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22/07/2007
For Arty
What is the sabbath? Explain in detail! Thus asketh Arty Of America, student of English.
Let us check the bible.
For six days you may perform melachah [work], but the seventh day is a complete Sabbath, holy to the L-RD ... it is an eternal sign that in six days, the L-RD made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed. -Exodus 31:15-17
So, essentially, the Sabbath is an "eternal sign" ordained by God to signify that he rested on the seventh day.
But what is "melachah?" I have put "work" in brackets there, as that is the best English translation, but it does not actually mean "work" as such. For instance, it would not be permitted to carry a needle in the street on the sabbath, yet you could spend the entire day shifting heavy furniture from one part of your house to another. Others see"work" in terms of employment: which would mean that a rabbi wouldn't be able to give a sermon or lead the services on the sabbath, for that is his term of employment. So, as Arty correctly asked: just what is defined as work?
God forbade the building of the tabernacle on the Sabbath. Thus, all things required to build the tabernacle are forbidden to do on the Sabbath. There are 39 main catagories (called "av melachot" or, literally, "father of works") of things one must do to build a tabernacle. They are:
sowing, ploughing, reaping, gathering, threshing, winnowing, sorting, grinding, sifting, kneading, cooking, shearing, whitening, combing, dyeing, spinning, stretching threads on a loom, preparing to weave (vie heddles), weaving, separating threads (unweaving), tying a (permanent) knot, untying a (permanent) knot, sewing, tearing, trapping, slaughtering (killing), skinning, salting (tanning), smoothing/scraping, cutting, writing, erasing, building, demolishing, extinguishing, kindling, finishing an object, carrying from one domain to another.
Group I = Numbers 1-11
Group II = Numbers 12-24
Group III = Numbers 25-31
Group IV = Numbers 32-33
Group V = Numbers 34-35
Group VI = Numbers 36-39
Group V = Numbers 34-35
Group VI = Numbers 36-39
Group I is connected to the field work.
Group II is connected to the making material curtains
Group III is connected to the making of leather curtains
Group IV is connected to the Krushim (beams of the tabernacle)
Group V is connected to the putting the walls of the tabernacle up and down
Group VI is connected to the final touches of the tabernacle.
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Then, there are those things which are explicitly forbidden by God in the bible, which is different to those things above and have nothing to do with the building of the tabernacle. The third and final type of thing forbidden on the sabbath are those things set up by the rabbis to ensure none of the catagories above are violated. For example, it's forbidden to cut your hair on the sabbath. But what if you pulled out your hair? That's not biblically forbidden, but someone pulling out their hair one by one may get the person frustrated and it may escalate to reaching for the scissors to cut more comfortably - and that, of course, is forbidden by the bible. Thusly, a "fence" was set up to ensure things like that don't actually happen.
And there we go! That is your guide to the Jewish sabbath.
Any questions, ask.
01:23 Permalink | Comments (6) | Email this
Comments
- Is/was there an epidemic of Jewish people carrying needles on a street on Sabbath? Did they just go crazy with them?
- What do you call it? Is it 'the Sabbath' or just 'Sabbath?'
- Since you can't cook on the Sabbath, I take it you make things the day before and eat that on the Sabbath proper?
- And what would happen if, let's say, you happened to be a butcher. Technically, his line of work would be to prepare meat. But if, let's say again, you make food on Thursday for consumption on Friday, wouldn't it also technically be wrong for the same butcher to stick the chicken in the microwave to heat it up?
- The same can go for a pest exterminator who is the only one in his family that isn't deathly afraid of spiders. If his wife and children were falling into fits of hysterics over a spider on the wall and the only way of calming them would be to remove said spider, wouldn't the man be in violation of Sabbath laws?
- Does microwaving something even qualify as cooking?
- Why does kosher salt have less sodium in it, but still taste saltier than iodized table salt?
- What do you call your church building? Is it 'Temple' or 'Synagogue?'
- What do you call it when you're going to church? Do you say, 'we're going to Temple,' or 'we're going to Synagogue?'
- What's the significance of having 39 laws for Sabbath? Is there any at all or is it just that that's how it pans out? For some reason I think it's important.
- What happened to the title I told you to use?
*goes off to raid her dad's old Hebrew books for answers*
Posted by: arty | 22/07/2007
Lol @ the last question Arty asked.
More questions:
-What do you do if you have unexpected visitors and can't feed them without cooking? Do you turn them away hungry, or cook something for them? And if you can cook for other people, why can't you cook for yourself?
-What if you pay others to do things on the Sabbath you are forbidden to do? Is that forbidden, or allowed? And if it is allowed, why is it allowed? If you pay someone to break the law for you, surely you break it in spirit. And isn't breaking the law in spirit as bad as breaking it in letter? If not, why not?
Posted by: Nossie | 22/07/2007
what happened to mine and cat's little segment at the bottom? Plain rude, dj.
Posted by: Natalie | 22/07/2007
lol. I like the use of Christian terms in the application of Judaic law. Quite ironic, if you ask me. Anyway, I shall do my best to answer the questions one by one, starting with arty's post:
1) No. That was just an example I gave you :p
2) When I speak in English, I call it the Sabbath.
3) This is correct.
4) As we do not use electrical equiptment on the Sabbath, such a thing would never arise. But what if the butcher wanted to carve a cooked turkey on the Sabbath? Would that be a problem? No, because "work" doesn't refer specifically to either physical work or one's employment - see the example I gave about a rabbi giving a sermon on the Sabbth.
5) To remove a said spider would be in violation of sabbath laws anyway, for one is not allowed to trap things on the sabbath, unless they are dangerous. Thus, unless it's a black widow, you can't remove it anyway and the kids would have to deal with it. If it was possible to remove a non-dangerous spider/thing/moth without trapping it, it wouldn't be in violation of the sabbath laws to do so, even if ones employment was the removal of non-lethal pests via not trapping them. Once again, "work" doesn't refer to physical work or the terms of one's employment, but to the things specified in the bible or the 39 catagories of things which were done in the building of the tabernacle which I wrote for you above.
6) It probably does, but microwaves aren't allowed to be used on the sabbath anyway. I believe the prohibition comes from a) creating an electrical spark and b) building a circuit, both of which are in direct violition of the 39 catagories as specified above. Similarly, all electrical equiptment is forbidden to use on the sabbath, such as a light switch, computers, cell phones, lamps etc.
7) First let me say: kosher salt is healthier, heehee. With that out the way: the less sodium content of kosher salt is due to the difference in the production process, resulting in a flakier, smaller, thinner and superior salt, with less than half the sodium contained in ordinary salt. However, I shall not relay to you the secrets of kosher salt manufacturing :P
8) Jewish Orthodox and Conservative based movements call it "synagogue" whereas Reform Judaism refer to places of worship as "Temples," specifically in America.
9) I use the German word, "shul" - unless I'm talking to someone who wouldn't understand that terminology, in which case I'd say synagogue.
10) There are more than 39 laws, but there are 39 basic catagories. This one is an interesting question and perhaps the following can answer it. In the Talmud (collection of ancient rabbinic lectures) the number 39 is always presented in a curious matter and up until this point I never really thought about why. I just thought it odd, but now I see most times there is an issue with the number 39 in it that I have come across, it is not presented as simply 39, but 40 minus 1. Thus the Talmud says "there are 40 -1 catagories of 'work' which are prohibited on the sabbath." Very briefly, this is because the Bible uses the term "40 lashes and not more shall he be given" - using 40 as an upper, outer limit, thus in actuality, the maximum is 39 lashes inclusive, or 40 exclusive (c.f. 40 inclusive). Now, there are 62 times to my best count where the OT uses the word "melacha [i.e. work (but more than one Hebrew word means work, so you'd be hard pressed to correct me using an English bible)]" - if we detract the non-sabbath contexts [e.g. Joseph in Genesis 33:14 - this word is not exclusive to sabbath work] we are left with 40 references to the word. Thus, there is an outer limit of 40, meaning there is an actual limit of 40-1, which is 39. Ta daaa. There are other ways to get to this 40-1 figure too. Why this specific figure? I don't know.
11) I stepped on it and threw it away =)
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Nossie's questions:
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1) You can't cook at all. But if several people came to the doorstep hungry, there would no doubt be enough food to go around. The very spirit of Sabbath is that people join together on this day, thus it is not unlikely that unexpected guests turn up. It is also equally likely that a stranger in synagogue would have nowhere to eat their evening meal or lunch the next day, so unexpected invites during the sabbath are also made. Therefore, there is usually always more than enough food to go around and the possibility of people going hungry on the sabbath is not very likely. In short, Jewish people actively cook more than needed to make provisions for unexpected guests. Any food not consumed on the Sabbath is eaten afterwards during the week =)
2) Paying someone to do something prohibited on the sabbath is forbidden. If it was the sabbath day, if someone kindly did something for me which I couldnt do myself - without being paid - I would not be permitted to benefit from it the entire sabbath. Thus, if someone turned on a light for me in a room so I could read better, I wouldnt be able to use that room. If someone [like cat] turned it on to mess with me, I'd be allowed to use the room because they weren't doing it for my benefit, but for my deteriment =)
However, there are instances where someone can be paid to do something on the sabbath: if one instructed them to do some work for them and the sabbath day just happened to be one of those days on which the work was happening, it's ok. For example, if I employ a cook to cook for me on the 14th and 22nd day of every month, and 3 of those times happened to be on a Friday or Saturday, it would be allowed to benefit from his cooking on those days, as far as I'm aware. To the best of my knowledge, one may not engineer things to specifically fall on the sabbath day, no.
Posted by: DJ | 22/07/2007
heh. I forgot, nat, sorry ;-)
Nossie, take a look at your last post, I wrote my answers beneath your questions.
Posted by: DJ | 22/07/2007
oh poo. you've still not done a proper update :p
Posted by: cat | 24/07/2007
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