Shabbos Day or Saturday?

(8) Remember the sabbath day and keep it holy. (9) Six days you shall labor and do all your work, (10) but the seventh day is a sabbath of the LORD your God: you shall not do any work—you, your son or daughter, your male or female slave, or your cattle, or the stranger who is within your settlements.

(1) מועדי יקוק אשר תקראו אותם מקראי קודש, after the Torah had spoken on the subject of the animal offerings and the people offering them whose purpose it is to ensure that the Shechinah rests in/over the people of Israel. Compare Exodus 29,42 עולת תמיד לדורותיכם, פתח אהל מועד לפני יקוק אשר אועד לכם שמה; “a regular burnt offering throughout the generations, at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting before the Lord.” The Torah spoke of the festivals, days on which one abstains from the pursuit of secular matters. On some of these days one has to abstain from such activities completely, on others only partially. For instance, on the Sabbath as well as on the Day of Atonement there is a total cessation of everything which is called מלאכה, work, in the sense of a productive activity. These days are meant for us to occupy ourselves exclusively with Torah and other sacred tasks. To this effect the Torah wrote (Exodus 20,9-10) “you shall labour for six days and conduct all your activities, whereas the seventh day is a Sabbath of the Lord your G’d.” On that day your activities should concern spiritual matters. On some of the days described as holy convocations there is a partial prohibition of work, desisting basically from the kind of activity related to the kind of labour involved in earning one’s livelihood. One is to enjoy these days. Concerning such days, our sages coined the phrase חציה ליקוק וחציה לכם, “half for G’d and half for you.” (Pessachim 68) There is no doubt that when the Jewish people conduct themselves in this fashion that the Divine Presence will be at home among them. Assaph expressed this thought in Psalms 82,1 which commences with the words אלוקים נצב בעדת א-ל וגו', “G’d stands in the divine assembly. Among the divine beings He pronounces judgment.” The meaning of the word מקראי קודש when applied to the days the Torah calls מועדי יקוק אשר תקראו אותם מקראי קודש is: “days of assembles of the people for sacred undertakings.” The word מקרא refers to an assembly, just as the words שבת and חודש are understood as meaning assemblies both in Isaiah 1,13 and Isaiah 4,5

(2) אלה הם מועדי, “these are the appointed dates on which I will demonstrate My pleasure in your company.” If you were to treat these dates as ordinary days, week days, they would turn from being מקראי קודש to מקראי חול assemblies devoted exclusively to the transient life on earth and the physical pleasures people want to experience in this life. They would then not be מועדי, “My appointed times,” but would turn into מועדיכם שנאה נפשי, “your appointed times, the ones My soul detests.” (same chapter in Isaiah 1,14)

(4) In the lavatory it is forbidden to think about Torah matters (as is stated later, Chapter 5 par. 2). Therefore while you are there, it is best to think of business affairs and accounts in order not to think of Torah or God forbid indulge in sinful thoughts. On Shabbos, when it is forbidden to think of business you should think of interesting events that you saw or heard.

(1) 1. The Laws of Shabbat as it relates to Speech, 22 Seifim:“Ve’daber davar” (teaches us) that one’s manner of speech on Shabbos must not be the same as one’s manner of speech on a weekday. Therefore, it is prohibited to say 'I will do such and such tomorrow' or 'I will purchase this and this merchandise tomorrow'. Even idle talk should be curbed. RAMA: People who enjoy hearing stories or the latest news may speak these things on Shabbos but one who does not enjoy them may not speak them for the sake of giving pleasure to someone else.

Shabbos is the day of the soul, not the day of the body”

The Holy One, Blessed be He, said to Moses: I have a good gift in My treasure house and Shabbat is its name, and I seek to give it to Israel. Go inform them about it.

Who apportions rest to His people Yisrael, in His holiness on the holy Shabbos Day.

(1) REMEMBER THE SABBATH DAY TO KEEP IT HOLY... God sanctified this day and prepared it so that the souls would receive an infusion of wisdom above that of the other days. That is why Scripture states the Lord blessed [the sabbath day]... Now the Sabbath was given for understanding the works of God and the study of His Torah. Scripture thus states, For Thou, Lord, hast me glad through Thy work (Ps. 92:5). A person is occupied with his needs all the days of the week. However, it is only right that he separate himself on the Sabbath and rest for the sake of God’s glory. He should not occupy himself with vanity by spending his time seeking advice, even if it concerns his past needs. He should similarly not seek counsel about what he should do in the future.

The meaning of l’kadsho (to keep it holy) is that our remembrance of it should be to the end that it be holy to us, just as He said, and call the Sabbath a delight, the sacred of the Eternal honorable. The purport of this is that the resting thereon should be ours because it is a holy day, [which enables us] to turn away from our mental preoccupations and the vanities of the times and instead to give delight to our souls in the ways of G-d, and go to the Sages and to the prophets to hear the words of G-d.

HALAKHAH: 3. Rebbi Berekhiah in the name of Rebbi Ḥiyya bar Abba: Sabbaths and holidays were given only for being occupied with words of the Torah. A baraita supports either one of them: What does one do? Either he sits down and eats or he sits and studies words of the Torah. One verse says, it is aSabbath for the Eternal, and another verse says, an assembly for the Eternal, your God. How is that? Give part of it to the study of Torah and part to eat and to drink. Rebbi Abbahu said, a Sabbath for the Eternal, rest like the Eternal. Since the Eternal rested from saying, you also should rest from saying.

All blessings, above and below, are dependent on the seventh day

Rabbi Yoḥanan said in the name of Rabbi Yosei: With regard to anyone who delights in the Shabbat, God gives him a boundless portion, i.e., a very large reward.

(1) THE ETERNAL BLESSED THE SABBATH-DAY, AND SANCTIFIED IT. The verse is stating that the Sabbath-day will be blessed and hallowed because He has commanded to bless it and glorify it by remembering it. Therefore, He commanded us to rest thereon so that the day will be sacred to us, and that we should not do any work on it. And Rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra wrote that G-d blessed this day and sanctified it by endowing it with a greater capacity to enable the soul to receive additional wisdom than on all of the other days.

(23) More than all that you guard, guard your mind,For it is the source of life.

The letters of b’simcha, they [spell out] machshava.

(2) You must know, that a man is acted upon according to his actions; and his heart and all his thoughts always follow after the actions that he does - whether good or bad.

One elevates to a higher level in matters of sanctity and one does not downgrade.

(4) But every man shall sitUnder his grapevine or fig treeWith no one to disturb him.For it was the LORD of Hosts who spoke.