4. Remember to keep the Shabbat a Holy day for Yahuah: another tricky one! Let’s chat about it just before Shabbat :)
Seven is the perfect number, which represents Yahuah, while six is the number of man (as we were created on the sixth day). So that means that the perfect day to dedicate to Yahuah is obviously Sunday, right? Well, maybe not…
What we call Sunday is actually the first day of the week, this is the reason in the Middle East their ‘resting day’ is on Saturday. Sunday in Hebrew is Yom Rishon, which can be translated to ‘First Day’. In Arabic it follows the same logic with al’ahad. All the remaining days of the week in both Hebrew and Arabic follow the same rationale of first, second, third and so on.
And while In Portuguese the weekday names follow a similar logic than the one in Hebrew and Arabic (Segunda (second), Terca (Third), Quarta (Fourth) and so on), it’s curious to see that in Spanish - which is a very similar language - only Sábado and Domingo are the same. All the other weekday names are related to planets – Lunes, Martes, Miercoles, Jueves and Viernes.
Now, if we look further on the etymology of the weekdays names, in Portuguese and Spanish Saturday is ‘Sábado’, which is indeed a reference to Shabbat. We know that in Hebrew the seventh day is called Shabbat and in Arabic, Saturday is yawm alsabt, so you can see the root in the ‘Shabbat’ word.
In the Germanic countries, there is a rather interesting difference: while most of the people use the word Samstag, with its root on the Shabbat word, some regions in Germany also use ‘Sonnabend’, which would literally translate as ‘Sun Evening’. In English, the word used for the 7th day is ‘Saturday’ which is a reference to Saturn. Sunday in English is related to the Sun, in German likewise with their ‘Sonntag’ while Portuguese and Spanish the word is ‘Domingo’ which derives from ‘Dominicus’, or ‘Day of the Lord’.
Why am I bringing all this up?
It's important to remember that our current calendar follows the Solar year and is called Gregorian calendar, but the Israelite in their old Covenant followed the Lunisolar Calendar. The month for the ancient Hebrews started on the new moon, therefore, the weekdays were not fixed year after year.
According to the Roman Catholic church, Yahusha died on a Friday and resurrected on the following Sunday – reason we now have the ‘Dominicus’ on Sundays for most of the Christian religions. However, as hard as it feels to accept, the truth is that in the Bible there is no reference to the day of the week that Yahusha died or resurrected. The only thing we can know for sure is that He was the sacrificial Lamb of Passover of that specific year according to that moon calendar and resurrected three days later.
Let’s all remember that Yahusha (Jesus Christ) said himself that He was not here to destroy the Torah, but rather to fulfil it! He never said that the Shabbat should be celebrated on a Sunday instead of the Saturday, neither did any of the Apostles suggest any of this, so what happened?
Going back to the etymology, it’s crucial for us to pay attention to the names of things – we already discussed in the 3rd Commandment how names have power and energy.
SUN day: the fact that the most popular religion has their worship day on the day dedicated to the Sun should make us wonder. Why day of the Sun? Who decided it?
SATUR(n) day: Saturn in the occult is related to Satan and you don’t have to believe me, you can do your own research. But the point is, why did we change the ‘official’ Shabbat name to a homage to Saturn? I find it quite interesting :)
Now going back to the 4th Commandment, how can we celebrate Shabbat and make it a special day for our Father?
My personal take on this: You should make the seventh day of your week Holy. If you work on Saturday, it will be Sunday and if not, Saturday should be it. The fact is that there is one day that has to be dedicated to the Father, period. His day is a day of celebration, a day to read and discuss the Bible with your family, a day to turn off from work and cell phone and things that connect you to the materialistic world. It’s not possible with our inflexible modern calendar to follow the Shabbat of the ancient Israelite and what our Father is asking is that we make of our 7th day of the week a Holy day for Him and His glory.
The Jewish are more radical, but this is how I see we can make our Shabbats a special day for Yahuah:
DO NOT WORK! This is the most important part. That means no work in the garden, no cleaning the house, no grocery shopping and keeping cooking to a minimum...
Do not make other people work for you – that can be difficult, but we should basically avoid exchanging money during Shabbat, because even if you go to a restaurant, you are depending on someone to serve you and that would mean you are not respecting other people's Shabbat
Commit this day to study the Word for longer hours than the other days of the week
Be mindful of the surroundings and pay attention to messages from Yahuah. It has happened to me in more than one occasion to receive amazing insights during the Shabbat, but I will write more on that on a separate post
If you have kids, use this day for family discussions on the Bible and the parables of Yahusha
Avoid starting your fast during the Shabbat for it is a day to celebrate
From the Old Testament (also in the Quran and many other ancient cultures), it is also clear that the day starts when the sun sets and goes until the next sunset. This is the reason the Shabbat/yawm alsabt in the Middle East starts on Friday evening and ends on Saturday evening.
Why is this Commandment more important now than ever: Besides obeying a clear and fair command of our Creator, minding the Shabbat gives discipline to dedicate one day for prayer, for walking with the Father and mindful reflection on the Scriptures. For families, it is quality time without the countless distractions such as TV, Cell Phones, etc.
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