The promised land is described in Deuteronomy (12:9) by the hendiadys מְנוּחָה, menuchah, and נַחֲלָה, nachalah—a resting-place and heritage-land—and both terms are used several times in the Bible to refer to the land of Israel. Millennia later, these terms are given an afterlife in Jewish liturgy in reference to Shabbat; sacred space is anchored in time.
Leviticus chapters 25, 26, and 27 are not only each explicitly set at Sinai, but are also tied together by a network of Leitwörter, numerical patterns, and unusual forms. Significant is the use of ג.א.ל, “to redeem”—whether of land, houses, persons, or sanctuary dedications—19 times in chapter 25 and 12 times in chapter 27. In contrast, ג.א.ל is entirely absent from the curses and blessings of chapter 26, and its place is taken by ג.ע.ל, “to reject with disgust,” a root that does not appear anywhere else in the Torah.
The book of Ezra–Nehemiah records Nehemiah’s mid-fifth-century B.C.E. attempts to enforce Shabbat, and for the first time in the Bible, the name שַׁבְּתַי, Shabbethai, appears. In this period, similar names derived from Shabbat are also first attested in Babylonian cuneiform tablets, as well as ostraca and papyri from Elephantine, suggesting that Shabbat became a recognized reference within the Judean community.
For Ahad Haʿam and Hayyim Nahman Bialik, Shabbat was not about belief but about belonging. Through their Cultural Zionist vision, Shabbat emerges as the aesthetic, temporal, and cultural heart of Jewish identity—welcomed each week as a queen in a song meant to update the more traditional Shalom Aleichem.
Cain receives an ʾot from YHWH to protect him after killing his brother. Moses encounters an ʾot at the burning bush. Shabbat is called an ʾot between God and Israel. Rahab demands an ʾot to save her family during Israel’s conquest. And Isaiah offers King Ahaz an ʾot to calm his fear of invasion. But what exactly is an אוֹת (ʾot)?
Originally, each farmer marked the start of their harvest by bringing the first sheaf to the priest, then working for seven consecutive weeks, culminating in an offering of new grain. Later, when this offering was transformed into the national festival of Shavuot and Shabbat observance became central, the count was anchored in מִמָּחֳרַת הַשַּׁבָּת—“the day after Shabbat”—to avoid harvesting on the new day of rest.
In late 2nd century Carthage, Tertullian, the first church father to write in Latin, composed Adversus Iudaeos to argue that Christianity’s interpretation of the Hebrew Bible was better than that of the Jews. While his depictions of Jews deal only with biblical verses, from his comments elsewhere about veiled women, Nazarenes, fasting, etc., he was clearly familiar with Jewish practice of his day.
The creation account was divided in the post-exilic period into six days to provide an etiology for Shabbat. This necessitated creating light on day one to distinguish between day and night. In turn, it required assigning significance to the sun and moon on day four beyond their role as sources of light.
Israelite women are conspicuously absent from the Decalogue’s Shabbat law. Three stories in the Prophets featuring female characters—Rahab the prostitute, the great woman of Shunem, and Queen Athaliah—each tie to Shabbat in some unconventional way.
The Torah describes God creating through speech, midrash mores specifically understands creation through the letters of the aleph-bet, and the kabbalists envision it as a series of divine emanations, contractions, and primal pairings. What meaning can we find in these ancient creation myths in light of evolution?
With the loss of the Temple, wearing Shabbat clothes conveys the כָּבוֹד וּתִפְאָרֶת, “glory and splendor” of the priestly garments.
The simple meaning of Genesis 1–2:4 is that God created the world out of primordial elements. And yet, one important new initiative was the construction of time, embracing the day, the month, the year, and the week. The week, however, does not depend on a cosmic phenomenon but served to introduce the concept of a people holy to a creator God.
Moses gives several instructions to the Israelites concerning manna: How it should be gathered, prepared, consumed, and preserved, and what to do with it on Shabbat. The phrasing and details of these instructions are Moses’ creative elaboration of God’s original laconic command.
If the biblical day began at nightfall, why does the Torah need to spell out that Yom Kippur lasts “from evening to evening” (Leviticus 23:32), and that matzah is eaten “from the evening of the fourteenth” (Exodus 12:18)? The simple reading of the Creation story (Genesis 1), with morning closing each day of creation, indicates that the biblical day originally began at dawn. The requirement to begin Yom Kippur and eat matzah at night reflects a reform to begin the day at dusk.
Upon the conquest of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar deported many Judeans to Babylonia. What was their life like there? Were they assimilated, or did they stand out? What language(s) did they speak and what religious practices did they maintain? What was their social and economic standing? Babylonian records allow us glimpses into the lives of some of the deportees.
Two Roman conquests of Jerusalem (Pompey in 63 B.C.E. and Sosius in 37 B.C.E.) purportedly happened on “the day of the fast,” during which the Jews barely defended themselves. Is this a reference to Yom Kippur and why didn’t the Jews defend themselves?
“And the Lord Blessed the Seventh Day and Consecrated It” (Genesis 2:3). Can time be blessed?
The Shabbat laws offer an instructive model for how Jews in antiquity engaged in creative reinterpretation of biblical texts in order to expand their limited application and to ensure that their customary practice comported with their sacred texts.
A careful examination of the three oldest copies of the Decalogue—4QDeutn, 4QPaleoExodusm, and the Nash Papyrus—surprisingly shows that none of them reflects the Masoretic Text.
Early biblical laws demand a cessation of labor every seven days, but that was unconnected to Shabbat, which was originally a full moon celebration.
The account of the Tabernacle’s construction echoes the creation story in Genesis 1-2:4a, providing an interpretive key to the ancient understanding of this structure. Ritual theory provides further insight into what Israelite readers may have found meaningful about the Tabernacle as a ritual place.
The Decalogue texts in Exodus and Deuteronomy have significant differences, a problem grappled with by the Talmudic sages and Medieval exegetes.
When Moses instructs the people to eat the manna on Shabbat, he emphasizes “today,” “today,” “today.” Is this repetition just Priestly literary style or is it meant to tell us that Shabbat begins in the morning, and not the evening like Pesach and Yom Kippur?
A surprising look at Shabbat in the Second Temple period.
The Torah states multiple times that it is forbidden to do melakha “work” on Shabbat. Rabbi Akiva and his students argue that the Torah is referring to 39 specific forms of work. Where did they get this number? The key is in the Tabernacle.
At stake is Ibn Ezra’s curse: “May your tongue stick to your palate… may your arm dry up and your right eye go blind.”
