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  • From: Yigal Levin <leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il>
  • To: b-hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Exo 20:9-10
  • Date: Sun, 27 Apr 2008 02:51:24 +0300

While Karl and Yohanan have each answered this question in his own way, I am reminded of the joke, from back when Israelis were just starting to go over to a five-day working week: "working five days is fine, but let's start by working two days, then three, eventually we'll get up to five".

Seriously, the question is only a problem for the list when it becomes a theological argument. As long as we all limit ourselves to explaining our own views, I think that we're fine.

The Sabbath law does not appear only in Exodus 20 as the fourth commandment, but about half a dozen times in the Torah, each time with a slightly different emphasis. In Ex. 20, for example, the reason given for the Sabbath is that God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh, while in the almost-parallel version of the Decalogue in Deut. 5 it is to remember that God took Israel out of slavery in Egypt. There are also differences in the details of just what is forbidden. Rabbinic interpretation, which is the traditional Jewish observance of the Sabbath, is that it is not "physical labor" per se that is forbidden but "creative work", which the Rabbis listed as 49 categories such as building, lighting a fire, carrying in the public domain, writing, buying and selling etc. In general it is the action that produces the result that is forbidden, not the act itself.
So there is no commandment to "work" on the other six days.

As far as which day is the "true Sabbath", it is my understanding that the Christian shift from Saturday to Sunday as "the Lord's Day" was originally not due to a claim that Creation began on Monday, but because of Jesus's resurrection being on Sunday, which was then seen as "replacing" the "old" Sabbath. I'd love someone more knowledgable in Christian theology to expamd on (or refute) this.

Yigal Levin



----- Original Message ----- From: <pporta AT oham.net>
To: "Jeremy Bickel" <jeremybickel AT att.net>; "b-hebrew mailing list" <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Friday, April 25, 2008 10:49 AM
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Exo 20:9-10


I do not know whether my question on Ex 20:9-10 fits the rules of this list.
If not, please excuse me.
___________

In Ex 20:9-10 it is written that God commands to man to work during six days
but to reserve the seventh, Shabat, to Him (God).
I heared along my life that at explaining this commandment the stress has
always been put on the fact that "we must sanctify Sunday, the Lord's day".
But... does this commandement imply also the duty of WORKING during SIX
days? Could we say that someone who stops his work at Friday evening, namely
after FIVE days, and starts it again at Monday morning... does not obey the
spirit of this Commandement?
Can this conclusion be inferred or deduced from the Hebrew text of Ex
20:9-10?

Pere Porta
Barcelona (Spain)

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