We sleep, we eat, we relax our limbs and our minds in order that we may be nourished and fit for further work. And if all that we are is work, what are we? We work in order to gain food to swallow or a pillow to press our head into. And we eat and sleep in order to work. We are machines, doing nothing more than reproducing ourselves endlessly. But Shabbat shows us that this is not so. Shabbat is not a day of recreation, of pastimes, it is a day of abstention from creativity. It is a day of treading lightly upon the world.
