Vacation or Holiday?

It says in Ecclesiastes that “God has made one corresponding to the other,” meaning:  G-d designed the world to operate in a perpetual balance.  Good and evil are equally opposed; hence the greater someone is spiritually, the greater is his evil inclination. Likewise, spirituality and physicality are constantly in balance with each other, and a slight increase in one will automatically cause an elevation in the other.

During the summer, nature is at its prime. The sun shines, the days are long, and life’s pleasures are abundant.  Instead of taking advantage of the good weather and beautiful scenery by relaxing our religious observances, let us remember that an increase in physicality comes along with the potential to increase our spiritual growth. The good things we decide to do in the summer will be successful as the spiritual energy is also flourishing. The summer is a perfect time to start learning a new topic in Judaism and to do another mitzvah.

It is interesting to note the etymological differences between the words vacation and holiday. Vacation is related to the word vacate, or empty, whereas holiday referrers to making each day holy. It is surly the Jewish perspective is to go on holidays but never take vacation. We must make sure to take each day of so called summer “vacation” and make it into a summer “holiday” by filling it with Torah and good deeds.