The Sabbath

The sabbath is not a rule to follow or a burden to bear or an obligation to keep. It is a gift. Eugene Peterson mentioned this book in his memoirs so I ordered it solely on that recommendation. Now I recommend it to you. Order it and you’ll be glad you did.

La prosa de Heschel es muy digerible, incluso, si vale la expresión, se siente poética. Con respecto al contenido, el hombre sabe enamorarte del séptimo día con conceptos que van más allá de un mandato divino, sino un valor espiritual en si mismo dado por Dios. Como cristiano difiero en algunas referencias rabínicas que utiliza, pero es innegable que su sustento es totalmente bíblico. Excelente lectura para comprender la importancia de la santidad del día de reposo.

This is an excellent book, but it demands to be read carefully and repeatedly. In many respects, the book is like poem on the Sabbath. It is meditative and philosophical in many places, but it is firmly rooted in Judaism and the Hebrew Bible. Heschel was a rabbi, and the book is written for Jews, but there is much of value in this book for Christians as well. Unfortunately, many Christians do not observe the Sabbath, and many do not understand the treatment of the Sabbath in Scripture. Such Christians may find the book hard to follow in places, especially if they have not had much exposure to Judaism, for the book presupposes a basic familiarity both with Judaism and the teaching of Scripture (i.e., the Hebrew Bible) on the Sabbath. Nonetheless, even Christians who lack such background can read the book with profit.Heschel's book contains some important meditations on the nature of life, society, and time. However, the Sabbath is the unifying theme, and so these subjects are subordinated to the Sabbath. Heschel discusses the importance of time in human life, and he explains how the Sabbath helps people both to manage their time well and to improve the quality of their lives. Heschel rightly observes that one of the chief problems in life is that of dealing with the pressure to accept society's values. Popular culture tells us that our personal value is largely measured in terms of how successful we are, what kind of car we drive, how we dress, and so on. The pressure to accept this way of thinking can be hard to resist; and, as Heschel points out, many of us devote our lives to trying to secure our personal value through the pursuit of wealth and success. However, in pursuing these goals, we often find ourselves both deeply unhappy and divided from God, who is our true happiness. One way of dealing with this problem is to retreat from society, as many monks do. Another way of dealing with this problem is to remain in society and face it head on by resisting the materialist values of society and clinging to God. Prayer can help in this endeavor, but so can the Sabbath. In fact, the Sabbath typically involves much prayer, but it is much more than a single session of prayer - it is a whole day that is set aside each week to dedicate oneself to the things of God. If we can observe the Sabbath faithfully and well - that is, if we can observe it in the proper spirit - then our Sabbath observance will serve as a shield against the materialist values of society, and it will draw us closer to God. This is one of the central points of Heschel's book, and I think that it is absolutely correct.There is nothing mysterious here about the benefits of the Sabbath. Think about it. Properly observing the Sabbath requires, at the very least, that one set aside one's work to relax, pray, and celebrate. In fact, the Jewish observance of the Sabbath - and I think that Christians should take notes here - requires one not merely to celebrate but to feast. Of course, feasting doesn't mean stuffing oneself to the point of passing out, as many Americans do on Thanksgiving. True feasting occurs when family or friends gather to enjoy (not simply devour) a good meal while also enjoying one another's company. To feast on the Sabbath is to feast in this way while also maintaining an awareness of God's blessings. Suppose that you did this faithfully week after week. Do you really suppose that this wouldn't draw you closer to God and help you to resist the materialist values of society? Of course it would. I think that to a large extent, though not entirely, the value of the Sabbath can be explained in much the same way that the value of prayer can be explained. Done right, the Sabbath is something like a regular day of prayer. As I said, one also relaxes, celebrates, and even feasts, but all of this done prayerfully.So, the Sabbath involves prayer, which helps draw us to God, and it helps us to achieve some measure of independence from the more pernicious influences of society. For Jews, the Sabbath also involves synagogue attendance and religious study; and, for Christians, it should involve church attendance and religious study. All this, of course, helps to draw us closer to God as well. Then there is the relaxation, celebration, and feasting. Again, done right - i.e., prayerfully - this too helps draw us to God, but it is also helps to recharge us and supplies us with strength to face the new week. Then there are the many benefits - both spiritual and domestic - that derive from celebrating the Sabbath with our families at home.I have just sketched a few of Heschel's insights into the benefits of the Sabbath, but there are many more to be found in the book. I haven't really said anything here about the nature of the Sabbath or its institution in Scripture, things about which Heschel has a great deal to say. For example, Heschel draws an important - and biblical - distinction between labor and toil. He also discusses the connection between the weekly Sabbath and the eternal Sabbath rest that God will win for us at the end of time. Of course, Christians believe that Christ is the Messiah and that He has already inaugurated the kingdom of God; but, both Christians and Jews believe that we still await our eternal Sabbath rest, and there is much that Heschel says about the connections between the weekly Sabbath and the eternal Sabbath rest that Christians could learn from.There are many stories about rabbis in the book that are both enjoyable and educational. Christians may benefit from these too; I certainly did. I particularly benefitted from the story about Rabbi Judah ben Ilai. Here is the story about him, taken from the Talmud: "This was the practice of Rabbi Judah ben Ilai--on the eve of the Sabbath a basin filled with hot water was brought to him, and he washed his face, hands and feet, and he wrapped himself and sat in fringed linen robes, and he was like an angel of the Lord of hosts." The devotion of this great sage to the Sabbath is inspiring. As Heschel remarks, and as Jewish tradition has long taught, one should prepare diligently for the Sabbath. In this story from the Talmud about Rabbi Judah ben Ilai, we see that he not only prepared for the Sabbath diligently, but that he properly acknowledged - and was awed by - the holiness of this day. At first blush, this idea might seem strange to Christians, but it's really not. Just as Christians prepare for Christmas with great anticipation and acknowledge the holiness of the time when God became man, so too they can prepare for each Sabbath with great anticipation of the eternal rest that Christ has won for us. Jewish tradition teaches that we can experience a foretaste of the eternal Sabbath rest during the weekly Sabbath, and Christians can accept this too. After all, this teaching is rooted in Scripture. Judaism understands the Sabbath day, i.e., Saturday, to be holy itself (Genesis 2:3). Christians who celebrate the Sabbath on Sunday will not view the day as being holy itself, but they will nonetheless view the day as special, as it commemorates the resurrection of Jesus.This is not the place to examine in detail how Jews celebrate the Sabbath, and it is certainly not the place to suggest how Christians might decide to celebrate the Sabbath. However, I would like to urge Christian readers to observe the Sabbath by attending church, praying, and studying Scripture. I would also like to urge them to refrain from work on the Sabbath - including cooking - and to relax, celebrate, and feast. After all, Scripture commands this.I am grateful to Heschel for writing such a marvelous book. I look forward to reading it again on numerous Sunday afternoons as I celebrate the Sabbath with my family. More generally, I am grateful to Judaism for helping to teach me the value of the Sabbath.Finally, I should mention that the introduction to the book was written by Heschel's daughter, Susannah Heschel. She is a chaired professor of Jewish studies at Dartmouth College, and her introduction is a good read itself.

Abraham Heschel (1907-72) was one of the foremost Jewish scholars and theologians of the 20th century, as well as an activist (he joined Rev Martin Luther King on marches) and prolific author. On the evidence of this beautiful book, he was also something of a poetic mystic.This handsomely bound and stunningly illustrated meditation on the theme of the Sabbath, in all its aspects and implications, is just that: a meditation. Professor Heschel, again and again, suggests that the Sabbath is more than merely a 'day of rest' but rather a temporal epitome of the divine, the holy, given to us to not only 'rest from our labours' but help create a time of restoration, serenity, peace, renewal.We in the more and more secular world we inhabit have all but discarded the whole idea of a Sabbath, be it Jewish or Christian. This benignly argued book convinces me of what we have lost. I say 'benignly argued' but, beneath the sincerity and compassion of Heschel's words, is a rigorously intelligent mind at work. Using dozens of examples from both the Old Testament and Jewish scholars down the ages, he builds his case for the spiritual, as well as social, necessity - indeed the intrinsic meaning - of the Sabbath.His central idea, and one which elevates this book into a philosophical meditation, is the essential importance of time and its (literally) eternal mystery. 'Eternity utters a day' as Heschel puts it.The final chapters rise, crescendo-like, to a most moving, stirring last few pages on the very nature of time in relation to the spiritual, and, crucially, in relation to space - by 'space' he means all that is spatial, contingent. Perhaps this is best exemplified in this passage near the end:Creation, we are taught, is not an act that happened once upon a time, once and for ever. The act of bringing the world into existence is a continuous process. God called the world into being, and that call goes on. There is this present moment because God is present. Every instant is an act of creation. A moment is not a terminal but a flash, a signal of Beginning. Time is perpetual innovation, a synonym for continuous creation. Time is God`s gift to the world of space.But this is an endlessly quotable book, one to re-read, dip into, open at random... Always will be found food for thought and contemplation.With a touching introduction by his daughter, writer-scholar Susannah Heschel, which among other things gives a loving picture of life chez Heschel, and the many vivid wood engravings by Ilya Schor adorning each brief but brimming chapter, this unique book is both a work of art and a timely reminder (60 years after its composition!) of the beauty and necessity of what we have all but lost.A beautiful book.

金曜の日没から土曜の星が見える時間まで、さまざまな生活上の制約や禁止事項がもうけられている安息日、シャバット。それを古くさい制約や単なるレクリエーション・休息のためなどと、人間にとって自己中心的・功利的にとらえることに作者は反対する。物質でなく精神のための一日、空間を物質でうめつくすため時間を’消費’するのではなく、金持ちも貧乏人も、どの人にも等しく豊かに与えられた時間という恵みの、本来の豊かさを取り戻し、精神的な存在としての人の完全性を回復することの大切さを、切実に訴えかける。「時間の宮殿」を築き、自己を超える永遠の生に近づくための大切な一日として、安息日のもつかけがえない創造的価値の再考を促す。シャバットを義務ではなく特権と考える作者の温かい思いが伝わってくる。アシュケナージとして生まれた作者は、英語を母国語としませんが、そうとは信じられないほど美しい散文でまたやさしい言葉を使って、短い章でたたみかけるようにメッセージを訴えかけてきます。すぐに読了でき、英語もやさしいが洞察に満ちた短い文が多く、何度も読む価値があります。