Going by the Book : Religion: The Sabbath is a time to go to temple, read, relax--and little else. Orthodox Jews say they enjoy the tranquility and family togetherness.

During the week, Minda and Eli Mafouda are the typical contemporary, two-career couple. They work long hours while a live-in housekeeper baby-sits their two children. Thank goodness for the microwave.

But, from sundown Friday to a little after sundown Saturday, they turn their backs on most of their conveniences. For 25 hours, they “keep the Sabbath,” following a complex set of rules dating back to an era when their ancestors were nomads in the Sinai Desert, waiting for the Promised Land. They can’t turn on the stereo, play piano or watch television. They can’t sew, cook, clean house of shop. They can’t pick up a pen or even tear toilet paper.

The Mafoudas are among an estimated 10,000 San Fernando Valley Orthodox Jews who observe the Sabbath.

“Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy,” God instructed Moses on Mt. Sinai an estimated 3,303 years ago in the Ten Commandments. “In six days God created the heavens and the Earth and on the seventh day He rested.”

And the Mafoudas and other Orthodox Jews rest as well. The Sabbath--or Shabbos, as it is called in Yiddish--is a day to eat leisurely meals with the whole family, pray in the synagogue, visit with friends, study the Torah, read and relax. Some Jews say it’s also considered a good thing for husbands and wives to have sex on the Sabbath, thereby fulfilling dual divine commandments to be fruitful and multiply, and to celebrate the sanctity of sexuality in life.

“Some great scholars have claimed that the Sabbath has done more than anything else to preserve the Jewish identity, survival and sanctity,” said Rabbi Zvi Block of Aish HaTorah, an Orthodox synagogue in North Hollywood.

Some might think Orthodox Jews such as the Mafoudas make great sacrifices and go to ridiculous extremes to observe ancient rules that have little meaning or relevance today.

But the Mafoudas and other Orthodox Jews say keeping the Sabbath helps them establish a special connection to God and their ancestors. It revives them spiritually and physically, unifies their families and brings serenity to their often-harried lives, they say.

“We don’t see keeping the Sabbath as a sacrifice. We see it as something that’s added to our lives,” said Minda, a 35-year-old teacher and administrator of an Orthodox Jewish preschool. “There’s a tranquility and a quietness about the Sabbath that’s just wonderful. During the week, I look at the kids, but I don’t really see them. I hardly speak five words to Eli the whole week and most of the words are about the kids, or ‘Have you bought the milk? Have you paid this bill?’ But once a week on the Sabbath we really see and talk to each other. We have the ability to relax and be together.

“For 25 hours, you have a respite from life, from the hectic crazy things you have to go through the rest of the week. You might have a lot of problems--your boss is on your neck, you can’t pay your bills--but all your worrying comes to a complete stop on Shabbos . I think it’s because you can’t do anything about it. You can’t discuss business, you can’t discuss work, you can’t discuss money, and that protects you.”

The Sabbath is equally precious to Richard Macales of Northridge, who does publicity for UCLA Extension.

“I believe so much in what I’m doing that, if you offered me a million dollars and said, ‘Turn on the television set on the Sabbath,’ I wouldn’t do it. . . .” he said. “God commanded the Jews to rest on the Sabbath day.”

The Valley has a thriving Orthodox Jewish population, “particularly in the North Hollywood corridor” that fans out along Chandler Boulevard, said Rabbi Alan Kalinsky, of the Los Angeles-based Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations. The area has nearly a dozen synagogues. The oldest and largest, Shaarey Zedek, was built more than 40 years ago; the newest include tiny, nondescript storefront synagogues shoehorned full of worshipers in folding chairs. There are growing Orthodox populations in Northridge, Encino, Woodland Hills and Canoga Park as well, said Rabbi Marvin J. Sugarman of Shaarey Zedek.

For many, the transition to Orthodoxy is gradual. Irving Jacob, 43, of Northridge, an analyst with an Anaheim computer company, started attending Sabbath services while he was a Cal State Northridge student because he was needed for a minyan , a quorum of 10 adult Jewish men required to recite certain communal prayers. (Women do not count toward the 10.)

Intrigued, Jacob started going to Saturday Sabbath services, but then spent the rest of the day running errands. Then he decided he would drive the car only to and from services. Now he faithfully observes the Sabbath and is so devout that he studies the Torah on his lunch hour every day at work with an Orthodox Jewish colleague.

When he first started wearing a kipa or yarmulke, a prayer cap Orthodox Jewish men wear at all times as a sign of respect to God, his wife, Arlene, was so worried that people would make anti-Semitic comments that she walked six paces behind him when they went out shopping. Now, she observes the Sabbath herself.

In the Mafouda household, preparations for the Sabbath begin on Wednesday night when Minda or Eli shop for Sabbath meals. It is considered a mitzvah --or good deed--to eat three meals on the Sabbath, but they must be prepared before sundown Friday. Since she works full-time and can’t do much on Fridays, Minda--sometimes assisted by Eli--typically stays up until midnight or later Thursday nights to cook for the Sabbath.

“During the week, it’s pizza, hamburgers and spaghetti,” Minda said late one Thursday night as she consulted a kosher Jewish cookbook in the kitchen of the family’s rented North Hollywood home. But Sabbath meals are special. Minda may use instant rice or packaged soup mix to save time, but she typically prepares a big feast.

Eli fills a slow cooker with ingredients for cholent, a simple stew traditionally served during the afternoon meal on Shabbos. It’s an ideal dish because, although Jews can’t turn a slow cooker or oven on during the Sabbath, it’s OK to turn one on before sunset and leave a dish to warm as long as it isn’t turned off until the Sabbath is over.

Many rabbis interpret the law as allowing Jews to use timers to heat certain foods at desired times.

Activity intensifies in the Mafouda household as dusk nears on Fridays. Minda rushes home from her preschool job and Eli from his work as a medical supply salesman in time to make last-minute preparations for the Sabbath, no mean trick in winter when the sun sets as early as 4:30 p.m.

Many Jews change jobs to find more understanding employers, choose to work for Jewish employers or become self-employed so that they can take time off work to observe the Sabbath and the 14 days during the year on which Orthodox Jews are required not to work.

Eli left an engineering job because he had trouble getting off work for the Sabbath. “I don’t compromise,” he said.

Eli grew up Orthodox and has never known any other way of life. He would find it odd not to observe the Sabbath and to rise early before work most weekday mornings to drive to the synagogue to pray at 6 or 6:30 a.m.

Minda, on the other hand, grew up in New Jersey in a non-observant home. Her parents hoped it was only a phase she was going through when, having joined an Orthodox Jewish youth group, she decided at 15 to start observing the Sabbath.

Her transition to Orthodoxy was gradual. At first, Minda simply stopped answering the telephone but had her mother take and relay messages. Then she started watching television only if someone else changed the channels.

Five years later, she had progressed to keeping a kosher kitchen and wearing only dresses--pants are considered men’s clothes. Today, she has only one pair--for horseback riding. She was already Orthodox when she met Eli at a student gathering while studying in Israel.

High on the list of Sabbath preparations is making sure the kitchen, bathroom and living room lights are on--Orthodox Jews are forbidden to turn lights on or off during the Sabbath, although some Jews use timers.

Nor can Jews adjust their air-conditioning or furnaces once the Sabbath starts, although some rabbis interpret the law to say that it’s permissible for a non-Jew to do it for them as long as the Jewish person only drops hints, such as “Gee it’s hot in here,” rather than asking the person to do the task.

Some Jews even use VCRs to record television shows they would otherwise miss. Northridge resident Irving Jacob, for instance, set his VCR to tape the final episode of “Dallas” so he could spend that Friday night in the synagogue praying, as usual. Jacob played the videocassette as soon as the Sabbath ended Saturday night.

As sundown Friday approaches, the Mafoudas dress in nice clothing. Nine-year-old Leyat (“mine” in Hebrew) wears ruffled dresses and ribbons in her hair. Even 2-year-old Rami (short for Amram, the father of Moses) wears a little suit and bow tie.

At 18 minutes before sunset--Minda consults the newspaper or a Jewish calendar for the exact time each week--Minda ushers in the Sabbath by lighting two white tapers, waving her hands over the flames, covering her eyes and uttering a prayer in Hebrew thanking God for the opportunity to light the Sabbath candles. At her side, Leyat solemnly does the same thing with a single candle of her own.

Begun an estimated 3,500 years ago by Sarah, wife of the patriarch Abraham, this tradition has been carried out by generations of Jewish women, some of whom valued their candlesticks more than their jewelry.

After the candles are lighted, Eli takes Leyat and Rami to Aish HaTorah, a small, Orthodox synagogue with a congregation of mostly young baalei-tshuva , people who were raised in non-Orthodox backgrounds and became Orthodox as adults. It is one of several synagogues the family regularly attends.

The site of an unsolved firebombing in January, the synagogue is only seven-tenths of a mile from the Mafouda home. Minda made Eli clock the distance with the car odometer before the family moved in. Because Orthodox Jews cannot ride in vehicles on the Sabbath, it had to be within easy walking distance.

Eli, like many Jews, saves steps and time by driving to the synagogue before sunset and leaving his cars parked there until Sabbath ends, then driving home.

Leyat, laughing and playing with her friends, watches Rami on the green grass outside the synagogue while her father goes in to pray. About two dozen men in dark suits, many swaying back and forth, chant in Hebrew, “Welcome Sabbath bride.”

Few women attend the night service; most stay home to make last-minute preparations for the Sabbath, recuperate from the workday or watch the children, Block said. Jewish men are obligated by the Torah to pray; women to run the home and watch the children, he said.

After the service, Eli, Rami and Leyat walk home under a full moon. Cars rumble by, the sounds of their radios spilling into the night air, but the mood is peaceful.

Back home, holding his hands over their heads, Eli blesses the children and the whole family and sings “Sholom Aleicheim, “ (literally, “Peace be unto you”), a 17th-Century greeting to the two angels--one good, one bad--who, according to the Talmud, accompany each man home from synagogue. Jews are also said to get an extra soul during the Sabbath.

The family soon is sitting down to a dinner of chicken soup, chicken, fish, rice, broccoli, sweet baked noodle kugel, salad, and two relishes, one of eggplant and lemon.

Eli frequently bursts into song during the meal, tapping the table for rhythm, and engages Leyat in discussions of the Torah portion to be discussed in synagogue the next day.

Early the next morning--by 9 a.m.-- Eli is off to synagogue again.

Minda leaves for synagogue an hour or so later.

Married women are supposed to cover their heads--with wigs, hats, or scarves--but out of modesty, not devotion to God. The rationale is that only a woman’s husband should see his wife’s alluring tresses, Rabbi Sugarman said.

Some women, such as Irving’s wife, Arlene Jacob, 35, of Northridge, balk at this tradition, feeling uncomfortable with the undertone of sexism and the public stigma of wearing a hat.

“I feel a woman in a shul out of respect to God and in a holy place, she should cover her head. But on the street, I would feel very uncomfortable. I would feel strange wearing a hat or a covering. People would be staring at me, looking at me and making comments and I would have to spend all day explaining why I cover my head,” she said.

But even these women wear a head covering to synagogue or to light the Sabbath candles.

Inside the synagogue, women sit separately from the men, an ivory curtain blocking their view of the men and the rabbi. Minda doesn’t mind this; men and women might otherwise concentrate on each other rather than on God. But, she said, she is disappointed that the women’s sections of some synagogues are given short shrift.

“Some places you go, you’re lucky you’re not in the kitchen,” Minda said. “Sometimes you’re put into the corner and you’re squished and nobody cares.” She dislikes having to flag her husband down and ask him to bring her a prayer book.

But, she said, searching for words carefully, “Discrimination happens in the secular world and it happens in our world.

“It hurts. It really hurts and when I was younger, I would complain a lot. I still am not very quiet. I hope for my daughters and my granddaughters, maybe it will change,” Minda said.

Despite the irritation she sometimes feels at such things, Minda loves the Sabbath service.

In keeping with the spirit of the day--to gather and celebrate with a community of Jews--about half the time, the Mafoudas have company for the Sabbath. Since friends from across town can’t simply come for Sabbath dinner and then drive home, people all over the neighborhood have sofa beds open, bedding rumpled by overnight guests.

An hour or so before sunset, the Mafoudas have a small third meal, with bread, fish, sweet cakes and singing before Eli walks to synagogue for the final service of the Sabbath.

Finally on Saturday night, three stars can be seen in the sky with the naked eye. The Sabbath can be prolonged to last past this point, but cannot end before.

It is past 8:30 when Eli returns from synagogue and the Mafoudas usher out the Sabbath by lighting a havdalah , a braided candle with more than one wick, snuffing out its flame in sweet wine and passing around a spice box filled with sweet-smelling leaves, as if to symbolically revive everyone to face the real world as the Sabbath ends.

“A lot of people think, ‘Oh, it’s so tough for Jews having to follow all these rules,’ ” Minda said. “I remember an acquaintance saying he feels sorry for us because we’re stuck in this cage. But we’re not stuck in anything. I came from a non-religious home and I know no one was struck down by lightning for not observing the Sabbath and the commandments in the Torah. We have the choice. I could go jump in the car Saturday afternoon. No one’s stopping me. But it would spoil something precious.”