Korva is a scroll of the internet’s best ideas.
The Sabbath was a radical idea
Sanctifying time
People had to grow their food and labor every day. The Sabbath introduced the idea that humans are not on earth only to work, create, and produce every day of their lives. You can sanctify time by setting it apart and making it different, and one day a week you stop laboring and producing. You just get to be.
The idea covered everyone: animals and the people who worked for you included. A capitalist society loses sight of any reason to be here beyond production, because capitalism can't be the be-all and end-all of existence.
Keeping it today
To sanctify time, you set it apart from all other time. Traditionally that means no errands, no money, no electricity, and no phones, laws that grew out of the original rule against work. Picture unplugging from everything that feels like work in your day, even if it is only an electronics Sabbath.
One couple decided about 20 years ago to observe Shabbat more fully than either of them had growing up. They told their kids no phones on that day, and the Shabbat community that formed around them became a tight-knit anchor for their family.
Why does Shabbat begin at Friday sundown?
Jewish days run from evening to evening. The pattern comes from the creation account in Genesis, which says there was evening and then morning for each day. So Shabbat begins when the sun sets on Friday and ends after dark on Saturday night. Households traditionally light candles to mark the start, usually 18 minutes before sunset.
Why does Shabbat law cover electricity?
The Mishnah lists 39 categories of forbidden work, derived from the tasks used to build the desert Tabernacle. Kindling a fire is one of them, and many Orthodox rabbis ruled that completing an electric circuit falls under that category or under the category of building. Movements differ on this: in 1950, the Conservative movement's Committee on Jewish Law and Standards permitted driving to synagogue on Shabbat and the use of electric lights. Reform Judaism leaves such questions to individual choice.
How did the seven-day week take hold?
Ancient Rome ran a market cycle called the nundinae, with a trading day every eighth day, and Egypt tracked time in ten-day periods. The seven-day week spread through the Roman world partly through astrology, with each day assigned to one of seven planets. In 321 CE, Emperor Constantine ordered city courts and workers to rest on the day of the sun.
More from Freakonomics Radio Network
