So, what has culture lost with the decline of the festival, and thus celebration? Celebration, as mentioned, is an affirmation of reality that presumes the Thomistic philosophical presupposition that “everything that is, is good, and it is good to exist”. Unfortunately, modern society tends to say it is not good to work and it is not good to be. In other words: both work and celebrating said work, via leisure, are frowned upon. It is the worst of both worlds.

Worse still, without celebration or the affirmation of all reality (whether with a religious belief or not), leisure is degraded into mere time-killing and boredom. Such leisurely activity without affirmation leads to acedia. Acedia, for the ancients and medievals, is the inability to be leisurely: that is to say, the inability to affirm reality, and human nature, as it is. Put differently, if there is no use or value in leisure, then there is nothing beyond work for which work is done. Acedia is a rejection of leisure because it leads to the attitude of “work for work's sake” and the idea that it is not good to work or to be. Acedia sees no good in reality and no delight to be had in work or the fruit of work. Consequently, one ceases to be leisurely, to celebrate, to be festive, and to worship. This result is echoed by the scholar R.J. Snell, who argues that acedia is not simply laziness or not wanting to work, but instead the inability to accept reality and oneself as it and one is. It is a hatred of life, reality, and work. As a result of this hatred of existence, acedia leaves the sufferer with  two options: despair or endless work. In both instances, there is an inability to pause and rest in things which for Pieper require an affirmation or celebration.

Strangely, then, the command of modern society—You Must Work Now Without End—eventually leads to the degradation and rejection of work and reality as good in itself. A truly flourishing society must therefore pursue leisure as an end in itself lest it fall into the world of total work and the slothful rejection of work and reality.

Work and Sabbath

Today’s conception of work and leisure is a precursor to burnout, anxiety, and societal despair. Pieper has shown us that the solution is not the devaluation of work but rather the proper valuation of work. Once work has its proper place in human life as a means to a further end—namely, leisure—then burnout, anxiety, and despair are replaced by celebration, praise, love, and joy. Thus far, we have seen a proposed solution from Pieper, notably representing the fruits of Christian tradition. The Jewish tradition as well has great insights to offer. Indeed, Heschel’s The Sabbath (1951) was published just after Pieper’s Leisure: the Basis of Culture.

Heschel proposes that Judaism’s emphasis on the Sabbath is a solution to the ailments of modern society. The Sabbath provides an “architecture of time” that structures time so as to prevent a perpetual work week. It is a time specifically dedicated to religious experience, expression, and other leisurely activities.

Work is a means to the end of the Sabbath, not for the purpose of resting so as to be more efficient for more work. That is an important distinction. The problem with modern society, for Heschel, is that the desire to dominate nature becomes an obsession, and we fall victim to consumerism and the covetousness of things for the sake of more things. Despite his harsh critiques, Heschel recognizes the dignity involved in labor and its fruits. Advocating or elevating the Sabbath does not belittle labor but instead provides it meaning. Without the Sabbath, all labor reduces to mere and endless toil. The Sabbath presupposes an independence of utility, things, and the making and producing of goods.

The Sabbath is not mere rest from work but presupposes an “existential richness,” as Pieper puts it. The solution the Sabbath provides is Menuha, which is an inner and external “tranquility, serenity, peace, and repose.” It is a type of happiness, repose of mind, and state of the soul. If there is reason to be happy, then there is reason to celebrate. Menuha is “a restfulness that is also a celebration.” Herein lies one of the connections between Sabbath and celebration. As Pieper reminds us, celebration is a type of praise, and the most intense celebration is the praise of God. It is Heschel who remarks, “The Sabbath teaches all beings whom to praise [i.e., God].” Observing the Sabbath is beyond mere rule-following; instead, the Sabbath is a time to “celebrate the creation of the world.” It is in this way that Jews imitate God, who rested on the seventh day.

Human nature in modernity is just as important to Heschel as it is to Pieper. As Heschel writes, “what we are depends on what the Sabbath is to us.” In other words, who we are, our possibilities of human living, our existential richness or poverty, and our flourishing depend on our relation to the Sabbath. One type of experience that Sabbath can provide is moments of “radical amazement,” or a wonder and appreciation for all that is.

This wonder gives birth to the arts, philosophy, poetry, and religion, and all those things necessary for flourishing that go beyond mere survival. The world under this attention of wonder turns out to be amazing, awe-inspiring, and meaningful. Moments of radical amazement (and their interpretation as absolutely meaningful) can therefore remedy existential poverty or the misery of the worker without rest. It is wonder or radical amazement—and their ineffability—that views all reality as full of meaning, which allows one to transcend the values of modern society. Heschel’s concern with technical civilization is a concern about human happiness and fulfillment: “The beginning of our happiness lies in the understanding that life without wonder is not worth living.” All actions during the Sabbath are detached from any metric of activity, toil, and utility. The Sabbath, therefore, is a time consisting of actions irreducible to those of work, and this is directly contrary to the negative effects of modern action.

Onward

Let us return to our original question: how can we best relate to work positively and understand its meaning and value today? The answer—as both philosophy, theology, and social science have shown us—is by integrating work as a means to the end of leisurely actions. By integrating our lower values to higher values, the former are not negated but rather sublimated into a higher viewpoint of meaning and value. Thus, work is not devalued or rejected according to the soul of leisure or the spirit of the Sabbath. Instead, it is given its proper place and orientation as well as valued as part of the goodness of the world. Under this framework, work is seen less as toil and more as a necessary part of human flourishing—not simply survival.  

If we could summarize the negative effects of modern society that Han, Pieper, and Heschel describe, it would be sloth and gloom. It is the slothful and gloomful person that succumbs to the temptation that I Must Work Now Without End. Why? Because this sentiment presumes that no action or pursuit can transcend this world. There is nothing good in itself, and there is nothing worth praising. Celebration, festivity, and religion are rendered pointless. 

Leisure and Sabbath, then, are the response and solution to our burnout society. They are practices and motivations that orient our work to what is truly worthwhile. They orient us to ends in themselves that put a stop to the ceaseless working for more and more, or the ceaseless working to escape from more and more work. Leisure and Sabbath are practices by which the goodness of work is affirmed rather than discarding it for a work-less utopia. Instead, leisure and Sabbath give work its proper orientation and affirm the necessity of work for human flourishing. It is important to note that leisure and Sabbath are not just ideas that help solve the problematic philosophical position of endless work, but they are also practices that act as remedies for burnout. They are no doubt radical and perhaps invasive remedies, but they are necessary antidotes to the idols of activity, toil, and utility of modern society. Best of all, these practices will, I hope, work to liberate us towards life’s proper end and ultimately, human flourishing.

Elliott R. Jones is a recent graduate of philosophy at Boston College. His research on Leisure and Sabbath is published in LOGOS: the undergraduate philosophy Journal of Cornell and has been presented at the Center for Christian-Jewish Learning, the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life, the American Academy of Religion Annual Conference, and the Eighth International Conference on Philosophy and Meaning in Life. After taking a gap semester, he will pursue an MA in Philosophy at Boston College.

June 2026