Sunday, July 13, 2014

The Shabbat ordinance

The Shabbat ordinance | JPost | Israel News:

There is a fascinating parallel to the alternative approaches to Shabbat within our biblical tradition. In one version of the Ten Commandments we find the “religious” reason for cessation of work on the Sabbath: “For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day.” In Exodus we find a “social” reason: “So that your male and female servants may rest, as you do,” basing the commandment on our people’s formative experience as an enslaved nation. This is, after all, the great innovation of Judaism: incorporating faith with a commitment to social justice, or – as Mordecai Kaplan aptly labeled it, promoting a religion of ethical nationhood.

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