[These are notes from another RESOURCE we recommend as MUST OWN; this has been hailed as a great scholarly achievement by authorities of the Bible everywhere. Its translation is based on the American Jewish Version of TNK. Reformatting and slight editing ours.]
The Soncino Press
PENTATEUCH & HAFTORAHS
Hebrew Text English Translation & Commentary,Edited by Dr. H. H. Hertz
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FOURTH COMMANDMENT: THE SABBATH
remember. The use of the word ‘remember’ may indicate that the institution was well known to the Israelites, long before their manna experiences; that it was a treasured and sacred institution inherited from the days of the Patriarchs. The Rabbis, however, explain ‘Remember the Sabbath day’ to mean, Bear it in mind and prepare for its advent; think of it day by day, and speak of its holiness and sanctifying influence. They instituted the Kiddush prayer, praising God for the gift of the Sabbath, to celebrate its coming in; and the Havdalah blessing, praising God for the distinction between the Sabbath and the six weekdays, to mark its going out.
sabbath day. Heb. shabbath, from a root meaning desisting from work.
to keep it holy. To treat it as a day unprofaned by workaday purposes. In addition to being a day of rest, the Sabbath is to be ‘a holy day, set apart for the building up of the spiritual element of man’ (Philo). Religious worship and religious instructions—the renewal of man’s spiritual life in God—form an essential part of Sabbath observance. We therefore sanctify the Sabbath by a special Sabbath liturgy, by statutory Lessons from the Torah and the Prophets, and by attention to discourse and instruction by religious teachers. The Sabbath has thus proved the great educator of Israel in the highest education of all; namely the laws governing human conduct. The effect of these Sabbath prayers and Synagogue homilies upon the Jewish people has been incalculable. Leopold Zunz, the founder of the New Jewish Learning, has shown that almost the whole of Israel’s inner history, since the close of the Bible times can be traced in following the development of these Sabbath discourses on the Torah. Sabbath worship is still the chief bond which unites Jews into a religious Brotherhood. Neglect of such worship injures the spiritual life of both the individual and the community.
shalt thou labor. Work during the six days of the week is as essential to man’s welfare as is the rest on the seventh. No man or woman howsoever rich, is freed from the obligation of doing some work, say the Rabbis, as idleness invariably leads to evil thoughts and evil deeds. The proportion of one day’s rest in seven has been justified by the experience of the last 3,000 years. Physical health suffers without such relief. The first French Republic rejected the one day in seven, and ordained a rest of one day in ten. The experiment was a complete failure.
work. Heb., that which man produces by his thought, effort and will.
a sabbath unto the LORD. A day specially devoted to God.
thou shalt not do any manner of work. Scripture does not give a list of labors forbidden on Sabbath; but it incidentally mentions field-labor, buying and selling, travelling, cooking, etc. as forbidden work. The Mishna enumerates under 39 different heads all such acts as are in Jewish Law defined as “work’, and therefore not to be performed on the Sabbath day; such as ploughing, reaping, carrying loads, kindling a fire, writing, sewing, etc. Certain other things which cannot be brought under any of these 39 categories are also prohibited, because they lead to a breach of Sabbath laws as well as all acts that would tend to change the Sabbath into an ordinary day. Whatever we are not allowed to do ourselves, we must not have done for us by a fellow-Jew, even by one who is a Sabbath-breaker. All these Sabbath laws, however, are suspended as soon as there is the least danger to human life, say the Rabbis. The Commandments of God are to promote life and well-being, a principle based on Lev. VIII, 5, ‘ and these are the precepts of the LORD by which ye shall live.’
thou. The head of the house, responsible for all that dwell therein.
manservant . . . maidservant . Or, ‘bondman’ . . . ‘bondmaid’; Deut. v. 14. Not only the children but also the servants, whether Israelite or heathen, nay even the beasts of burden, are to share in the rest of the Sabbath day. The Sabbath is a boundless boon for mankind and the greatest wonder of religion. Nothing can appear more simple than this institution, to rest on the seventh day after six days of work. And yet no legislator in the world hit upon this idea! To the Greeks and the Romans it was an object of derision, a superstitious usage. But it has removed with one stroke the contrast between slaves who must labor incessantly, and their masters who may celebrate continuously’ (B. Jacob).
thy cattle. It is one of the glories of Judaism that, thousands of years before anyone else, it so fully recognized our duties to the dumb friends and helpers of man.
thy stranger. The non-Israelite, who agrees to keep the seven Noachic precepts; though the Sabbath was not included in these precepts, he too is to enjoy the Sabbath rest for his own sake as a human being.
within thy gates. Within the borders of the town.
rested. By keeping the Sabbath, the Rabbis tell us, we testify to our belief in God as the Creator of the Universe; in a God who is not identical with Nature, but is a free Personality, the creator and ruler of Nature. the Talmudic mystics tell that when the heavens and earth were being called into existence, matter was getting out of hand, and the Divine Voice had to resound, ‘Enough! So far and no further!’ Man, made in the image of God, has been endowed by Him with the power of creating. But in his little universe, too, matter is constantly getting out of hand, threatening to overwhelm and crush out the soul. By means of the Sabbath, called ‘a memorial to Creation,’ we are endowed with the Divine power of saying ‘Enough!’ to all rebellious claims of our environment, and are reminded of our potential victory over all material forces that would drag us down.
blessed the sabbath. Made it a day of blessing to those who observe it. The Sabbath was something quite new, which had never before existed in any nation or in any religion—a standing reminder that man can emancipate himself from the slavery of his worldly cares; that man was made for spiritual freedom, peace and joy (Ewald). ‘The Sabbath is one of the glories of our humanity. For if to labor is noble, of our own free will to pause in that labor which may lead to success, to money, to fame is nobler still. To dedicate one day a week to rest and to God, this is the prerogative and the privilege of man alone’ (C.G. Montefiore).
and hallowed it. Endowed it with sanctifying powers. The sanctity of the Sabbath is seen in the traces upon the Jewish soul. Isaiah speaks of the Sabbath as ‘a delight’; and the Liturgy describes Sabbath rest as ‘voluntary and congenial, happy and cheerful’. ‘The Sabbath planted a heaven in every Jewish home, filling ti with long-expected and blissfully-greeted peace; making each home a sanctuary the father a priest, and the mother who lights the Sabbath candles an angel of light’ (B. Jacob). The Sabbath banishes care and toil, grief and sorrow. All fasting (except on the Day of Atonement, which as the Sabbath of Sabbaths transcends this rule of the ordinary Sabbath) is forbidden; and all mourning is suspended on the Sabbath day. Each of the three Sabbath-meals is an obligatory religious act; and is in the olden Jewish home accompanied by Table Songs. The spiritual effect of the Sabbath is termed by the Rabbis the ‘extra soul’, which the Israelite enjoys on that day.
Ignorant and unsympathetic critics condemn the Rabbinic Sabbath-laws with their numberless minutiae as an intolerable ‘burden’. These restrictions justify themselves in that the Jew who actually and strictly obeys these injunctions and only such a Jew, has a Sabbath. And in regard to the alleged formalism of all these Sabbath laws, a German Protestant theologian of anti-Semitic tendencies has recently confessed: ‘Anyone who has had the opportunity of knowing in our own day the inner life of Jewish families that observe the Law of the fathers with sincere piety and in all strictness will have been astonished at the wealth of joyfulness, gratitude and sunshine, undreamt of by the outsider, which the Law animates in the Jewish home. The whole household rejoices on the Sabbath, which they celebrate with rare satisfaction not only as the day of rest, but rather as the day of rejoicing. Jewish prayers term the Sabbath a ‘joy of the soul’ to him who hallows it; he “enjoys the abundance of Thy goodness”. Such expressions are not mere words; they are the outcome of pure and genuine happiness and enthusiasm (Kittel).
Without the observance of the Sabbath, of the olden Sabbath, of the Sabbath as perfected by the Rabbis, the whole of Jewish life would in time disappear.