Keep the sabbath remix
The first renewed concept of the Sabbath for the present day came from a sermon I’d heard in Turkey from a pastor in Minnesota. He talked about drinking craft beer and cooking dinner for friends because these things brought him joy and rest. He referred to Isaiah 58:13 and called out that the Sabbath isn’t only a rule about not working; it’s a delight.
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If you turn back your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on my holy day, and **call the Sabbath a delight** and the holy day of the LORD honorable; if you honor it, not going your own ways, or seeking your own pleasure, or talking idly;
Isaiah 58:13 (ESV)
Children have put a sharp edge to our need for one day in seven for rest and delight. We realized with our first that we could easily live in a constant state of emergency. We had an ah-ha moment like Ben describes:
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If something like the Orthodox Sabbath seems impossibly hard, or if you try to keep it but end up breaking it every week - as my Reform Jewish family did - then you should consider that perhaps, despite the propaganda of the palliatives, you are in a permanent state of emergency.
We’re discovering much about how actions can appear to be restful but are net-negative. I’d like to review Zvi’s hierarchy of the Shabbistic to glean more insights and perhaps write some of them here.
A Study on the Sabbath
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Day 1: God rests. Genesis 2:1-3
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Day 2: God command Sabbath. Exodus 20:8-10; Deuteronomy 5:12-15
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Day 3: Sabbath as a test of trust. Exodus 16:22-30
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Day 4: Sabbath for the land, the poor, the widow/orphan and the sojourner. Exodus 23:10-12; Leviticus 25:1-7; Amos 8:4-6
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Day 5: Elijah’s rest. 1 Kings 19:3-8
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Day 6: Sabbath and the LORD’s response. Isaiah 58:13-14
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Day 7: Lord of the Sabbath. Matthew 12:1-8
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Day 8: Human care more important than strict observance. Matthew 12:9-14
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Day 9: A final Sabbath joining in the LORD’s rest. Psalm 95:1-11; Hebrews 4:4-11 (see also Exodus 33:14)
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X Sabbath as a sign of Israel’s covenant. Exodus 31:12-17
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X Sabbath and the festivals. Leviticus 23:4-8;9-12;15-17;23-25;26-32 - how to apply?
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X Sabbath and forced rest. 2 Chronicles 36:17-21; Jeremiah 17:19-27 (see also Leviticus 26:34-35)
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X Sabbath and the priesthood. Leviticus 24:5-9; Numbers 28:9-10
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X Severity of the Sabbath. Numbers 15:32-36
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X Sabbath and closeness to the LORD. Isaiah 56:1-8
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X Sabbath commitment and failure. Nehemiah 10:30;13:15-22
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The sabbath is to time what the temple and tabernacle are to space. The sabbath is a cathedral in time. On the seventh day we experience in time what the tabernacle and temple represented as spaces which is eternal life, God in the complete creation.
Rabbi Abraham Heschel
Not “Working”
To rest on the Sabbath, when the goal is not a mere removal of physical labor but an ending of business, both planning and otherwise, (see idle words in Isaiah 58), perhaps a decent measurement for “work” is this: does this activity have a purpose beyond itself, or is it done purely for its own sake? Consider Burkeman’s thinking about rest:
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The truth, then, is that spending at least some of your leisure time "wastefully," focused solely on the pleaasure of the experience, is the only way not to waste it–to be truly at leisure, rather than covertly engaged in future-focused self-improvement.
Oliver Burkeman, Four Thousand Weeks, pg. 147
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We might seek to incorporate into our daily lives more things we do for their own sake alone–to spend some of our time, that is, on activities in which the only thing we're trying to get from them is the doing itself.
Oliver Burkeman, Four Thousand Weeks, pg. 158
He uses walking in the woods as an example. He’s not improving his ability to walk, nor is he doing it strictly for exercise or for someone else’s approbation. It isn’t efficient–if he wanted to make his round-trip more efficient he’d never depart.