Exodus 20:8
Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.
Some time ago, some labor union produced a bumper sticker urging us to “Support your labor union: the people who brought you the weekend.” The folks who dreamed up the ad campaign seem never to have heard of today’s verse. For, of course, it was God who invented the weekend. The idea of a Sabbath rest was unheard of in antiquity except among these strange Jews. For the pagan, life was work — always —except for the feast day now and then. Only Judaism had this glorious insistence that every seventh day must be dedicated to God in rest, contemplation and family jollification. It is a classic example of the way in which holiness and merriment are bound up together. Holidays come not from committees, but from holy days.
