The Shabbat Thread

lostwanderingsoul · Feb 21, 2020

metis said:
All one had to do was to count to 7, and since this was embedded into Jewish custom for roughly 3000 years, we can still be sure that the 7th day (Shabbat) was Friday evening sundown to Saturday evening sundown.

I think an answer from a Jewish person would be preferred. It sounds kind of patronizing to say all you have to do is count to seven.

Wandering Monk · Feb 21, 2020

WhyIsThatSo said:
Don't forget to cut the electrical service to your home...
you don't want all those power company employees "working" for you, while you "rest"'
Or do you ?

In another thread you are telling Jews they are not really Jewish.

Here you are mocking them for the Sabbath restrictions.

lostwanderingsoul · Feb 21, 2020

Wandering Monk said:
So, EVERY Jew, EVERYWHERE in the world SIMULTANEOUSLY FORGOT which day was the Sabbath?

This type of remark does not help answer the question. It sounds like a way to make fun of something that is important to our Jewish friends. I am sure they could ask if Christians forgot how to count because they say the first day of the week is the sabbath. And some people say Monday is the first day while others say it is Sunday. If you can't answer the question, leave it for someone who can.

Rival · Feb 21, 2020

lostwanderingsoul said:
This type of remark does not help answer the question. It sounds like a way to make fun of something that is important to our Jewish friends. I am sure they could ask if Christians forgot how to count because they say the first day of the week is the sabbath. And some people say Monday is the first day while others say it is Sunday. If you can't answer the question, leave it for someone who can.

The messing up of days is a purley Christian tradition. The Shabbat is the last day of the week and confusing it for another day would be very hard. It's like someone messing up the days now. We have a calendar that makes it impossible not to know which day of the week it is; so did the Jews. They still have their own calendar and still use it. Meticulous records were kept in order to know when holidays are and this includes Shabbat.

Wandering Monk · Feb 21, 2020

lostwanderingsoul said:
This type of remark does not help answer the question. It sounds like a way to make fun of something that is important to our Jewish friends. I am sure they could ask if Christians forgot how to count because they say the first day of the week is the sabbath. And some people say Monday is the first day while others say it is Sunday. If you can't answer the question, leave it for someone who can.

I did answer it. You asked how we can know that Saturday has always been the Sabbath.

We know because the Jewish people have been keeping it for three millenia and a half scattered across the globe.

If some forgot which day was Sabbath, the rest would know.

metis · Feb 21, 2020

lostwanderingsoul said:
I think an answer from a Jewish person would be preferred. It sounds kind of patronizing to say all you have to do is count to seven.

Sorry you took it that way because that's not what I was implying nor intending.

My point is that they would know over the centuries which day Shabbat was because it would always be 7 days after the last Shabbat.

BTW, I joined a Reform synagogue and was in it for over 20 years, and my rabbi and I rotated teaching our Lunch & Learn program for about 12 or so years. I reconverted back to Catholicism just over two years ago-- a looooooooong story that I'll spare ya.

rosends · Feb 21, 2020

Some reading resources
Is one allowed to use electricity on Shabbos in Israel?

In the US, the odds are that an employee is not Jewish and is not providing electricity explicitly for a Jewish person so benefiting from it passively is not forbidden.

How do we know that the civil Saturday is the correct Shabbat?

ADigitalArtist · Feb 21, 2020

*MOD POST* Reminder ReligiousQ&A is not a debate section. Debating will be moderated under Rule 10. *MOD POST*

WhyIsThatSo · Feb 21, 2020

lostwanderingsoul said:
This type of remark does not help answer the question. It sounds like a way to make fun of something that is important to our Jewish friends. I am sure they could ask if Christians forgot how to count because they say the first day of the week is the sabbath. And some people say Monday is the first day while others say it is Sunday. If you can't answer the question, leave it for someone who can.

The seventh "day" has always been the seventh day ( Saturn Day ), as indicated by the lunar calendar
used by the Hebrew people. ( 360 day cycle )
Now if you use the solar (Roman) calendar, that has been seriously tampered with over the ages, you will be all messed up....
since it has changed so much.
The first month of the year is in the Spring of the year, "March" (GO, START)….not January with the "new year" beginning in the dead of winter nonsense.
You can see this in the names of the months themselves.....DECember used to be the 10th month (dec), NOVember the 9th month (nov),
OCTober the 8th month (oct)….etc.

74x12 · Feb 21, 2020

Harel13 said:
For @Deeje and whoever else may be interested in learning more about the Jewish concept of the Sabbath, or as we like to call it: Shabbat or Shabbos, here's a thread where you can ask your questions and we Jews will do our best to answer them.

I would appreciate if other RF Jews would also put in their two cents.

Note 1: Today is Friday, which means that in a number of hours (around sunset), I and other Shabbat keepers will be unavailable to answer questions.

Note 2: This is the Q&A section. Let's all keep our heads and try not to bash each other.

Jewish perspective: why did God rest? (Genesis 2:2)

lostwanderingsoul · Feb 21, 2020

WhyIsThatSo said:
The seventh "day" has always been the seventh day ( Saturn Day ), as indicated by the lunar calendar
used by the Hebrew people. ( 360 day cycle )
Now if you use the solar (Roman) calendar, that has been seriously tampered with over the ages, you will be all messed up....
since it has changed so much.
The first month of the year is in the Spring of the year, "March" (GO, START)….not January with the "new year" beginning in the dead of winter nonsense.
You can see this in the names of the months themselves.....DECember used to be the 10th month (dec), NOVember the 9th month (nov),
OCTober the 8th month (oct)….etc.

There are people right now who say Monday is the first day of the week. So just someone saying Saturday is the seventh day does not make it so. I still think we need to hear what Jewish people think about this. Maybe after their Sabbath.

WhyIsThatSo · Feb 21, 2020

lostwanderingsoul said:
There are people right now who say Monday is the first day of the week. So just someone saying Saturday is the seventh day does not make it so. I still think we need to hear what Jewish people think about this. Maybe after their Sabbath.

What's the first day of the week on your calendar, or ANY calendar ?
its Sunday.....
The annual monthly (seasonal) calendar has been changed before, but the 7 day "week" has never changed.

lostwanderingsoul · Feb 21, 2020

WhyIsThatSo said:
What's the first day of the week on your calendar, or ANY calendar ?
its Sunday.....
The annual monthly (seasonal) calendar has been changed before, but the 7 day "week" has never changed.

Maybe you should keep up with the times. International Standard ISO 8601 says that Monday is the first day of the week and many European countries show this on their calendars. So it is not as easy as you say. I still want an opinion from a Jewish person. Most Christians are so anti-Jew that they will say and do anything just to be different from the Jews.

lostwanderingsoul · Feb 21, 2020

metis said:
Sorry you took it that way because that's not what I was implying nor intending.

My point is that they would know over the centuries which day Shabbat was because it would always be 7 days after the last Shabbat.

BTW, I joined a Reform synagogue and was in it for over 20 years, and my rabbi and I rotated teaching our Lunch & Learn program for about 12 or so years. I reconverted back to Catholicism just over two years ago-- a looooooooong story that I'll spare ya.

Perhaps you could give some views from someone who has experience with both sides. Is any day associated with the Passover every called a "sabbath" or a " high day"? Is there a difference between a sabbath and a high day? Especially the first day of unleavened bread. High day? Sabbath? And if it falls on some day other than Saturday, is it still called the same thing? What are your thoughts on this? Please.

WhyIsThatSo · Feb 21, 2020

lostwanderingsoul said:
Maybe you should keep up with the times. International Standard ISO 8601 says that Monday is the first day of the week and many European countries show this on their calendars. So it is not as easy as you say. I still want an opinion from a Jewish person. Most Christians are so anti-Jew that they will say and do anything just to be different from the Jews.

lol...well then , I guess that "International Standard ISO 8601" somehow managed to divert the orbit of the planet Saturn...
and looks like the moon as well.....lol

Deeje · Feb 21, 2020

Harel13 said:
That's what you think. We believe that these "nit-picking definitions" were given by God at Mount Sinai.

But doesn't it say in Exodus 24:3-4...
"So Moses came and told the people all the words of the Lord and all the ordinances, and all the people answered in unison and said, "All the words that the Lord has spoken we will do." גוַיָּבֹ֣א משֶׁ֗ה וַיְסַפֵּ֤ר לָעָם֙ אֵ֚ת כָּל־דִּבְרֵ֣י יְהֹוָ֔ה וְאֵ֖ת כָּל־הַמִּשְׁפָּטִ֑ים וַיַּ֨עַן כָּל־הָעָ֜ם ק֤וֹל אֶחָד֙ וַיֹּ֣אמְר֔וּ כָּל־הַדְּבָרִ֛ים אֲשֶׁר־דִּבֶּ֥ר יְהֹוָ֖ה נַֽעֲשֶֽׂה:

4And Moses wrote all the words of the Lord, and he arose early in the morning and built an altar at the foot of the mountain and twelve monuments for the twelve tribes of Israel. דוַיִּכְתֹּ֣ב משֶׁ֗ה אֵ֚ת כָּל־דִּבְרֵ֣י יְהֹוָ֔ה וַיַּשְׁכֵּ֣ם בַּבֹּ֔קֶר וַיִּ֥בֶן מִזְבֵּ֖חַ תַּ֣חַת הָהָ֑ר וּשְׁתֵּ֤ים עֶשְׂרֵה֙ מַצֵּבָ֔ה לִשְׁנֵ֥ים עָשָׂ֖ר שִׁבְטֵ֥י יִשְׂרָאֵֽל:"

According to this scripture, God did not direct that certain commands not be written down but rather be passed on by word of mouth from generation to generation, thus being preserved only by oral tradition. All the words were written down....so there was no oral tradition from Moses. Doesn't that make the oral traditions from men?

Harel13 said:
Out of all of these hundreds of Shabbat-laws there are only a small group of laws that are called "shvut" (from the same root of Shabbat, שבת), which were added prohibitions by the sages to keep people from coming close to transgressing one of God's laws of the Shabbat. For example: One cannot swim on Shabbat. But originally, one could row a boat on Shabbat. But the sages realized that in a boat situation, a person might think that it would be alright to swim as well. So they added the prohibition of rowing a boat.

On reading through some of the restrictions and also the comments that follow The Shabbat Laws I cannot help but wonder how observing all those restrictions, when they are the "commands of men" and not from God, makes the Sabbath hard work all by itself?

Harel13 said:
But that's the problem of common sense: It's fallible. So the core of the Shabbat laws are infallible concepts given by God who knows all. Moreover, if every law came from the common sense of man, it could be easily changed, because common sense and human morality has changed over history. Indeed, we find that Christians don't keep Shabbat because they think it's fallible man-made nonsense. And that's actually fine. Shabbat was given to the Jewish nation, not to the gentiles. What's not fine is thinking it's man-made nonsense, which it's not.

There were 39 commands given by God...not 39 categories that needed rigid interpretation for each one, as if God would strike you down for pressing a button in an elevator.....it seems as if many have found loopholes in the law in order to get around certain restrictions....is this what God gave the law for?...just so he could sit up there and tick off all the ways that his people could offend him by even turning on a light switch or pressing a button in an elevator? You can't carry anything but you can move it with your teeth or your elbow?

Please help us understand this mentality.....because it seems so unnecessarily rigid and in so many ways ridiculous in the extreme to those on the outside looking in. How do you think it makes God look?

Who is this God you worship? I cannot find him in the Bible.
Jesus called what the religious leaders of his day did as "straining at gnats but gulping down camels"...can you understand why?

Harel13 said:
Is that bad? Jewish spiritual leaders need to know more than correct meditative positions and what mantras will help a person reach a spiritual high. The Torah is chock-full of legal laws, and the sages need to know how everything works in order to pass on the law correctly.

Being enslaved to rituals accomplishes what? Will the 'performance' somehow make one righteous? Righteousness is not an act of law, but a condition of the heart, prompting a person to serve God out of love, not out of fear. Has God got nothing better to do than find fault?

Harel13 said:
as I wrote to @Eddi, activating a computer in order to use the internet comes with lighting a spark which is part of the prohibition of lighting a fire. If you must know, the rabbis at the time when electricity started coming into use, went and asked experts in the field how it works, and by that determined if it was allowed or not. Every invention today is dissected by the rabbis together with field-experts in order to determine if it's "kosher" for Jews.

If there is lightning on the Sabbath, is God violating his own law? :shrug:

The prohibition on lighting a fire is reasonable since it requires work to gather the wood and to feed the fire through the day and the temptation to cook a little something on the fire maybe...? But to take it to such extremes is to go well beyond what is written....and that is surely not what the Law was intended to do?...to create more stress on a day of rest?
As one Jewish poster brought out, its a gradual process, coming to observe the Sabbath Laws without too much thought about them...like they become second nature.....is this not indoctrination though?

Harel13 said:
Just because it was a "mere few", doesn't make it okay.

Who said? Not God. Men made these restrictions and Jesus as a devout Jew, did not abide by what went beyond his Father's commands.

Didnt Isaiah say.....
וַיֹּ֣אמֶר אֲדֹנָ֗י יַ֚עַן כִּ֤י נִגַּשׁ֙ הָעָ֣ם הַזֶּ֔ה בְּפִ֤יו וּבִשְׂפָתָיו֙ כִּבְּד֔וּנִי וְלִבּ֖וֹ רִחַ֣ק מִמֶּ֑נִּי וַתְּהִ֤י יִרְאָתָם֙ אֹתִ֔י מִצְוַ֥ת אֲנָשִׁ֖ים מְלֻמָּדָֽה׃"

My Lord said: Because that people has approached [Me] with its mouth And honored Me with its lips, But has kept its heart far from Me, And its worship of Me has been A commandment of men, learned by rote"

Jesus quoted these words to the Pharisees because that is exactly what they were doing. The spirit of the Law was lost in its rigid interpretation.

Harel13 said:
Not every single medical procedure isn't allowed on Shabbat. We have rules for everything. As a kid, I once crashed into a metal bench on Shabbat. No one thought I should stay there on the sidewalk with a literal bloody dent in my head until Shabbat was over. That never occurred to anyone. Why? Because not everything is illegal, as gentiles sometimes portray Judaism. So I went to a local clinic and got bandaged up (my head is fine today, thankfully).

It sounds like it has to be life threatening or at least serious enough to need assistance getting to a medical facility. Would that be the case? Why would healing on the Sabbath be a violation as it is doing good?

Deeje · Feb 21, 2020

dybmh said:
@Deeje, Regarding common sense. I don't think that common sense is a useful metric for whether or not Halacha is valid per Numbers 15:39. However, I also think that Deuteronomy 6:5 prescribes an intellectual approach to Jewish religious practice included in "the whole soul and the whole might." Because of this, I find value in attempting to understand the law ( aka finding common sense in it ); but, they shouldn't be abandoned if understanding is not obtained.

Are Jews then 'trained' to observe the multitude of restrictions on the Sabbath. Do all Jews carry out this strict observance and if not, how do the Ultra-Orthodox view those who fail to dot all the i's and cross all the t's?

One way of finding common sense in many of the laws of Shabbos is to see it as a day of non-interference. Anything that is in process before Shabbos, remains in process. Anything that is at rest, remains at rest.

But according to definitions, there is "rest" and there is observing so many rules that rest is almost impossible because of concentrating so hard on not violating all the nit picking.

Are you a Sabbath observer dybmh? And if so how do you observe it?

lostwanderingsoul · Feb 21, 2020

WhyIsThatSo said:
lol...well then , I guess that "International Standard ISO 8601" somehow managed to divert the orbit of the planet Saturn...
and looks like the moon as well.....lol

And that is exactly why there is a problem. Men, not God, change things. If men can't decide what is the first day of the week, is there any way to be sure when the sabbath really is? Still waiting for an opinion from a Jew. Christians are not experts on the sabbath, though some may think they are.

WhyIsThatSo · Feb 21, 2020

lostwanderingsoul said:
And that is exactly why there is a problem. Men, not God, change things. If men can't decide what is the first day of the week, is there any way to be sure when the sabbath really is? Still waiting for an opinion from a Jew. Christians are not experts on the sabbath, though some may think they are.

Personally, I don't care what anyone "thinks" ( including myself )...
ALL that I'm concerned with is knowing the TRUTH .

Wandering Monk · Feb 21, 2020

lostwanderingsoul said:
And that is exactly why there is a problem. Men, not God, change things. If men can't decide what is the first day of the week, is there any way to be sure when the sabbath really is? Still waiting for an opinion from a Jew. Christians are not experts on the sabbath, though some may think they are.

Uh, this is Sabbath. Observant Jews will not use electronics on Sabbath.

The Shabbat Thread

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