Winter 1984 - 1985 - Quarterly Review

QUARTERLY REVIEW, WINTER 1984
Jewish tradition holds that sabbath observance testifies to the fact
that God is the creator and ruler of the universe:
The five commandments (on the first tablet) parallel the five
commandments (on the second tablet).. . . It is written "Remember
the sabbath day to keep it holy" (Exod. 20:8) as the fourth
commandment. Parallel to it (as the eighth commandment) it is
written, "Do not bear false witness" (Exod. 20:16). This indicates
that anyone who desecrates the sabbath testifies falsely that God did
not create the world and rest on the seventh day. Conversely, those
who observe the sabbath testify that God did create the world and
rest on the seventh day . . . (Mekilta, Bahodesh, 8).
Cessation from creative work, from tampering with the world
around us, states tangibly our agreement that it is not totally ours, that
we are not the ultimate rulers over it. Six days we manipulate it, shape
it, dominate it. On the seventh, God asks us to return it to Him/Her.
By acceding to that request, we do testify that ultimately the "earth is
the Eternal's with the fullness thereof" (Ps. 24:1), and we let go of it
and return it and ourselves to God.
Acknowledging the rights of the creator of the universe over that
which She or He made returns the sense of being a creature to us. We
begin to recognize that we are one with all other created things before
God. We all share in being the work of God's hands. This sense
proposes that when we return at sabbath's end to our work in and
with the world we should return with a gentler, more respectful
attitude toward all of creation. On shabbat the great and the lowly,
humanity and beast, master and slave are equalized in their position
before God who made them all (Exod. 20:10). Rabbinic Judaism
recognized even the right of inanimate objects to "rest" on the sabbath
when it restrained Jews from using any tool for its normal work
purpose on the sabbath day (see BT Shabbat 18a). We and all things
are partners in each other's existences, and all of our existences are
God's.
Sabbath also provides an opportunity to step back from molding
and shaping the world so that we may just look at it. As we take that
look we can judge from a bit of a distance, as an artist would, whether
we like what we have done with our world during the past week, or
month, or year. We can plan to do better, or differently, or, perhaps,
cease from doing any more. Cut off from direct and intense interaction
with the world outside of us by the sabbath rules governing
prohibited labor, we are freed to turn to our internal worlds. We are
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