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The Sabbath (FSG Classics)
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About The Sabbath
About the Author Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907-1972) was internationally known as a scholar, author, activist, and theologian. He was Professor of Ethics and Mysticism at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. Ilya Schor (1904-1961) was a renowned artist of Jewish literature, as well as a painter, jeweler, engraver, and sculptor. Susannah Heschel is the Eli Black Professor of Jewish Studies at Dartmouth College. She is the daughter of Abraham Joshua Herschel. Product Description Elegant, passionate, and filled with the love of God's creation, Abraham Joshua Heschel's The Sabbath has been hailed as a classic of Jewish spirituality ever since its original publication-and has been read by thousands of people seeking meaning in modern life. In this brief yet profound meditation on the meaning of the Seventh Day, Heschel introduced the idea of an "architecture of holiness" that appears not in space but in time Judaism, he argues, is a religion of time: it finds meaning not in space and the material things that fill it but in time and the eternity that imbues it, so that "the Sabbaths are our great cathedrals." Featuring black-and-white illustrations by Ilya Schor Review “Heschel's The Sabbath is easily the primary text for all subsequent American Jewish Spirituality.” ―Rabbi Lawrence Kushner, author of God Was In This Place “Clearly Heschel's most beloved book, The Sabbath is much more than a book about the Sabbath. It is, rather, our century's most illuminating study of the dynamics of Jewish ritual living.” ―Dr. Neil Gillman, author of Sacred Fragments “Timeless. Read it, and be ready to be changed.” ―The Revered Richard John Neuhaus, editor in chief of First Things Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. The Sabbath By Abraham Joshua Heschel Farrar, Straus and GirouxCopyright © 2005 Abraham Joshua Heschel All right reserved. ISBN: 9780374529758 The Sabbath Part OneIA Palace in TimeHe who wants to enter the holiness of the day must first lay down the profanity of clattering commerce, of being yoked to toil. He must go away from the screech of dissonant days, from the nervousness and fury of acquisitiveness and the betrayal in embezzling his own life. He must say farewell to manual work and learn to understand that the world has already been created and will survive without the help of man. Six days a week we wrestle with the world, wringing profit from the earth; on the Sabbath we especially care for the seed of eternity planted in the soul. The world has our hands, but our soul belongs to Someone Else. Six days a week we seek to dominate the world, on the seventh day we try to dominate the self.When the Romans met the Jews and noticed their strict adherence to the law of abstaining from labor on the Sabbath, their only reaction was contempt. The Sabbath is a sign of Jewish indolence, was the opinion held by Juvenal, Seneca and others.In defense of the Sabbath, Philo, the spokesman of the Greek-speaking Jews of Alexandria, says: "On this day we are commanded to abstain from all work, not because the law inculcates slackness ... . Its object is rather to give man relaxation from continuous and unending toil and by refreshing their bodies with a regularly calculated system of remissions to sendthem out renewed to their old activities. For a breathing spell enables not merely ordinary people but athletes also to collect their strength with a stronger force behind them to undertake promptly and patiently each of the tasks set before them." 1Here the Sabbath is represented not in the spirit of the Bible but in the spirit of Aristotle. According to the Stagirite, "we need relaxation, because we cannot work continuously. Relaxation, then, is not an end"; it is "for the sake of activity," for the sake of gaining strength for new efforts.2 To the biblical mind, however, labor is the means toward an end, and the Sabbath as a day of rest, as a day of abstaining from toil, is not for the purpose of recoverin
