The Sabbath
(Bible Study - June 1999) Of all the myriad rules and regulations the Pharisees kept to preserve their ritual holiness, the Sabbath rules stood at the top. Most holy of all their laws, the Pharisees believed that Sabbath-keeping provided a righteousness nonpareil.
Their most important law
People who believe in salvation-by-works can believe in a hierarchy of their laws. For
the Pharisees, ritual holiness defined their religion, and the Sabbath, with its sedulous
adherence to minutiae, defined their ritual holiness.
The Sabbath laws became the most important for several reasons. Firstly, the Sabbath predated the Law, going back to Creation. Although the Genesis account gives no command concerning any worship on the seventh day, God did cease from His labors, setting an example. If God himself rested on the seventh day, the rabbis reasoned they could do no less. Moreover, they noted the precedence of the Sabbath over the Law in Exodus, when the Lord God instituted the Sabbath with respect to gathering the manna. This occurred before Moses ascended Sinai to receive the tablets of Law. The rabbis had such a strong belief in the legalistic ideas of precedence that they thus elevated the Sabbath to the pinnacle of all laws.
The sages also found evidence for the superiority of the Sabbath in the decalogue itself. In both declarations (Ex. 20: 1-17 and Deut. 5: 6-21), the fourth commandment is the longest of the ten. Only the second command, prohibiting graven images, has nearly as much elaboration. In the Exodus account, the model of God resting on the seventh day reinforces the command to rest. In Deuteronomy, God’s deliverance of Israel from Egyptian bondage serves as the principle for abstaining from labor.
Sabbath-keeping also receives considerable reinforcement throughout the Old Testament. For instance, Ezekiel (Ezk. 20: 8-26) rebukes Israel at length for profaning the Sabbath. Nehemiah gives an account (Neh. 13:19-22) of enforcing the Sabbath upon his return to Jerusalem. Many other warnings occur scattered throughout the historical and prophetic books.
Work not clearly defined
However, despite all the warnings about keeping the Sabbath, rarely does Scripture give
examples of what constitutes "work." Neither of the declarations of the
Sabbath commandment in the decalogue defines "work," although both say
that work should cease for the entire household, animals included. Elsewhere we can find
prohibitions against kindling (Ex. 35:3), gathering firewood or manna (Num. 15:32-36, Ex.
16:29) and carrying a burden (Neh. 13:19). Yet even these acts required definition: how
much was a burden? What could be considered kindling? This last example has taken major
implications in the technological era, when rabbis and scholars have grappled with all
kinds of electric and combustion-engine driven machines and devices. Does a spark of
electricity constitute kindling? Largely, yes.
Making halachic (rules governing daily activities) decisions often requires scientific investigation: for example, rabbis distinguish between turning on an incandescent light and a fluorescent light.
With all this grist for their legalistic mill, the rabbis of old elevated Sabbath-keeping into the holiest of all laws. Of course, this level of piety required precise definitions galore, and they went at it with an enthusiasm that has not abated in thousands of years. A quotation from Adin Steinsaltz’s The Essential Talmud gives the flavor of the orthodox position on the Sabbath:
"In the most general sense, the numerous Sabbath laws are an expanding network of minute details deriving from several basic concepts, which eventually create an almost Gothic structure made up of thousands upon thousands of tiny and meticulously fashioned details clustered around an original form."
Forty less one
So where did the sages of old begin when they undertook the task of delineating and
categorizing the Sabbath restrictions on work? Because on the original day of rest God
rested from the work of creation, they chose the concept of "creative
activity" as the basic definition of work. To model creative activity, they
chose the construction of the tabernacle in the wilderness. Also, two clear prohibitions
against working on the seventh day come in the immediate context of the instructions for
the building of the tabernacle (Ex. 31:12-17, 35:1-3). Thus, the activities involving the
construction of the tabernacle became the basic categories of Sabbath "work."
The Mishnah, the written codification of the oral tradition, lists "forty less one" (Shabbat VII.2) categories of work prohibited on the Sabbath. Some of them came directly from the work of the tabernacle itself, e.g., spinning, warping, sewing, and dyeing. Other areas included the agricultural activities implied in the use of a finished product, such as linen cloth. These would include sowing, plowing, reaping, binding sheaves, and winnowing. These prohibitions would cover activities in growing the plants from which they obtained fibers for the linen cloth.
Past and present regulations
From these thirty-nine categories, well established by the time of Jesus, came the
thousands of specific halachah, or specific rules governing each situation and
contingency. A few examples will help us understand how much of a grip the Sabbath halachah
had on everyday life.
Some of these will come from modern times. The process hasn’t died; in fact, it thrives, largely due to technological innovations which have created the need for hundreds of new rulings. The modern examples, however, follow fully the same methodology as the rulings of the ancient sages. They will give us a time-relevant reference to the picayune scruples of the legal mind. If we can get some appreciation for this mentality, we can comprehend the issues at stake when Jesus confronted the Pharisees and their Sabbath traditions.
- A tailor was advised to put down his needle a half-hour before sunset lest he inadvertently carry it on the Sabbath while searching for fleas in his cloth (Shabbat I:3).
- In an effort to make life somewhat functional on Sabbath, the sages created a vast system of casuistry that defined boundaries in every location. These boundaries artificially established the limits of one’s domicile; for instance, it might include a whole section of a city. Certain areas, while physically outside one’s home, still remained within the limits of one’s domain so as not to transgress the command of Exodus 16:29 to stay in one’s place. However, one very strict sect, the Karaites, wouldn’t leave their homes on the Sabbath.
- The rabbis carefully distinguished between wearing and carrying. They had to decide if a woman’s hair clip, for instance, was worn or carried. If carried, then it would be a burden and forbidden on the Sabbath. A woman could go into the courtyard of her house wearing a wig, but not into public streets. Of course, carrying a mat clearly violated the ban or bearing a burden, and the Pharisees used this to inculpate the lame man whom Jesus healed (John 5:10).
- Items normally used for work could not even be touched on the Sabbath. They were mutzkeh (off-limits) for fear of "accidental" use. The mutzkeh rules developed out of the idea of "fences," those rules meant to keep one even holier by avoiding anything even close to sin. For instance, if the use of a tool, such as a hammer, violated the Sabbath, then the tool itself became mutzkeh on the Sabbath, and contact with it meant defilement.
- The Talmud (Shabbat II:6) lists three reasons why a woman might die in childbirth. One of them has to do with failure to meticulously carry out her Sabbath duties. This teaching, one of many that specify rewards and consequences for various acts of obedience or disobedience, demonstrates the "exact retribution" mentality inherent in a behavior-based religion of rules.
- To open a refrigerator door on the Sabbath, one must first disconnect the interior light (before the Sabbath) lest one violate the injunction against "kindling," as modern interpretations consider that using or turning on a light comes under the category of "kindling." Letting warm air into the refrigerator also creates a problem, because that will cause the compressor to activate before it otherwise would have. This would cause the compressor to "spark," also a Sabbath violation. Therefore, one has a timer installed to run the compressor motor at set intervals, rather than a thermostat, which the door’s opening would indirectly affect. Another proposed solution: open the door only when the compressor is already running.
- Sabbath laws defer to very few others, but the care of the seriously ill constitutes a class of exceptions. Dr. Abraham Abrahams lists many of these in his book, A Comprehensive Guide to Medical Halachah. If one does have to suspend Sabbath rules for a higher principle, such as care of the very ill, one must do so with the least possible intrusion into the Sabbath laws. Also, one must perform any act that would otherwise transgress the Sabbath in an unusual manner thus acknowledging Sabbath law. For instance, a doctor may drive on the Sabbath if he must go to an emergency, but he should start the engine by turning the key with two fingers, not the usual thumb and forefinger. As to the vehicle driven to an emergency, the doctor must leave the motor running, as turning off the engine is not necessary to save life. If a doctor has to write, he must write with his left hand if right-handed (and vice-versa), use the minimum number of words possible, and sign with his initials, not his full name. A nurse or doctor applying an antiseptic to the skin on the Sabbath must use a nonabsorbent (i.e., nylon) swab as opposed to cotton which could absorb the medication and thus, presumably, be classified as working under the rubric of "dyeing."
- Does giving alms to a beggar who comes to your house violate the Sabbath? That depends, of course. In Everyman’s Talmud, by A. Cohen, the author relates how the rabbis distinguished between a beggar reaching into the window of a home to receive alms and a householder reaching out of the window. Also at issue was whether the beggar took the alms from the householder’s hand, or the householder put the alms in the beggar’s hand. Thus, four possibilities existed, and they pronounced guilt or innocence accordingly. The only guilt-free way to give alms on Sabbath: the beggar stands outside, stretches forth his hand inside the house, and the householder puts the alms in his hand for him.
Jewish laws and customs also include many rituals for the celebration of the Sabbath, such as lighting candles at sunset, wearing one’s best clothes, and eating festive meals. They maintained the Sabbath was a joy and a means of sanctification (Isa. 58:13). However, most of the Sabbath regulations concerned avoiding work. The less one did, the more holy one became. Just to make sure, one did less and less, until one became totally useless to anyone.
The battleground of faith vs. law
So it was that against this thinking and its concordant practices came the Lord
Jesus’ program for dismantling the Jewish idea of the Sabbath. In much the same way
that Paul would later use circumcision as the main representation of the law (Acts 21:21,
Gal. 6:15, Rom.2:29), Jesus used the Sabbath and its traditions. He used the Sabbath as
his battleground because it made an ideal subject for his teaching of the Gospel of Grace.
We know from Colossians 2:14 that the Lord slew the law at his crucifixion. We sometimes
fail to appreciate that he also slew the Law during his ministry (e.g., Mk. 7:15).
He did this with a succession of miracles, each more prominent than the last, during his ministry. Each miracle involved the healing of a sick person. In each case, Jesus could have waited till after the Sabbath. He repeatedly chose to heal disabled or chronically ill people, those who could have easily waited a few hours until sundown. As the healings increased in complexity and in overt confrontation to the Pharisees’ legalistic traditions, so likewise the Pharisees’ opposition increased.
Starting with healing a man in a Capernaum synagogue and culminating with giving sight to the man born blind (John 9), Jesus systematically displayed the need to "judge not by appearances, but to judge with right judgment." He repeatedly challenged the Pharisees on the points they would consider most holy, to find out if they could somehow elevate their minds beyond their own traditions.
Alas, positive responses, if any, remain all but unrecorded in the Gospels. Instead, the Lord Jesus found a people who had thoroughly enmeshed their own traditions with the word of God. They zealously strove to protect both themselves and the Torah with their "fences," but those fences obstructed their view of the Messiah. They couldn’t see the signs of God’s son when he preached and healed in their very presence. So blind were they because of tradition, they couldn’t see a man walking who had never walked before -- they only saw a man carrying a mat on the Sabbath, forbidden by their traditions.
The Pharisees’ definitions meant nothing in God’s eyes. The Sabbath had a greater meaning that they had entirely obfuscated. So the Lord Jesus went right to their perceived stronghold, repeatedly making pointed attacks against the traditions of men. As we trace the development of his offensive, and see the deliberate and calculated progression of both attack and rebuttal, we will view the greatest theological contest ever waged.
Lord willing, in the next two articles, we will explore this remarkable sequence of Jesus’ healing miracles on the Sabbath.
David Levin