[Avodah] Why We Celebrate the Seventh Day

[Prof. Levine]

[I got worried, thanks to someone who pointed this out off-list, of fair
use limitations on our circulating copyrighted material. R Prof Levine
took the time to contact Feldheim and obrain their reshus in writing. -mi]


The following is from the new translation of RSRH's commentary to sefer
Shemos. I think that it gives interesting insight into the difference
between Yahadus and the way the non-Jewish world looks at things. YL

    9: 29 Moshe replied to him: As soon as I have gone out from the city I
    will spread out my hands to God ; the thunderclaps will cease and the
    hail will be no more, so that you may know that the earth is God's.

    Let us note that not only the onset of the plague but also and
    primarily its cessation at Gods Will constituted the most striking
    os of Gods omnipotence. For even the most sublime revelation of
    His creative and productive power would be insufficient, even
    today, to convey to the nations the pure conception of the God of
    Israel. At most, such a revelation would present Him as the highest
    power of all powers, the most forceful of all forces, whereas,
    in the Jewish conception, God is the free Master over His work,
    Whose creations do not escape His control. It was primarily through
    the cessation of the plague at Gods command, its cancellation,
    and its differentiation by Gods order between Egypt and Goshen
    that God revealed Himself. No other power can regain control of
    elemental forces, once they have been released. In this spirit the
    Jew celebrates the last of the days of Creation, the Sabbath. The
    non-Jewish world, in thoughtless contrast, celebrates the first
    day, Sunday. The outlook that considers the universe a result of
    natural forces can perhaps explain the Sunday of Creation, but it
    cannot explain the fact of the Sabbath of Creation. For why has the
    creation of new creatures ceased? After all, the same creative forces
    of nature still exist. That is why God established the Sabbath, the
    Shabbos with which Creation ceased, and not the days of Creation,
    as a monument to the Creator. (Cf. Commentary, Bereshis 2:1.)