The Ten Commandments appeared on the horizon of human history more than three thousand years ago. The fourth commandment reads:

"Remember the Shabbat to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your melachah, and on the seventh day, (it shall be) a Sabbath unto your G-d."  (Exodus)

As ancient as the precepts of the Commandments may be, they have not lost their relevance even now, thirty-three centuries later.

Since the Jewish People stood at Sinai, mankind has progressed, new cultures have developed. Year after year, scientific research reaches greater heights and breaks new records. Technology has brought the world unprecedented opulence. Nonetheless, man is still in need of the Truths embodied in the Ten Commandments. In fact, in our times, he requires them more than ever before.

It is just these mind-boggling advances in science and technology which demonstrate the eternity of the precepts which G-d commanded us on Mount Sinai. Social scientists acknowledge the essential Truth embodied in the Ten Commandments and commend their relevance to modern man. 

The eminent psychoanalyst, Dr. Erich Fromm, wrote concerning a day of rest.

Modern thought has no problem with the institution of the Sabbath. The idea that man should rest one day of the week is a foregone conclusion with us. The social and hygienic goal of the Sabbath is to provide the worker with physical and spiritual rest he requires if he is not to collapse under the burden of his daily labors.

Dr. Fromm's conclusions concerning the value of a weekly day of rest are no doubt correct, but they do not fully explain the Jewish concept of Shabbat as prescribed by the Torah and observed in Jewish tradition. 

One obvious discrepancy is the definition of “labor.” Which acts are forbidden, and which allowed? If the goal of Sabbath observance were only to provide rest and repose, why should one be forbidden to ignite a flame on the seventh day? What is more, if no question of health is involved, Judaism's concept of the Sabbath does not allow one to light a fire even to make man more comfortable, and even when no particular physical effort is required. Picking a single dandelion, or plucking a leaf off a branch are additional examples of acts which involve minimal effort, yet are forbidden for Jews on the Seventh Day. If we delve into these laws more deeply, we will discover that they differ in the extreme from the concept of “work” in the eyes of Western civilization. 

The word used in the Biblical proscription of certain acts on the seventh day is not avodah, work, or amal, labor, but melachah. The prohibition of melachah concerns any form of man's intervention in the workings of the physical world. In contrast, menuchah, roughly translated as rest, refers to a state of harmonious peace between man and the world of Nature which surrounds him. 

On the seventh day, man is required to lay down his tools and return the reins of the physical world to the Creator who first brought them into being. For six days a week, man is authorized to intervene in the workings of the universe and to harness its forces for his own benefit. In fact, he is enjoined to do so.

On the seventh day, Shabbat, Man is commanded to relinquish his involvement in the world around him and direct his focus inward, to his own heart and soul. On Shabbat, the relationship between man and his environment is one of acceptance, peace, and harmony. G-d and G-d alone rules, and man willingly accepts His reign. In doing so, he acknowledges that it is not he, man, who is ultimately in charge. Nor did man create the universe; his role is only that of enhancer, refiner, and manager of the resources entrusted to him by the Creator, and even this role is his only six days of each week. On the seventh day, man returns the reins to the King of the Universe. He may not build new construction, nor may he tear down; he may not institute any change in the world around him which would profane the pact of Sabbatical peace and harmony with the Creation.

The seventh day is an expression of the harmony prevailing between man and Nature. Any form of creative work – melachah – intrude upon this delicate balance between Man and Nature. Any exertion such as plowing, reaping, building, road paving, and their modern day equivalents, would obviously be considered a melachah. So, too, would igniting a fire, or plucking a piece of ripe fruit off the branch of a tree. All these represent man's intervention in the natural processes of creation. Consequently they are considered a disruption of the Man-Nature state of harmony which must prevail on the seventh day.

The Torah refers to Shabbat again and again. In each instance, it refers to the acts one must not perform on this day as “melachah.” The word melachah is from the same root as “malach”, an angel, a messenger, or an agent. What have the two in common? A messenger is an agent who carries out the actions which the sender wishes to have performed. The word implies the fulfillment of a mental wish.

For example, a carpenter chooses a length of wood, and fashions it into a bench. He has performed a melachah, that is, put into action his mental decision to fashion a bench. Rather than a piece of raw wood, he now has a useful piece of furniture. Until now, the bench existed only in the carpenter's mind. By performing a melachah, the workman has transferred the bench from the realm of thought and intention to the realm of physical, three-dimensional reality. His melachah is the agent by which a thought became a physical realty, just as an angel is the agent through which a divine “thought” becomes a physical reality in this world.

Thus we see that, unlike the Hebrew words avodah or amal, which relate to work involving physical effort, the root of malach and malachah implies creative work, that which transforms an abstract concept into concrete reality. Why does the Torah make this distinction between physical labor and creative effort?

Again, we come back to the central theme of the Shabbat, namely, man's acknowledgment of the Creator as the Supreme Power. When is man most vulnerable to thoughts of his own power and the might of his own hand? Just when he succeeds in performing a melachah, by transferring a concept in his mind to the drawing board, and then actually forming it as a concrete object. At such a moment, man comes as close as a human being can to playing the role of “creator.” At that moment, he is most likely to forget the true Creator, who formed Man himself, imbued him with the wisdom to call up a mental image, and provided him with the raw materials, the talents and the energies he requires to create the actual object.

Shabbat comes to remind us that G-d, not Man, created “...the Heavens and the earth, the seas, and all that is in them...” On the day consecrated by G-d, the Jew lays down his tools and ceases all creative work in an all-encompassing gesture of obeisance to his Master, the Creator of the Universe.

What is more, the Jew does so, not out of compulsion or fear of a dictatorial master to whom he has no choice but to submit, but rather with rejoicing, with songs of praise. He lights candles, dresses in his best, and partakes of festive meals, to celebrate the fact that his nation has been appointed to serve as testimony to G-d's role as Creator. Not only on the seventh does the Jew acknowledge his indebtedness to his Master. The lesson of Shabbat remains engraved upon his heart as he toils for his livelihood during the six workdays that follow.

We might compare the situation to the case of the magnate, Rockman, who assigns David Copper to manage his iron foundry. “You'll be given everything you and your family need, plus a good salary,” Rockman assures his new manager. “There is just one condition which I stipulate. Under no circumstances, no matter how extenuating, may you allow the plant to be open on Saturdays. By Friday evening, the premises must be vacated, the machinery at a standstill, and the doors locked. Is that clear?”

Given such orders, it would not even occur to Cooper to keep the foundry open on a Saturday. It is not his property, and he is not free to do with it as he wishes. His task is to fulfill the instructions issued by the owner. By closing down the factory on Saturdays, Cooper acknowledges that he is not the proprietor, but has merely been appointed by the owner to operate the foundry on his behalf.

G-d is the Owner, not of our plant, but of our planet, of the entire Universe.  Each week, the Jew acknowledges Him as Owner and Master by refraining from creative work, as per the instructions He has given us in His manual for interacting with our world.  Each week, we again don our Shabbat best, we gather around the festive table to the glow of the candles, and renew our pledge of fealty to Him who commanded us: "And the People of Israel shall keep the Shabbat, to make the Shabbat an eternal covenant for their generations..."  (Exodus 31:16).