The Unbreakable Freedom Of Shabbat

It is quite uncomfortable to explain Shabbat observance to an outsider. To tell a complete stranger that you cannot so much as press an elevator button will, for the most part, elicit vacant stares. Shabbat, when defined by what cannot be done, sounds absurdly restrictive.

Critics like to dwell on the disabilities Shabbat places on Jews. Elliott Horowitz, in his article Fourth and Long: Presenting (and Resenting) the Sabbath, notes how Shabbat observance was ridiculed by both non-Jewish and Jewish authors, and any leniencies, such as eruv, mocked. The Halakha, the religious laws of Shabbat, were seen as convoluted, and oft-criticized by Christian professors of theology. Samuel Rolles Driver of Oxford, in the early 20th-century Dictionary of the Bible, wrote that the Rabbis of  the Mishnah and Talmud had “developed and systematized (the laws of the Sabbath) to an extent which has made their rules on the subject a byword for extravagance and absurdity.” This contrasts with his description of the Christian Sunday, which, according to Driver “operated on a whole with wonderful efficiency in maintaining a life of pure and spiritual religion.”

Jewish authors took exception to these descriptions of Shabbat. Solomon Schechter offered a powerful response:

Although this day is described by almost every modern writer in the most gloomy colors, and long lists are given of the minute observances connected with it, easily to be transgressed, which would necessarily make of the Sabbath, instead of a day of rest, a day of sorrow and anxiety…. But, on the other hand, the Sabbath is celebrated by the very people who did observe it…as a day of rest and joy, of pleasure and delight, a day in which man enjoys some presentiment of the pure bliss and happiness which are stored up for the righteous in the world to come and to which such tender names were applied as the “Queen Sabbath,” the “Bride Sabbath,” and the “Holy, dear, beloved Sabbath.”

Somebody, either the learned Professors, or the millions of the Jewish people, must be under an illusion. Which it is I leave to the reader to decide.

Yet even those who grow up as Shabbat observant Jews know its challenges. The rush to leave work on Friday and prepare for Shabbat is at times overwhelming; for ambitious executives, being left out of weekend retreats may mean that the path to promotion is blocked.  As Karen Barrow put it, the intense pace of short winter Fridays made her wonder “whether keeping the Sabbath is making my life better or just harder…Shabbat certainly complicates life in a secular world.” Shabbat observance is not simple; there are real restrictions and true inconveniences.

Like many observant Jews, Ms. Barrow is confounded by a day of rest that is nothing at all like a vacation. This touches on a puzzle at the center of Shabbat. Is it about human greatness or human limitations? Is it a God-centered day, where we stand humbly in awe before God’s creation, or a human-centered day of rest, to allow us to recharge?

Actually, it is both. Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch explains that although man is given by God dominion over the earth and all living beings, man must not let this power degenerate into megalomania; Shabbat is meant to keep mankind grounded. Hirsch writes:

…The earth and the host of its beings were surrendered to this free government of man. What was there to safeguard the world against man? What safeguard that man …would not look upon the world, which had been entrusted to him to govern according to God’s will, as his own property?… Behold! God crowned his work with the seventh day of creation, the first of human activity, …. that through it man should be continually reminded of his appointment by God in God’s world to be God’s servant.

Hirsch points out that Shabbat is the first day after man’s creation; man is created on the sixth day, and Shabbat is the seventh day. Shabbat in effect becomes the first day of the human week, and before man pursues his own ambitions, he must first remember that “The earth is the Lord’s, and all that is in it.” (Psalm 24:1). Shabbat puts the rest of the week in perspective.

A different understanding of Shabbat is found in the commentary of Rabbi Ovadiah Seforno. Shabbat commemorates God’s creation of the world in six days and resting on the seventh; but it is unclear to what end man was commanded to rest on the very same day as God. Seforno offers an explanation based on the concept of Tzelem Elokim, that man is created in the image of God. Man is both similar to God, and capable of imitating God; and if God rests on the seventh day, man should too. Seforno writes that “the intention behind this commandment is that a person should resemble their Creator as much as possible—through contemplation, study, and desirable actions.”

We must know our potential. We can reach remarkable spiritual heights. We are God-like, and rest on God’s day of rest.

These two interpretations seem very different; but they actually complement each other. Mankind is capable of true greatness; but not if left to his own devices. Unchecked, human creativity can become demonic, unmoored from morality. In the course of history, new technologies have frequently been used first in the service of warfare; swords are the priority while plowshares an afterthought. And even “harmless” inventions like smartphones and social media can erode the human spirit, and leave us doomscrolling into pure emptiness.

Without limits, humanity will fail. By stepping back and recognizing God as the creator of the world, we learn how to be the best possible version of ourselves. It is only then that we truly deserve to be called B’Tzelem Elokim. The limitations of Shabbat free our souls to see the bigger picture.

Shabbat is fundamentally a day of freedom. One must free their servants, and even animals, from work on Shabbat; the Shabbat is a reminder “that you were a slave in the land of Egypt”, and serves as a weekly reenactment of the passage to freedom. Here, these two perspectives, of Hirsch and Seforno, work together; the Pharaohs of the world need to remember their limitations, and the slaves of the world must remember their potential.

Freedom is based on two different insights: the master is not a God, and the slave is God’s beloved child, created in the image of God. Shabbat represents both ideas.

Shabbat’s inner freedom has sustained Jews throughout their history. The poet Heinrich Heine, in his poem “Princess Shabbat”, depicts the downtrodden 19th-century Jew who is treated like a dog during the week, but transformed by Shabbat into a prince. Jewish life could be bitter at times, but Shabbat allowed Jews to see themselves through a different lens, as noble inheritors of an ancient tradition. Ahad Ha’am expressed it best: “More than Jews have kept Shabbat, Shabbat has kept the Jews.” This is why, despite economic sacrifices, Jews looked forward to Shabbat as a refuge from discrimination and adversity.

For generations of Jews, the Shabbat represented an unbreakable freedom. They knew every new Pharaoh was a phony, and that no matter what others said, they were nobility.

Agam Berger was a captive of Hamas who was released on January 30th. Another woman who was held with her, Agam Goldstein, told Berger’s mother that her kidnapped daughter observed the Sabbath with true self-sacrifice. Goldstein described how Hamas terrorists ordered Agam (Berger) to cook food, but with incomprehensible inner strength, Berger firmly stood her ground and refused to violate the Sabbath.

For 482 days, Agam never forgot who she was, and never let her captors break her. She may have been held by Hamas, but her soul was always free. Like generations of Jews before her, the Shabbat Queen stood at her side, offering her strength and courage.

Agam carried within the unbreakable freedom of Shabbat.

Rabbi Chaim Steinmetz is the Senior Rabbi of Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun in New York.