Shabbat

Israelite women are conspicuously absent from the Decalogue’s Shabbat law. Three stories in the Prophets featuring female characters—Rahab the prostitute, the great woman of Shunem, and Queen Athaliah—each tie to Shabbat in some unconventional way.

The Torah describes God creating through speech, midrash mores specifically understands creation through the letters of the aleph-bet, and the kabbalists envision it as a series of divine emanations, contractions, and primal pairings. What meaning can we find in these ancient creation myths in light of evolution?

With the loss of the Temple, wearing Shabbat clothes conveys the כָּבוֹד וּתִפְאָרֶת, “glory and splendor” of the priestly garments.

The simple meaning of Genesis 1–2:4 is that God created the world out of primordial elements. And yet, one important new initiative was the construction of time, embracing the day, the month, the year, and the week. The week, however, does not depend on a cosmic phenomenon but served to introduce the concept of a people holy to a creator God.

Moses gives several instructions to the Israelites concerning manna: How it should be gathered, prepared, consumed, and preserved, and what to do with it on Shabbat. The phrasing and details of these instructions are Moses’ creative elaboration of God’s original laconic command.

Close reading of the relevant biblical texts uncovers friction, maybe momentous historical reform.

The Decalogue texts in Exodus and Deuteronomy have significant differences, a problem grappled with by the Talmudic sages and Medieval exegetes.

When Moses instructs the people to eat the manna on Shabbat, he emphasizes “today,” “today,” “today.” Is this repetition just Priestly literary style or is it meant to tell us that Shabbat begins in the morning, and not the evening like Pesach and Yom Kippur?

The forms of of work forbidden on Shabbat and whether there is even a fixed number of them is disputed in the Tannaic period. Today, Judaism follows the opinion Rabbi Akiva and his students that the number is 39. But from where did Rabbi Akiva and students derive the number 39 as set in stone?

Two Roman conquests of Jerusalem (Pompey in 63 B.C.E. and Sosius in 37 B.C.E.) purportedly happened on “the day of the fast,” during which the Jews barely defended themselves. Is this a reference to Yom Kippur and why didn’t the Jews defend themselves?

A Historical Approach

At stake is Ibn Ezra’s curse: “May your tongue stick to your palate… may your arm dry up and your right eye go blind.” 

The Shabbat laws offer an instructive model for how Jews in antiquity engaged in creative reinterpretation of biblical texts in order to expand their limited application and to ensure that their customary practice comported with their sacred texts.

Early biblical laws demand a cessation of labor every seven days, but that was unconnected to Shabbat, which was originally a full moon celebration.

Upon the conquest of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar deported many Judeans to Babylonia. What was their life like there? Were they assimilated, or did they stand out? What language(s) did they speak and what religious practices did they maintain? What was their social and economic standing? Babylonian records allow us glimpses into the lives of some of the deportees.

“And the Lord Blessed the Seventh Day and Consecrated It” (Genesis 2:3). Can time be blessed?

The account of the Tabernacle’s construction echoes the creation story in Genesis 1-2:4a, providing an interpretive key to the ancient understanding of this structure. Ritual theory provides further insight into what Israelite readers may have found meaningful about the Tabernacle as a ritual place.

A careful examination of the three oldest copies of the Decalogue—4QDeutⁿ, 4QPaleoExodus^m, and the Nash Papyrus—surprisingly shows that none of them reflects the Masoretic Text.

A surprising look at Shabbat in the Second Temple period.