The Sabbath Way: Finding the Rest Your Soul Craves by Travis Westಮಾದರಿ

Sabbath Reconnects You to Your Truest Self

Exodus 23:12 and 31:17 each contain a rare and important verb in Biblical Hebrew: naphash.[KL1] It translates roughly to “be refreshed,” but the meaning is much more profound than that. To understand the verb, though, we must first understand the related noun nephesh, one of the most significant words in the Hebrew Bible.

Nepheshis the closest Hebrew equivalent to the idea of a “true self.” It can be translated as “throat” or “life-breath”; as one’s “personality,” “being,” “life,” or “self”; as one’s “soul”; even as “the members of one’s household.” All that in one word! Nephesh is one’s essence, shaped by one’s body and intimate relationships. Contrasting with the English word soul, you do not have a nephesh, you are a nephesh.

Back to the verb. Scholar Nahum M. Sarna describes naphash as conveying “a fresh infusion of spiritual and physical vigor, the reinvigoration of the totality of one’s being.” What a remarkable word! We need a word like that in English. Exodus 23:12 and 31:17 pair this word with Sabbath practice, which suggests that the Sabbath “re-nepheshes” us. By inviting us to cease from our labors—and all the rushing, busyness, stress, worry, and shame that makes us feel “so distant from the hope of [ourselves],” as poet Mary Oliver puts it—the Sabbath makes room for us to remember who and whose we are.

The passages in Exodus say more than this, though. In Exodus 31:17, naphash describes God’s experience of Sabbath. Somehow, mysteriously, God is re-nepheshed on the Sabbath! Exodus 23:12 identifies “foreigners and slaves” as those for whom the Sabbath is intended to “re-nephesh.” In other words, the disenfranchised, those living on the margins of society with little to no social or economic power and few legal rights. Exodus says Sabbath joy is their birthright too, as much as it was the birthright of Moses and the elders of Israel (see Deuteronomy 5:14). One’s economic and social conditions do not determine whether one is “worthy” of Sabbath. All are worthy of Sabbath, for it is the birthright of all creation. It isn’t earned through labor or status but is freely given by God to all. This is a radical teaching!

So much of Jesus’ ministry took place on Sabbath days to draw our attention to Sabbath’s transformational power. In Mark 2, Jesus healed on the Sabbath to demonstrate that healing and wholeness are at the heart of a Sabbath life and that rest, just like healing, is a gift we cannot earn. Jesus wanted to reorient Sabbath observance from a mechanism of control, perfection, and spiritual status to an experience of delight, abundance, and belonging.

Each of these passages connect Sabbath to justice. Sabbath exposes inequities in the social and economic fabric of our world. The reality of our world is that those who most stand in need of “a fresh infusion of spiritual and physical vigor” are the least likely to be able to afford taking a day off each week. It also clarifies the work the rest of us are called to do. For those of us who can Sabbath, we must remember, as Rob Muthiah puts it, “We can never enter the fullest Sabbath rest until all our brothers and sisters around the world are able to rest as well. Until then, our rest is provisional.”