(2) On the seventh day God finished the work that He had been doing, and He ceased on the seventh day from all the work that He had done. (3) And God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy, because on it God ceased from all the work of creation that He had done.
Why would God create a day of rest?
For humans how are 'creative' and 'restful' states of mind different?
חמשה אחד מששים אלו הן אש דבש ושבת ושינה וחלום אש אחד מששים לגיהנם דבש אחד מששים למן שבת אחד מששים לעולם הבא שינה אחד מששים למיתה חלום אחד מששים לנבואה
Babylonian Talmud, Berachot, 57b
Five things are a sixtieth part of something else: fire, honey, the Sabbath, sleep and a dream. Fire is a sixtieth part of Gehinnom; honey a sixtieth of manna; the Sabbath a sixtieth of the world to come; sleep a sixtieth of death; a dream the sixtieth of prophecy.
In what ways could Shabbat be related to the world to come?
How possible do you think it is to bring 'Shabbat' into the rest of our week days?
Ahad Ha'am (Poet and Zionist Ideologue, 1856-1927)
More than the Jews have kept Shabbat, Shabbat has kept the Jews
In what ways could Ahad Ha'am mean that 'Shabbat has kept the Jews'?
This quote was from over 100 years ago. What are the modern day challenges Jews experience, and how could Shabbat be the answer?
The Holiness of Time
Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Sabbath: Its Meaning for Modern Man
When history began, there was only one holiness in the world, holiness in time. When at Sinai the word of God was about to be voiced, a call for holiness in man was proclaimed: “You shall be to me a holy people.” It was only after the people had succumbed to the temptation of worshipping a thing, a golden calf, that the erection of a Tabernacle, of holiness in space, was commanded. The sanctity of time came first, the sanctity of man came second, and the sanctity of space last. Time was hallowed by God; space, the Tabernacle, was consecrated by Moses...
...The meaning of the Sabbath is to celebrate time rather than space. Six days a week we live under the tyranny of things of space; on the Sabbath we try to become attuned to holiness in time. It is a day on which we are called upon to share in what is eternal in time, to turn from the results of creation to the mystery of creation, from the world of creation to the creation of the world. ...
What does the idea of Holy time mean to you?
What practical steps can you take to make time Holy?