“Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.” Exodus 20:8

Remember - The Sabbath is anti-American.  It interferes with the American way of life.  It interrupts the incessant desire to work, shop, travel and be entertained.  It stands in opposition to our personal priorities.  It removes us from the flow of our fast-paced, rat-race, do-it-now, keep-on-trucking style of living.  It’s so much easier to schedule an hour or two on Sunday than it is to set aside 24 hours from Friday night to Saturday night.  The Sabbath is just too much disruption.  It fences me in.

That’s why we can’t live without it!  Abraham Heschel says, “Unless one learns how to relish the taste of Sabbath . . . one will be unable to enjoy the taste of eternity in the world to come.”[1] Are you as confused as I am about this?  How can the Sabbath be a taste of eternity?  It seems to limit me, not provide me with the great expanse of time without end.  But Heschel is right.  Listen:

“Judaism is a religion of time aiming at the sanctification of time.  Unlike the space-minded man to whom time is unvaried, iterative, homogeneous, to whom all hours are alike, qualitiless, empty shells, the Bible senses the diversified character of time.  There are no two hours alike.  Every hour is unique and the only one given at the moment, exclusive and endlessly precious.  Judaism teaches us to be attached to holiness in time . . .”[2]

I don’t know how to stop.  Maybe you don’t either.  Everyday there are many things pressing to be done.  Writing this daily adventure in Scriptural exploration is one of them.  It’s work that I love, but it’s still work.  If I’m going to deliver this to you each day, then it has to be done.  But it doesn’t have to be done on Shabbat, does it?  This is manna that can be doubled up the day before.  Just like everything else that depletes our reserves, it can be set aside in order that we might be replenished.  Hebrew has a verse for it.  Exodus 31:17 reads “. . . and on the seventh day He rested vayinnafash,” that is, “and was refreshed.”  But the word here is from nefesh – the word for “person” in Hebrew.  Sabbath is personal refreshment.  It is the time where we experience the connection with “made in His image.”  Six days we are tied to the earth, but on the seventh day, we come into the presence of heaven.

I don’t know how to stop, but I know I need to stop.  My culture doesn’t recognize the need to stop in its headlong disintegration of humanity.  But I don’t have to follow that road toward the frenzied suicide of personality.  I can stop – so help me God!  Yes, Father, help us all.  You knew that all Your creation needed to be refreshed.  Help us trust You by sanctifying Your name in our rest.

Topical Index: Sabbath, Exodus 20:8, vayinnafash

[2] The Sabbath, p. 8