“Remember it and keep it holy”: The Sabbath Session 17 RELS 3060

COMMANDMENTs “Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the LORD your God; you shall not do any work – you, your son or your daughter, your male or female servant, your livestock, or the foreigners living in your towns. For in six days the LORD made the heavens, the earth, and the sea, and all that is in them, but rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it.” (Exodus 20:8–11)

Commandments “The LORD spoke to Moses on Mt. Sinai, saying: ‘When you enter the land that I am giving you, the land shall observe a sabbath for the LORD. Six years shall you sow your field, and six years shall you prune your vineyard, and gather in their yield; but in the seventh year there shall be a sabbath of complete rest for the land a sabbath for the LORD. You may eat what the land yields during its sabbath – you, your male and female slaves, your hired and your bound laborers who live with you; for your livestock also, and for the wild animals in your land all its yield shall be food.” Exodus 25:1–7 “You shall kindle no fire in all your dwellings on the sabbath day.” (Exodus 35:3)

Whys and Hows

Work and rules – Definitions – Exceptions

Observances – Siddur – “Levels” of observance – Community customs – Beginning and ending – Home and synagogue/family and congregation

Blessings (Home) Siddur: The Standard Prayer Book, ed. Simeon Singer. Union for Reform Judaism, 1915.