Immigration Series; Session 1: Immigration and The Sabbath

Author: Bojidar Marinov

Narrator: Bojidar Marinov

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Immigration and the Sabbath

Hear, O Israel, the statutes and the ordinances which I am speaking today in your hearing, that you may learn them and observe them carefully. The LORD our God made a covenant with us at Horeb. The LORD did not make this covenant with our fathers, but with us, with all those of us alive here today. The LORD spoke to you face to face at the mountain from the midst of the fire, while I was standing between the LORD and you at that time, to declare to you the word of the LORD; for you were afraid because of the fire and did not go up the mountain.

In the first chapters of Deuteronomy, Moses was standing in front of Israel, in the wilderness of the desert (literally), with the purpose of repeating the Law of God to the sons and daughters of the second generation of Israelites. These were not the actual slaves who came out of Egypt. These were not the people who actually stood under the mountain, who watched God speak from the Mountain, who rebelled against Moses, who wanted to go back to Egypt. His listeners in the wilderness beyond Jordan either had been born after God made the covenant with Israel, or were too young to understand what had happened under Sinai. The actual slaves were dead. As God vowed, not a single one of them would enter the Promised Land, not even Moses. With two exceptions, of course: The two men who 40 years before that defied their fear, defied the slave mentality developed after several generations of slavery, and called Israel to enter the Promised Land and take dominion over it: Joshua (an Israelite) and Caleb (a Kennezite, a foreigner of Canaanitic origin). The time period separating the two events is the same time period separating us today from President Nixon’s resignation in the Watergate Scandal; except that, there were no news agencies nor multimedia online storage facilities to keep the memory alive. Everyone among these listeners knew about Sinai from his parents and from the collective memory of the whole community. But none of them were really there, except for two men.

And yet, Moses told them that the covenant God made on the Mount Sinai was made with them, not with their parents. After which he proceeded to repeat to them the same Ten Commandments he gave their fathers. Well, not exactly the same. There was a slight change in the Commandments. Or, not so slight. The change was in the Fourth Commandment. Or rather, in the legal and logical foundation for the Fourth Commandment.

The text of the Fourth Commandment God gave to the previous generation was,

Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath of the LORD your God; in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female servant or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you. For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day and made it holy (Ex. 20:8-11).

But to the children he changed the reasoning:

Observe the sabbath day to keep it holy, as the LORD your God commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath of the LORD your God; in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter or your male servant or your female servant or your ox or your donkey or any of your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you, so that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you. You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God brought you out of there by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm; therefor...