Sabbath: Delight

Understanding the Sabbath as a day of delight is different than understanding it as a day of rest.  We get the idea that Sabbath is a day of rest from the creation story.  Genesis says that after God spent six days creating, "he rested on the seventh day from all the work he had done" (2:2).  Allender writes that God doesn't rest because he's weary from his labor -- it's not like God is taking a nap on the seventh day because he's tired.  Some Jewish commentators have suggested that what happened on the seventh day was God creating menuha -- a word that means "joyous repose, tranquility, or delight" (28).  On the seventh day, God delighted in his creation.

Allender likens God's menuha to the bonding a family experiences after the birth of their child.  "The mother and father gaze endlessly at their child, who is distinct from the parents because she is no longer merely in the mind and the womb of the mother, but external and separate" (28).  God is like a mother on the seventh day, gazing in rapture at his creation and thinking "She is so beautiful."

So, that is the kind of rest -- the kind of delight -- that we are supposed to practice on the Sabbath.  It is to be a day of joy and celebration, not a day for a nap.  Allender goes on to describe four components of this delight, that I'll tackle later.