"Safeguard the Shabbos day." (Deuteronomy 5:12)


According to Jewish tradition, the way we relate to the earth and its creatures undergoes a change on Shabbos, and the following mitzvah - Divine command - can serve as an example: "Six days shall you do your tasks, and on the seventh day you shall cease, so that your ox and your donkey may be content." (Exodus 23:12)

Our animals must be free to go into the fields and graze.



The above verse includes a mandate to allow our animals to experience rest and contentment on Shabbos. Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch was a noted 19th-century sage and Biblical commentator, and in his commentary on this verse, he explains: "The Sabbath is a school for teaching the recognition of every other creature beside oneself as being equally a child and object of the same Creator; and this freeing of all creatures from the mastery of the human being is one of the objectives of the Sabbath."


In the above verse, we find the Hebrew word yanuach - to be content, to rest. According to our sages, the word yanuach is teaching us that, in addition to resting on Shabbos, our animals must be free to go into the fields and graze undisturbed. In this way, they will be content (Mechilta).


Even our relationship to plant life and inanimate objects undergoes a change on Shabbos, as it is written: "You shall not perform any kind of melacha." (Exodus 20:10)


In Biblical Hebrew, the term melacha refers to skilled or creative work. Rabbi Hirsch, in his commentary on this verse, explains that physical exertion is not one of the basic criteria of melacha. He writes: "The term occurs almost 200 times in scripture, and among these, there is not one single instance of the word being used to denote strenuous activity. Likewise, the slave labor performed by the Children of Israel in Egypt is never described as melacha."


According to the Torah, if I lift a heavy piece of furniture on Shabbos, I am not guilty of violating the prohibition against melacha, even though such an activity, say the sages, is not in keeping with the Shabbos spirit. If, however, I pluck a leaf off a tree or plant a seed in the earth, then I have violated the mandate not to perform melacha on Shabbos. A study of halacha - Torah law - reveals that the definition of "work" on Shabbos is not physical exertion, but an activity whereby the human being transforms anything in the environment for his or her own use, such as for food, clothing, and shelter. There are 39 categories of creative work that we are forbidden to do on Shabbos. Some examples are plowing, sowing, harvesting, baking and other constructive uses of fire, dying, sewing, building, and catching or slaughtering an animal for food. Through keeping the halacha of Shabbos, we give up our technological control over nature.

Our relationship to plant life and inanimate objects undergoes a change on Shabbos.



The word halacha is derived from the Hebrew word holech - walking. Halacha is, therefore, the way we are to walk on this earth. On Shabbos, we are to walk on the earth without asserting our mastery over the earth, in order to acknowledge the sovereignty of the Creator. In this way, we will remember that we are only the custodians of the earth, with the responsibility "to serve it and to protect it." (Genesis 2:15)


For Further Study and Reflection
Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch discusses the principles underlying the laws of Shabbos in his Biblical commentary and in his classical work on the mitzvos known as Horeb, which is published by Judaica Press. There is an excellent book published by Feldheim that discusses the laws of Shabbos according to the insights of Rabbi Hirsch. It is called The Sabbath, and the author is the late Dayan Dr. I. Grunfeld, a prominent Torah judge, British lawyer, educator and community leader.