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NY Times Op-Ed: Sabbaticals Shouldn’t Be Just For Professors And Clergy

Paul Caron
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New York Times Op-Ed:  Can Everyone Take a Sabbatical?, by Tish Harrison Warren (Priest, Anglican Church; Author, Prayer in the Night: For Those Who Work or Watch or Weep (2021) (Christianity Today's 2022 Book of the Year)):

Warren 3

Every year around this time, when my kids are on summer break, I begin to fantasize about what I might do if I could slow down for several months. I have never taken a sabbatical, but I’m surrounded by people who have because I’m friends with a lot of professors and clergy people. In both professions, sabbaticals are common — so much so that I know of ministry organizations that pair employees with a specialized “sabbatical coach.”

Over the last few years, I heard from friends about how critical their sabbaticals were, how they gave them renewed stamina and passion, how they wouldn’t have made it without them. And I wondered if this practice could be more widespread and replicated in other fields.

The idea seems to be catching on. “In recent years, the number of employers offering sabbaticals has grown exponentially,” Kira Schabram, Matt Bloom and DJ DiDonna wrote in Harvard Business Review in February [The Transformative Power of Sabbaticals]. “In addition, many more workers, especially employees in managerial and professional roles, are taking their own unpaid sabbaticals when their organizations fail to offer them.” They conducted a study on professionals who took sabbaticals and found that “people largely experienced significant, positive changes in their work and life.”

But for some, this practice isn’t only a smart professional move, it is also a theological commitment. I spoke with a group of business people and other leaders of faith who have come to see sabbaticals as a crucial spiritual practice. Consequently, they have structured their work so that they and their employees can have regular times of rest.

The business owners and nonprofit leaders I spoke with often view their commitment to sabbaticals as an extension of the practice of keeping the Sabbath, a weekly day of rest, and a way to honor human limitations and needed seasons of fallowness. They frequently cited Leviticus 25, in which God speaks to the Jewish people, saying: “For six years sow your fields, and for six years prune your vineyards and gather their crops. But in the seventh year the land is to have a year of Sabbath rest.” …

Eddy Badrina, the chief executive of Eden Green Technology, a vertical farming company, said: “The concept of Sabbath is absolutely foundational to Judeo-Christian values and beliefs. We don’t have those in modern times and secular society, so I think we have to carve out the time ourselves, and establish our own rhythms.”

Part of the beauty of this vision in Leviticus is that all people — even those who are socially and economically vulnerable — had the same cosmic “leave policy” commanded by God. But I wondered if sabbaticals were now only possible for elites or those lucky enough to work for the small group of people I interviewed. So I asked a handful of economists and business experts if American work life could be structured so that everyone, including low-wage workers, could take a regular sabbatical every seven years. …

Sandeep Mazumder, the dean of Baylor University’s Hankamer School of Business, told me that before we could possibly see an uptick in sabbaticals in this country there would need to be a profound shift in how Americans think about rest and work more broadly. “I was born and raised in London,” he said, “and the European attitude to work is very different. Holidays and vacations are celebrated in Europe, and there is no social stigma from taking time off, which often is the case in the United States. Unused P.T.O. days are highly uncommon in Europe, but are often treated as a badge of honor in this country.” …

Business owners and nonprofit leaders I spoke with feel a responsibility to help forge a path to a more healthy American work culture. 

Editor's Note:  If you would like to receive a weekly email each Sunday with links to the faith posts on TaxProf Blog, email me here.

Other New York Times op-eds by Tish Harrison Warren:

About the Author

Paul Caron Avatar
Paul Caron
Paul Caron was named Duane and Kelly Roberts Dean of Pepperdine University School of Law on June 1, 2017. Dean Caron joined the Pepperdine faculty in 2013 after serving as the Dorothy and Leonard Straus Distinguished Visiting Professor of Law in the spring semesters of 2010 through 2013. He served as Associate Dean for Research and Faculty Development at Pepperdine in 2015-2017. Before coming to Pepperdine, he was Associate Dean of Faculty and Charles Hartsock Professor of Law at the University of Cincinnati College of Law.
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