Can Non Jews Keep Shabbat? What Judaism Says

When I went to rabbinical school 45 years ago, I never anticipated that I'd be answering lots of questions from people who are not Jewish, but I am. One of the most frequent questions I receive is about whether non-Jews can observe the Sabbath. The idea that this is even a question takes many people aback. Part of the problem stems from the fact that their concept of what it means to observe the Sabbath often has no congruence with the Torah's concept of what Shabbat observance is all about. A rabbi that I know once explained to a non-Jew that our New Year's, our celebration of Rosh Hashanah, of New Year's lasts for two days and the fellow couldn't believe his ears. How do you guys do it? I have a hard enough time surviving just one day, just January 1st. I can hardly stand up the next day. Obviously this person's vision of New Year's was partying very, very hard with lots and lots of drinking and he couldn't imagine doing that for two straight days. And the rabbi explained that actually we spend our two days of New Year's primarily in a synagogue, praying. Now before getting into what the Shabbat entails, let's first make two introductory observations. Number one, the biblical institution of the Sabbath, the observance of the Sabbath is mentioned in Exodus chapter 20 verses 8 to 11 in the Aseret Hadibrot, the 10 statements at Mount Sinai commonly referred to as the Ten Commandments. Whenever scripture is read, you have to always be attentive to who is speaking and who is being addressed. Even a superficial reading of this passage of the Ten Commandments clearly reveals that it is God who is speaking and he is speaking to the people of Israel. These commandments are simply not addressed to all of humanity. It is critical to understand that the observance of the Sabbath was never mandated for all people. It was a commandment given to the people of Israel. And there is absolutely no obligation for non-Jews to observe the Sabbath. Secondly, Exodus chapter 31 verses 16 and 17 goes even further. I'm going to read what it says in this passage. It says, The children of Israel shall observe the Shabbat to make the Shabbat an eternal covenant for their generations. Between me and the children of Israel, it is a sign forever that in a six-day period the Lord made heaven and earth and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed. Now this passage speaks about the Sabbath as something intimate between God and Israel, a special sign between the Creator and the Jewish people. For non-Jews to simply appropriate this special intimate sign for themselves is considered inappropriate. It's almost a kind of theft, if you will. Imagine a very wealthy man who over the years has bought his wife lots and lots of jewelry and she comes to her husband one day to ask him if it would be okay for her to lend one of her many necklaces to her very, very good friend who wanted to wear the necklace at a fancy reception. The husband would probably have no problem with that, but this woman would never even think about asking her husband if she could lend her friend her wedding ring. There are certain things that are not for everyone. The Shabbat is like a wedding ring between God and Israel and not something that others can appropriate as their own. So we return to our question, can any kind of Sabbath observance be okay for non-Jews? Before we discuss this, it's necessary at this point to explain what exactly is Sabbath observance? What does it mean to observe the Sabbath? As I mentioned before, it may not correspond to what many non-Jewish people assume it is. As you know, there are two versions of the Ten Commandments in the Torah and they are pretty similar, but not exactly the same. Exodus chapter 20 verse 8 says, Remember the Sabbath day to sanctify it or to make it holy. But then in Deuteronomy chapter 5 verse 12, it doesn't say, Safeguard the Sabbath day to sanctify it. So the text has two critical words for how we are to observe the Sabbath. Remember the Sabbath day and safeguard the Sabbath day. The problem is, what do these mean? Someone who reads the Bible and just sees these two words doesn't necessarily know exactly how to implement these two words. So how are we to understand remember and safeguard? So basically, the idea of remembering the Sabbath day is understood as referring to the positive commandment, the positive commandment to do various things to make the Sabbath a special day. And this might include lighting candles, having special family meals, devoting special time to prayer and Torah study, wearing special clothing, bringing flowers into the home. There are many things that we do to make the Sabbath a special day. What is meant by safeguarding the Sabbath? This is understood to refer to the Shabbat restrictions, the Shabbat prohibitions, things that are forbidden on the Sabbath. There are 12 times, 12 times in the Torah where we are forbidden to do on the Sabbath. The Torah says that you are forbidden to do on the Sabbath. Now, this is an unusual word. It's not the Hebrew word for work. The Torah never says you cannot do work on the Sabbath. The Torah says you cannot do milacha on the Sabbath. Just as an aside, even had the Torah said don't do work on the Sabbath, that would be far from clear in terms of what that means. It would not be very clear what it means. But the Torah never says that. The Torah says you cannot do milacha on the Sabbath. So what is this prohibition? What does it mean not to do milacha on the Sabbath? There's only one other place in the Torah where this word appears, and it appears in the context of describing the construction of the tabernacle in the desert after the people of Israel left Egypt. And according to the Oral Torah, which really explains everything in the written text of the Torah, almost nothing in the written Torah is self-understood. When the written Torah tells us to put a sign upon our arm and totafot between our eyes, no one on the planet knows what that means. It's the Oral Torah that explains that, that explains what it means to afflict your soul on Yom Kippur. Everything in the Torah is understood through the lens of the remainder of what God revealed. God never intended for all of his revelation to be written down. So the Oral Torah explains that on Shabbat, we are forbidden to engage in any of the activities that were done in the construction of the tabernacle. In practice, this involves 39 conceptual categories of activity that breaks down into many restricted activities that derive from the kinds of activities that were engaged in in building the tabernacle. People converting to Judaism spend many months learning all of these prohibited activities. Some of them include, just as a short menu, far from complete, not cooking, not writing, not gardening, not sewing, not using our phones or radios or computers or cars, not turning lights on or off, not handling objects that cannot be used on Shabbat, not turning on or off the heat or air conditioners, not carrying anything from inside one's residence to outside or bringing anything from outside indoors, washing clothing, sewing, repairing things, cutting our hair, cutting our nails, and countless other prohibited actions. My experience has been that when non-Jews think about the Sabbath, they generally associate it with the positive activities that I mentioned, and not these kinds of restrictions. As a matter of fact, when many non-Jewish people hear about these restrictions, they recoil. They say, that must be a day of torture. It turns out that according to Torah law, non-Jews are allowed to honor the Sabbath. They just cannot observe the Sabbath. What does this mean? It means in practice that they can do the positive things that make Shabbat a special day, but they should not assume all of the Sabbath restrictions that fall under the general category of safeguarding the Shabbat. Now, what is interesting is that we see this distinction in the different versions of the Ten Commandments. Exodus chapter 20 speaks of remembering the Sabbath day to make it holy, and in this version of the Ten Commandments, the purpose of the Sabbath is described and associated with remembering that God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh. This is something that is certainly relevant to non-Jews, and therefore, remembering the Sabbath day to sanctify it, or what we could call honoring the Sabbath with positive activities to make it a special day, is fine, is legitimate for non-Jews. However, in the Deuteronomy chapter 5 version of the Ten Commandments, which speaks about safeguarding the Sabbath by not engaging in various activities, which is the prohibition against Melachah, the reason given for the Sabbath there is different. Now, the reason is to remember that we were slaves in Egypt and that God liberated us. This clearly does not apply to non-Jews and would be one of the reasons that the Sabbath restrictions are not relevant and not for non-Jews. To summarize, there are two aspects to Shabbat observance. Non-Jews, should they desire, may honor the Sabbath by engaging in positive activities that mark the Shabbat as a special day commemorating God's creation of the world. And then there are the Sabbath restrictions, safeguarding the Sabbath, which are also associated with the special relationship between God and Israel. And this is the part of Shabbat that should not be appropriated by non-Jews.