shabbat

Shabbat (, , or ; he, שַׁבָּת, Šabbāṯ, , ) or the Sabbath (), also called Shabbos (, ) by Ashkenazim, is Judaism's day of rest on the seventh day of the week—i.e., Saturday. On this day, religious Jews remember the biblical stories describing the creation of the heaven and earth in six days and the redemption from slavery and The Exodus from Egypt, and look forward to a future Messianic Age. Since the Jewish religious calendar counts days from sunset to sunset, Shabbat begins in the evening of what on the civil calendar is Friday.

Shabbat observance entails refraining from work activities, often with great rigor, and engaging in restful activities to honour the day. Judaism's traditional position is that the unbroken seventh-day Shabbat originated among the Jewish people, as their first and most sacred institution. Variations upon Shabbat are widespread in Judaism and, with adaptations, throughout the Abrahamic and many other religions.

According to ''halakha'' (Jewish religious law), Shabbat is observed from a few minutes before sunset on Friday evening until the appearance of three stars in the sky on Saturday night. Shabbat is ushered in by lighting candles and reciting a blessing. Traditionally, three festive meals are eaten: The first one is held on Friday evening, the second is traditionally a lunch meal on Saturday, and the third is held later in the afternoon. The evening meal and the early afternoon meal typically begin with a blessing called '' kiddush'' and another blessing recited over two loaves of challah. The third meal does not have the ''kiddush'' recited but all have the two loaves. Shabbat is closed Saturday evening with a '' havdalah'' blessing.

Shabbat is a festive day when Jews exercise their freedom from the regular labours of everyday life. It offers an opportunity to contemplate the spiritual aspects of life and to spend time with family.

Etymology

The word ''Shabbat'' derives from the Hebrew root ש־ב־ת. Although frequently translated as "rest" (noun or verb), another accurate translation is "ceasing rom work" The notion of active cessation from labour is also regarded as more consistent with an omnipotent God's activity on the seventh day of creation according to Genesis.

Origins

Babylon

A cognate Babylonian ''Sapattu^m'' or ''Sabattu^m'' is reconstructed from the lost fifth Enūma Eliš creation account, which is read as: "'' abatu'' shalt thou then encounter, mid onthy". It is regarded as a form of Sumerian ''sa-bat'' ("mid-rest"), rendered in Akkadian as ''um nuh libbi'' ("day of mid-repose").
It has been argued that the association of the number seven with creation itself derives from the circumstance that the Enuma Elish was recorded on seven tablets.
"emphasized by Professor Barton, who says: 'Each account is arranged in a series of sevens, the Babylonian in seven tablets, the Hebrew in seven days. Each of them places the creation of man in the sixth division of its series." Albert T. Clay, ''The Origin of Biblical Traditions: Hebrew Legends in Babylonia and Israel'', 1923
p. 74

Connection to Sabbath observance has been suggested in the designation of the seventh, fourteenth, nineteenth, twenty-first and twenty-eight days of a lunar month in an Assyrian religious calendar as a 'holy day', also called 'evil days' (meaning "unsuitable" for prohibited activities). The prohibitions on these days, spaced seven days apart (except the nineteenth), include abstaining from chariot riding, and the avoidance of eating meat by the King. On these days officials were prohibited from various activities and common men were forbidden to "make a wish", and at least the 28th was known as a "rest-day".

The '' Universal Jewish Encyclopedia'' advanced a theory of Assyriologists like Friedrich Delitzsch (and of Marcello Craveri) that Shabbat originally arose from the lunar cycle in the Babylonian calendar containing four weeks ending in a Sabbath, plus one or two additional unreckoned days per month. The difficulties of this theory include reconciling the differences between an unbroken week and a lunar week, and explaining the absence of texts naming the lunar week as Sabbath in any language.

Egypt

Seventh-day Shabbat did not originate with the Egyptians, to whom it was unknown; and other origin theories based on the day of Saturn, or on the planets generally, have also been abandoned.

Hebrew Bible

Sabbath is given special status as a holy day at the very beginning of the Torah in Genesis 2:1-3. It is first commanded after The Exodus from Egypt, in Exodus 16:26 (relating to the cessation of manna) and in Exodus 16:29 (relating to the distance one may travel by foot on the Sabbath), as also in Exodus 20:8-11 (as one of the Ten Commandments). Sabbath is commanded and commended many more times in the Torah and Tanakh