"My Sabbaths"

This week’s parshah contains a large amount of various divine commandments; let’s focus on one.

“…My Sabbaths shall you observe…” [Leviticus: 19: 3 and 30]

The question that many commentators ask is why the plural usage of “Sabbaths” is used. Why couldn’t the verse have just said “My Sabbath shall you observe” in the singular? Furthermore, why didn't the verse say “Observe the Sabbath”? Why does God speak in a possessive context and refer to it as “My Sabbaths”?

I believe that by calling it “My Sabbaths”, God is hinting to us that we are meant to observe Shabbos in the same manner as He does. How can we know how God observes the Sabbath? Upon creation, the Torah describes to us how God chose the seventh day of rest and depicts, so to speak, how he “observes” Shabbos himself. The verse says:

“On the seventh day God completed His work which He had done, and on the seventh day He rested (שבת) from all His work which He had done” [Genesis: 2: 2]

Clearly, there are two ways in which God observes Shabbos: (1) Completion of work, and (2) Resting from work. The plural form of “Sabbaths” that God used in the commandment relates to these two elements of the Sabbath. And because God commands us to observe “My Sabbaths”, we are therefore being commanded to observe Shabbos in these two ways as well.

The first manner of keeping Shabbos is quite simple; all we need to do is to stop doing the work that we were busy with during the week. Unfortunately, there is a multitude of Jewish people who think that this is the only thing that Shabbos is about. They believe that Shabbos is just a “day off” from work, like Sunday. However, this is a complete misconception. On Shabbos, we are also meant to REST from the work that we were occupied with throughout he week. This “resting” does not mean that God is telling us to sleep extra on Shabbos (which is also an unfortunate misconception). “Resting” here means that we are supposed to not only stop working, but to also desist completely from the notion of “work” entirely. We "rest" on Shabbos by removing ourselves from ALL of our worldly pursuits and focusing on the heavenly and spiritual pursuits in life. Shabbos is the one day of the week where we turn the TV and the cell phone off and take time to direct our full energy towards God.

The verse (describing God’s observance of Shabbos) continues on:

“And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because on it He rested from all His work which God created to make” [Genesis: 2: 3]

Why did God choose to bless and sanctify the seventh day? Not because it was on this day that He COMPLETED His work, but because it was on this day that He RESTED from all His work! It is this facet of “rest” on Shabbos that really merits God’s blessing. Sure, it is incumbent upon us to take the first step of refraining from our everyday professional careers, but the true blessing we receive on Shabbos stems from our abstention from all worldly pursuits. This is even highlighted further by the fact that the very word for Shabbos in Hebrew (שבת) is the same as that which is used for “rest” in the above verse!

It is this critical component of “rest” that really defines how Shabbos is meant to be observed. May we truly merit to observe God’s Sabbaths in their entirety.

Good Shabbos,

NZL