Man the Outlaw #7: Remember the Sabbath Day, to Keep it Holy

Of all Commandments, this one is perhaps the most out of step with the modern world. It's also a bit of a mystery what it is really even about, and what qualifies for Sabbath observance and non-observance. In Exodus it says that it is a celebration of the 7th day of Creation in which G-d rested, and in Deuteronomy it says it commemorates the freeing of the Israelites from bondage in Egypt. Christians moved it from Saturday to Sunday (sort of) and now really disregard it pretty much altogether in most cases. But Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Amos as well as Moses are unanimous about one thing: its importance. Whatever else it is, and it is many things, it is a once-weekly reminder to observant Jews both of their history and their uniqueness as a people bound by their relationship to G-d.

In its simplest form, the rule about the Sabbath that matters most is don't work and don't make anyone else work. Don't buy or sell. Don't do commerce-related activities. If you have employees or in the time period, slaves, they cannot work. If nonbelievers are hanging out at your place, THEY cannot work on your premises. If you raise animals or plants for a living you can do things related to keep them alive and unsuffering but that's about all the work you can do.

The clearest thing that the Sabbath is hearkening back to is not the seventh day of Creation but the Exodus. They were slaves; now they're free. They ate the bread of hard labor, grinding the straw into the mud to make bricks. Now in Sinai, they ate manna from heaven. Contrary to His reputation in some circles as the cosmic bully in the sky, G-d's first public act on the stage of history was to free people. In traditional Jewish society, it was the one day a week when even the lowest slave is free.

I think that manna is one of the things that unlocks our understanding of the Sabbath. People tend to believe that they alone are responsible for any good fortune they have. Funny how that works: we regard our good fortune as all our own hard work, but for our misfortune we shake our fist at the fickle finger of fate. ;) The biblical truth is different: you have nothing that was not given to you by G-d. Your capacity to do hard work, if you do, was given to you by G-d. Your very life was given to you by G-d. Manna upends our understanding of the importance of our own input into our success: free holy bread from the sky. You can't buy it. You didn't earn it. You couldn't even make it if you wanted to.

As an aside, in my JPS translation of Psalm 127 in the Tanakh (not all translations bring out the meaning of this Psalm as beautifully,) it says:

In vain do you rise early
and stay up late,
you who toil for the bread you eat;
He provides as much for His loved ones while

they sleep.

~Psalm 127:2

I think that very beautifully brings out the idea of G-d's providence, without which all enterprise will fail.

So the Sabbath is the day when we stop being busy about our own work and look to G-d's work in Creation. When we stop being about what we are doing, and start thinking about what G-d is doing. It's a day when the self-centered world that we can so easily get wrapped up in, stops.

There is another factor that Jews historically had to deal with, and Sabbath-keepers today have to deal with. That is, the world wants you to be available to work on Saturdays. The world in many cases kinda regards it as a deal breaker if you are not. So there is a sacrifice involved. You are different from them. They won't like you to be different, and sometimes we ourselves don't want to be different. But to be a child of G-d -IS- to be different, very different. Secularism and Sabbath-keeping are like oil and water. So, it may well be, that to keep the 4th Commandment will cost you trouble at work. It may cost you trouble with others. You will be regarded as a strange person at a minimum. To keep this commandment may well require sacrificing economic opportunity. It could cost you your job. As the history of the Jews abundantly shows, people don't like other people to be THAT religious. People want other people to be very casual about it, like they themselves are. Well, that is not the kind of faith that is on offer from the G-d of Abraham.

I am not sure why people find it surprising. Deuteronomy spells it out very plainly. It's not a minimal commitment at all:

Love the LORD your God

with all your heart and with all your soul

and with all your strength.

~Deuteronomy 6:5

The 4th Commandment is one that really unfolds the more you obey it. It is a foretaste of eternity in the here and now. The word that the Sabbath really speaks to me is Shalom, Peace. It's one of the Ten Commandments, not something buried in Leviticus but front and center. I find it interesting all the places where the Ten Commandments are posted, court houses and churches and elsewhere, but even though it is right there on the list, hardly anyone obeys it or pays any attention to it. Part of that is that Christians like their Jesus have tended to downplay or dismiss the Sabbath. Well I got news, G-d doesn't change his mind about that kind of stuff. If it was a Commandment 3000 years ago, it is a Commandment now. And who made it Sunday? A Roman Emperor, of all people.

It's not Sunday. It's been Saturday for 3000 years and still is. The more you obey it, the more it will open itself to you and G-d will bless you.

"This is what the Lord said to me: “Go and stand at the Gate of the People, through which the kings of Judah go in and out; stand also at all the other gates of Jerusalem. Say to them, ‘Hear the word of the Lord, you kings of Judah and all people of Judah and everyone living in Jerusalem who come through these gates. This is what the Lord says: Be careful not to carry a load on the Sabbath day or bring it through the gates of Jerusalem. Do not bring a load out of your houses or do any work on the Sabbath, but keep the Sabbath day holy, as I commanded your ancestors. Yet they did not listen or pay attention; they were stiff-necked and would not listen or respond to discipline. But if you are careful to obey me, declares the Lord, and bring no load through the gates of this city on the Sabbath, but keep the Sabbath day holy by not doing any work on it, then kings who sit on David’s throne will come through the gates of this city with their officials. They and their officials will come riding in chariots and on horses, accompanied by the men of Judah and those living in Jerusalem, and this city will be inhabited forever."

~Jeremiah 17:19-25