Ben started keeping Shabbat months ago. Every week he would come back and lightly nudge us to give it a try. Eventually it connected. I have fond memories of Sunday school followed by home-cooked meals and time to run outside in the Georgia heat. I remember connecting with my siblings. I remember dozing on a decades-old, worn-in couch at my grandparents' house. I remember having a day that was rooted in being deeply human. You felt like part of a community. You were part of a family. And on occasion a spark of awe would stun you while you sat looking at the sky. There was nowhere else to be because there was nowhere else to go. As the weeks went on and Ben kept raising the point, I found myself setting aside Saturday or Sunday to disconnect. I left the phone in the foyer and avoided other forms of work. The benefits of the Sabbath don't immediately reveal themselves. The first few weeks are largely spent in a kind of agitation. You find yourself often reaching for a device that isn't there. Then all of a sudden, you start to notice things. Small things. Like how how there are flowers blooming in a spot alongside your house that you never saw before. Or how there's one particularly nefarious squirrel with a spot on its chest that taunts your dog from the top of your fence. Then there are the bigger things. Like just how often your daughter looks at you when she's playing. Not for attention, but just to know you're there and looking back. Or how earnestly your wife is trying to prepare a new recipe for your family. Or how your elderly neighbor seems to be struggling with their day to day chores now. It's easy to give in to the eye roll reaction to hearing someone pitch the Sabbath as something new. It's obviously not. And all of these benefits are available without the ritual and especially without an app. But for better or worse, we're steeped in cultural programming where if you're not on your phone, the people you're around are. And that feeling permeates your lived experience. There's always somewhere else to be, either physically or technologically. It's possible to "see" all of these things without noting their importance. To Sabbath alone and with willpower is to take on a burden that makes surrendering to the day difficult. But if you Sabbath with the people in your life, surrender is something that can happen to you without effort. This project is largely a labor of love by Ben. And we don't want to oversell what we've made. It's just a screentime blocker at its core. But there's a rising chorus of people who are rediscovering this practice. And we think our product can help add to your experience (through subtraction). If you're interested in giving it a try, reply to Ben. We'd love to have you.