God is not in the things of space but in moments of time.
Abraham Joshua Heschel from “The Sabbath”
A long time ago, or perhaps an instant, before time even existed, there was nothing. Then there was a bang and then there was a universe. But the universe was mostly dust and the dust began to collect like it tends to do under your bed or behind your couch. And when enough dust collects one of two things happens. Either you suck it down the vacuum hose or it gets big enough to form stars. Less motivated dust balls form rocks which eventually become planets that get locked into orbit around one of the stars close by. And that’s where our story begins. And to this point, a vacuum hose has not been involved… yet.
One particular star and several rocks formed a band called “The Sun and the Solar System” and they kind of hung out together. One particular rock, the third one, developed a peculiar abnormality. When rocks get big enough, they create their own heat and when the circumstances were just exactly right on the third rock, the dust and the heat coughed up something that was later known as life. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.
First, we’ve got to talk about time. Now everyone knows the old riddle, “if a clock ticks in the wilderness and no one is there to turn the alarm off, does anyone get up?” That one always gets a big laugh at the Physics Department at Princeton. Exactly how long it took to for the bang and the dust and the star and the third rock to happen, no one knew at the time because there was no one there to tell the time. But strangely enough life happened and that’s where things got interesting.
Now life was hanging out on this rock and got bored so it tried something new and then there was different life. And then, for no particular reason, something new happened and then there was more life and then more life. And life was pretty good. After a minute or two of this, one piece of life looked at its reflection in a pool of water and said to itself, “Hmm, that’s me. What should I call myself? I know, Human Being.” And Human Being had fun naming all the other life. But the other life didn’t seem to care that it had a name and Human Being, having developed self-awareness and something called ego decided it must be better than all the other life. So Human Being began thinking about this and all sorts of other stuff because thinking was something Human Being got really good at.
One of the things that puzzled Human Being was just who made life happen. Of course, Human Being didn’t know about the bang at that point. All Human Being knew was that the big water seemed to separate the different rocks and the big lights in the sky seemed to have something to do with when it was light or dark outside. But Human Being was smart enough to know that someone or something else had to be behind this world, this Creation. And Human Being thought that the one who made Creation would be called The Creator and The Creator must live with the big lights in the sky. Now Human Being eventually came up with a lot of names for The Creator. One particular group decided that to name The Creator would be disrespectful, so they came up with a word no one could pronounce and sounded like that stuff in your throat that makes you cough when you tried to say it.
Anyway, no one knows exactly when and how The Creator decided to be introduced to Human Beings. Smart phones and GoPro cameras would not be invented for some 199,900 years and besides, no one knew how to write yet. So, Humans Beings told stories about The Creator. One story talked about how The Creator would meet Human Being in a garden in the cool of the evening and they would walk together. The story goes that as long as Human Being and The Creator walked together, there was balance in the world and life was good.
Now Human Beings were smart and thought about a lot of things. And they developed a peculiar trait in that they liked to be in control. Then two things happened. First Human Beings determined that some of them had more stuff than other Human Beings, and the those with more stuff wanted even more and the one with less stuff wanted the other Human Beings’ stuff.
The other thing that happened was that Human Beings invented technology. Human Beings invented tools that made it easier to dig holes and cut trees and then they built houses with the tools so that things could stay dry when water fell from the sky. Human Beings remembered walks in the Garden with The Creator but since there were houses to live in and trees to cut down with tools, Human Beings decided to build a house for The Creator where the Creator could live and be accessible when it was convenient. That way Human Beings could be in control. They never quite figured out that The Creator never actually lived in the house, but it was a really nice house.
By then, the number of Human Beings had grown to the point where a lot of them moved into cities. Cities were a bunch of houses with big walls around them to keep out horrible beasts and other Human Beings who looked different or had a different name for The Creator. The Human Beings decided it would be better if one of them told everyone else what to do so they invented kings. Sometimes one king would decide that another king’s city had nicer houses, or it was closer to the big water. So, the one king would send a bunch of Human Beings over to the other king’s city they would set about killing each other. That was when Human Beings invented war.
Human Beings invented a new thing that truly changed the world. They invented Industry, which led to another thing that changed the world. That was something called Work. The way industry works is like this. One Human Being was better at building houses and another Human Being was really good at making tools. So Tool Maker made tools for House Builder to build houses. Other Human Beings grew corn and others made juice out of grapes. This juice they called wine and it was very popular with the other Human Beings. They decided that everyone could specialize and share their skills for the benefit of other Human Beings. This was called an Economy. The king was in charge of the Economy but the king was too busy with king stuff to do any of the work.
Now an Economy has to have a way for Tool Maker to get something of value in return for giving tools to Farmer or House Builder. The king figured the best way to do that was to make small pieces of shiny yellow metal with the king’s picture on them and that way, the shiny metal could be traded between Human Beings for corn, and tools, houses, and grape juice. Some Human Beings learned how to get more pieces of shiny metal than others and they could have nicer houses and more grape juice. Of course, the king had more shiny metal than anyone. And the king’s house was bigger than everyone else’s and not only that, the king had a house to live in when it was summer and a house to live in when it was winter and a house to conduct business and a house to hold all the Human Beings that it took to run the Economy. The king also had a group of Human Beings who had very special tools. It was their job to make sure the king was protected from everyone else who wanted to take what king had. This group was called the Army and they made war with other kings. When one king captured another king’s city, they invented the kingdom and some kingdoms got really really big because some kings were really good at making war.
Here is how the kingdoms worked. All the Human Beings were split up into different groups. There is the king and the Human Beings who ran the kingdom. They were called the Ruling Class. Then there were the Industrialists and Merchants who made and sold the tools and houses. Then there were the Working Class who did all the work. And there were the Poor, who could not work and earn any shiny metal pieces. The king had to make sure the Workers worked hard and the Poor didn’t get something they didn’t deserve so the Army used their tools to keep control. Life for the workers was not good. They had to work all day everyday just to get enough shiny metal to feed their families. And if they got hurt or too old to work, they became Poor. Some of these Human Beings remembered the stories of how The Creator (remember The Creator?) walked with them in the cool of the evening and they began to long for the return of those times. But the more they complained about having time to spend with The Creator, the more the king would make them work and it got worse and worse.
What happened next was an epic tale involving heroes and villains and armies and locusts and blood and killing. It is a story better told by another who was there at the time. In the end, the story was about a group of Human Beings who remembered through their folklore a time when they knew The Creator. It was a time of balance. It was a time when Human Beings were one with the process of Creation and knew their place as the caretakers of the Creator’s garden.
Now when the Human Beings arrived in the Creation, they were given gifts unique to their kind. No other creatures were given these particular gifts. One of these gifts was self-awareness. Another was to the ability to love. Another was an awareness of the presence of The Creator and finally, perhaps the greatest gift of all, the ability to choose, which is something called free will. The story goes that The Creator so loved the Creation made Human Beings so The Creator could enjoy a relationship with the Creation. These special gifts were an important part of this because The Creator knew that a true relationship had no value if it was forced upon the Human Beings. But The Creator took a great risk in giving these gifts because they each had a downside. The gift of free will meant that Human Beings could choose not to have a relationship with The Creator, which is why they invented kings in the first place. The gift of Love also came with the ability to hate. And the gift of self-awareness meant that Human Beings knew that one day they would die, which in turn made life very precious.
The Creator lives outside the Creation in a reality called Eternity. The Creation exists in a reality called Space and Time. In order for a relationship to work, there had to be a way for The Creator to connect with the Creation. The Creator knew that to enter Space and Time would violate the integrity of Creation itself so there had to be a way for Human Beings to encounter The Creator that did not involve a physical presence. The only solution was to meet at the boundary of Eternity, which was Time. This was hard for Human Beings to understand because they were used to meeting each other in spaces. Their concept of reality was based more on Space and less on Time. They developed the ability to control and master Space but Time was a mystery.
Human Beings did learn how to measure Time. They discovered seasons and phases of the moon and they knew how to measure a day. To do this, they invented numbers. They learned that the moon changed about 12 times in between seasons, which they called a year. They learned that there tended to be about 28 days between full moons, which they called a month. And they figured out that a period of 7 days created 4 cycles of time within the month, which they called a week. The measure of Time fit nicely into a rhythm of life that was predictable and repeatable. In fact, Creation was set up to run that way and the Human Beings were pretty astute to figure it out. But time was still outside their control and their ability to master it. And so, that is how they had to meet The Creator, at the boundary to Eternity, which was not a place but a time. This revelation was accompanied with the discovery of irony.
Now at the time, Human Beings had not invented Astrophysics yet, so all this Space and Time stuff was really confusing. The Creator gave Human Beings another gift called Sabat. The idea of Sabat was to set aside Time and to make that Time holy so that nothing would interfere with a moment when Human Beings could encounter The Creator. This Holy Time would involve rest and reflection. It meant that everything Human Beings did to control Space would cease for a day so they could enjoy the presence of The Creator. Work was good. Work was how Human Beings learned more about the Space and Time reality they lived in, revealing more about the Creation itself. But when Human Beings work to the point where they get out of balance in their relationship with the Creator, bad things start to happen. The work becomes more and more important and before a generation passes, Human Beings would forget their relationship with their Creator altogether. Then REALLY bad things start to happen. Having invented years and months and weeks, it made sense that the right period of time to set aside for Sabat was one day a week. And it worked! As long as Human Beings honored the gift of Sabat, they lived in harmony with the Creation and with each other. But when the management and control of Space took back the Time for Sabat, balance and harmony were broken. And so for a many generations, Sabat became a regular part of the lives of this particular group of Human Beings.
This is the story of how the gift of Sabat came into Creation. What happened after that is another story for another time.
Be well, do good, walk humbly,
Copyright 2019 Shawn A. Carson
wildsabbath.com 