Shalom and thank you for your question! Your elderly friend was startled when he heard about the severity of violating the Sabbath. It reminds me of a beautiful story about one of the Rebbes of the Lubavitch dynasty. When he was very young he used to hear the Torah readings from his father, who was the Rebbe before him. Once his father had to travel away from home at a time of the year when the weekly Torah portion contained severe curses that would fall upon us when we do not behave properly. Since his father was away, the boy heard the Torah portion being read by someone else, and promptly fainted. Upon being revived he was asked “you hear this Torah reading every year, why did you only faint now?” The boy answered “when my father reads it I only hear blessings.”
G-d is not a mean man in the sky. He awaits our return to Him at any and every stage of the game. Slow and steady wins the race. Real change is a process. Even if your friend does not seem to have much time, the mere fact that he took seriously the lesson he heard indicates a spark of belief. That is the basis of the process. After that any step in the right direction is part of the process, and when a person is in the process – he is in the right place, even if he has not gotten very far yet. Once I needed to take a bus to travel somewhere, so I went to the bus station and got on the bus after making sure it was the right number. The only problem was that it was the right number, but going in the opposite direction. When I realized, I was shown where to get off and wait for another bus, and thus my trip took much longer than originally planned. Had I gotten on the bus that was going in the RIGHT direction, even if I had traveled a small part of the way, I still would have been much closer to my goal than I would have been on the wrong bus. The analogy ends here though, because in spiritual matters the right direction is the right place and the end goal is beyond any limitation because spirituality is infinite. In other words – as long as a person is making a sincere effort to change, with the goal of moving forward, he/she is in a good place. There is good and there is better and better…the most righteous of people still have work to do…
You can thus encourage your friend to accept upon himself a new practice. If he has not been making kiddush, he could start making kiddush. That will be a positive mitzvah – for we are enjoined to ‘Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy’ (Exodus 20:8-12). Making kiddush is fulfilling the remembrance part of the mitzvah. Even if he decides to eat Challah on Shabbat and make a blessing, and he is doing it in honor of Shabbat, it is part of the mitzvah. Parallel to that he could perhaps take upon himself not to travel in a car or not to watch television, or not to use a razor… whichever he feels he could handle. Reassure him that as I said above, slowly but surely is good because it is a stable journey in the right direction.
The sages of the Talmud teach us that the (mere) thought of Teshuvah (translated often as repentance but more accurately return – to G-d) is considered Teshuvah. If indeed your friend felt a twinge of regret when he heard that online Rabbi talking about keeping Shabbat, that was a significant thing by itself.
Stories are an excellent educational tool. When you spend time with your friend, you can share Chassidic stories which have positive messages, (Chabad.org has an archive of them). It does not have to be personal, it can be simply sharing interesting insights…
It is very nice that you are concerned for your friend and care to help. We are told that words that come from the heart reach the heart!
