When the Stars Go Blue

Where do you go when you're lonely?
Where do you go when you're blue?
Where do you go when the stars go blue?

I'm sitting here in the Pacific timezone, and the jBlogosphere has gone quiet. This is because, let us face it, they are all New Yorkers, if not New York City-ers, and I live in a desert of Judaism and Torah.

But it is so different. The time right now is 7:56. Shabbas comes at 8:16. I'll probably get off at 8:05. But the deathly stillness of the jBlogosphere is haunting. Is this the austere beauty Shabbas has for someone who simply watches others do it?

Soon I will "sleep with my fathers" and join them in yom menucha of Shabbas. Yom ze mechubad, m'kol yomim. I read on Da'as Hedyot that one of the only things a kofer (Shana?) missed (she stated this repeatedly) was Shabbas. Shabbas, we are familiar with the Gemara that says Shabbas is like a sign. A person who keeps Shabbas is like someone who puts a sign on their store "Reopening Soon". Giving up shabbas is like taking the sign down, and indicating that the dilapidated store will not be returned to its former glory.

It's so quiet.