Shabbat is the seventh day of the week — the Jewish week begins on Sunday. It comes in on Friday at sunset and ends on Saturday evening, one hour after sunset: it begins in the evening, like every Jewish festival, because the Torah says of the creation “And there was evening and there was morning”. Its times therefore depend on where you are and on the time of year.
“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work; but the seventh day is a sabbath unto the Lord thy G-d. In it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates; for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested on the seventh day. Wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.”
Exodus 20, 8-11
The most important of days
It is one of the fundamental principles of Judaism and is held to be the most important observance of Jewish life. Since G-d created the universe and everything it contains in six days and rested on the seventh, when night falls on Friday evening Jews stop every kind of work done during the week, to dedicate themselves wholly to G-d, body and spirit, on the holy day of Shabbat.
The thirty-nine labours
During Shabbat certain activities are forbidden because they derive from the principal labours performed in the building of the Temple, itself a symbol of the creation of the world by G-d. But the essence of Shabbat is to set aside the labours of the week to make room for G-d on the day when He finished the world by making room for man.
The forbidden labours are thirty-nine, written in the Torah, and they are the ones needed to build the Tabernacle. They concern above all agricultural and domestic work, weaving, sewing and spinning, lighting and putting out fire, preparing food, carrying objects from one’s home to the outside and back, travelling beyond a certain distance, and trade. Fire is not lit, for instance, perhaps because fire is a source of creation but also of destruction.
What is done instead
Visiting
Relatives and friends, provided they can be reached on foot.
Being with family
Spending Shabbat with one’s own household.
Going to synagogue
Attending the service.
Hosting
Hachnasat orchim: welcoming relatives and friends overnight, or at least for one of the meals.
Singing
Popular songs and psalms.
Studying
Reading and discussing the Torah, the commentaries, the Talmud, the Halakhah and the Midrash.
Married intimacy
According to the Kabbalah, Jewish mysticism, relations between husband and wife.
The day of Shabbat is meant to be an occasion to rejoice as a family, to empty the spirit of the worries and material duties of the week, to study the Torah and to welcome into one’s home and mind the Oneg Shabbat, the well-being of Shabbat: an inner gift from G-d to the Jewish people, so that they may always follow the path of the Creator and bring the kingdom of Good upon the earth.
The Friday evening table
On Friday evening, before Shabbat comes in, two candles are lit and left to burn until they go out by themselves. They are the symbol of the “light of G-d” that enters on the Sabbath to make the home shine.
The Friday evening meal and Saturday lunch are generally abundant. On the table are the challah, the braided bread over which the blessing of the bread is said, and the cup for the Kiddush, the kosher wine over which the blessing of the wine is said. There are usually two challot, under a small cloth bearing the words Shabbat Shalom, “a Sabbath of peace”: two, to recall that in the desert the Jews gathered a double portion of manna on Fridays, because on the Sabbath there was none and gathering it was forbidden. The braid can have as many as twelve strands, recalling the union of G-d with the twelve tribes of Israel.
The Kiddush prayer is said by the man of the household, filling a cup of wine. It affirms that the Sabbath is a day of remembrance both of the creation of the world (Ex 20, 8-11) and of the exodus from Egypt (Dt 5, 12-15).
The Parashah and the Haftarah
Every Shabbat the parashah is read in the synagogue, the weekly portion of the Torah, together with the haftarah, a passage from the Prophets. The Torah is divided into 54 portions; the last, Vezot ha-Berakhah, is read on Simchat Torah.
The commentary on the week’s parashah is in the Parashah Commentary section; the candle lighting and ending times, updated week by week, are in Shabbat candle lighting time.
The end of Shabbat: the Havdalah
To mark the end of Shabbat, on Saturday evening the Havdalah is performed, the ceremony of “separation”. A set formula is recited, Attah Cholantanu, with four berachot, blessings. A cup of wine is needed, fragrant branches or a spice box, and a lit candle.
“He who wants to enter the holiness of the day must first lay down the profanity and the noise of commerce, the yoke of toil. He must withdraw from the stridency of discordant days, from the nervousness and the fury of acquiring, and from the betrayal perpetrated to prevail over his own life.
He must take leave of ordinary work and learn to understand that the world has already been created and will survive even without the help of man.
For six days of the week we struggle with the world, squeezing profit from the earth; on the Sabbath we care with special concern for the seeds of eternity planted in our soul.
To the world we give our hands, but our soul belongs to Someone Else.
For six days of the week we seek to master the world, on the seventh we seek to master our own self.”
Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Sabbath