Many people today reading this commandment might be shocked by the measures used to make people observe Shabbat – the death penalty. Are these measures truly appropriate for the failure in observing it? Is this an overreaction?
One thing is certain, if this law was truly and fully implemented within the tribal society of ancient Israelites the common Shabbat observance would surely have been very high – if the consequence was death no sane person would risk breaking Shabbat. Observing Shabbat was certainly less complex than after twenty centuries of rabbinic input. Based on the mere code of law, we have no way of knowing how this Torah commandment was executed at that time it was established. We don’t even know when it was exactly established. We can either believe in the traditional, rabbinical view that all the Torah laws were established at Mt. Sinai or, alternatively, we can believe in the modern historical theories that analyze the Bible more critically.
Let’s stay for a moment within a more or less traditional, religious view. Given what we know from the prophetic books of the Bible, from the period of Judges (around 1200 BCE) until the time of the Babylonian exile, the Israelites constantly turned themselves away from the Holy One. The prophetic literature shows Israel’s infidelity as often and common. Why? There were very few righteous kings in this time of Israel’s history who could lead the Jewish nation properly. Israelites constantly mixed with other nations and, not surprisingly, worshiped their Gods – Baal, Ashtarte and others. Given these circumstances it’s easy to guess that the average Shabbat observance among the Israelites was not particularly high and this should not be a surprise.
From the same books we know that the death toll among the Israelites caused by invasions of other nations and natural disasters was enormous. It is explicitly said in the Bible that all these events were divine punishments for turning away from God. But do you think those thousands, hundred thousands or even millions of Israelites, given the time frame, were punished for not observing Shabbat? The traditional prophetic theology view would answer ‘yes,’ since observing Shabbat has always been a crucial part of our religious observance.
The alternative, modern historical view says that the laws of the Torah, its stories, and the prophetic narratives were compiled, edited and likely altered by the Priestly caste between the last years of pre-exilic era until the post exilic era (600-500 BCE.) Why? There are two possible answers. The cynical answer is that it was done to strengthen the authority of the newly established ruling Priestly caste, after the exile. The answer I would like to believe is that it was necessary to solidify and unify the Israelites under the Jewish faith. Those radical measures were necessary for an enormous and deep social change after the ancient Israeli society experienced a catastrophe followed by a long-lasting and destructive crisis. These measures were justified by the prophetic theological view on history that implied that the disasters that came upon the Jewish nation were caused by the lack of proper religious observance.
Whether it was motivated by the particular partisan interest of the leadership or was divinely inspired action – in practice, is irrelevant. The fact is that the Priestly caste succeeded: idolatry among the Israelites ceased to be a problem in the Second Temple period. This also marks a significant change in the ancient Jewish mindset: the beginning of Jewish religious and ethical universalism. God ceased to be perceived as a local, tribal deity inhabiting a certain territory. God became a fully universal Judge and Lawgiver, not only for the Jewish people, but for the entire humanity.
I believe that these extreme measures, whenever they were actually fully implemented, were elements of a cultural war which the Jewish leadership waged against other nations and cultures, to establish the world order they believed God wanted them to establish for the Jewish people. The reality they were living in and the challenges they faced were incomparably different from those we experience now. They were living in a constant tribal war with other peoples of the Ancient Middle East where forms of universalism could be established only through the dominance of a local empire. They fought for a world without constant and destructive tribal wars or the dominance of brutal, oppressive empires that wanted to dominate all. They fought for the freedom and cultural independence of the Jewish people.
It seems that the fall of Jerusalem, the destruction of the First Temple and the following exile crucially helped the Jewish leadership to establish a new, positive social change in Israeli society. It is up to us how we use the crisis we all encounter today. The essence of crisis is that we don’t know where it will lead us. Our tradition, values and laws have helped us to go through much worse disasters and kept chaos at bay.
Observe Shabbat,
Shabbat shalom!
