The Sanctification of Time:

A Review of Abraham Joshua Heschel’s The Sabbath

Mallory Bowen
DI1009: Introduction to World Religions
February 24, 2017

As the oldest of the three Abrahamic religions, Judaism places an enormous

weight on time. All of the Jewish tradition is structured around significant events.
From the day the Israelites left Egypt to the expectation of the day the messiah

comes, Jewish beliefs are tied up in days.1 While these events hold significant

meaning for the Jews, they refuse to make a distinction between the holiness of an

event and the day it occurred on. Any notion of historicity in Judaism is simply part

of the “architecture of time” constructed by the essence of each day in relation to

another.2 The ancient Hebrew texts lack any word that would allow for the

separation of time from events.3 The essence of a holy day, such as the Sabbath, is

divine because it was anointed by God at creation.4

Judaism has a complex relationship with the seventh day. Jewish scholars

have published countless volumes about the Sabbath. Millions of Jews sit down to

Shabbat dinner each Friday evening. The aforementioned occurrences beg the

question of how one 25-hour span came to hold such a robust audience. According

to the esteemed Jewish theologian Abraham Joshua Heschel, “Judaism is a religion of

time aiming at the sanctification of time.”5 In his book, The Sabbath, Heschel explains

that the Judaic view of time and its sanctification is epitomized in a Jew’s

observation of the Sabbath. Heschel describes dual distinct ways the holy day fosters

sanctity: by freeing her people from the bondage of thinghood and heralding the

coming of eternity.

1
Heschel, Abraham Joshua. The Sabbath: Its meaning for modern man. (New York,
NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005), 7.
2
Heschel, 8.
3
Rad, Gerhard Von. Old Testament Theology: The theology of Israel's prophetic
traditions. (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001), 100.
4
Heschel, 8.
5
Heschel, 8.
 The technical nature of modern civilization finds sanctity in the acquisition of

space at the expense of time.6 As a result, modern man is nearly incapable of

assigning value to anything he cannot see. An inability to inhabit space renders the

metaphysical useless, if not illusory, to modern man. The insatiable desire of modern

man for the world of thinghood leads to the skewing of one’s view of the sacred. If all

meaning resides in space, then any conception of God arises from the finitude of

thinghood.7 A God that is a derivative of space is a prisoner to his own creation.

The Sabbath provides freedom from the bondage of thinghood, and banishes

man’s limiting of the Divine by sanctifying time rather than space.8 Traditionally, the

God of Israel was known as the God of Events.9 It is for this emphasis on time that

Heschel calls Sabbaths “our great cathedrals.”10 As a cathedral’s spire serves to

reorient a churchgoer’s gaze upward, so the Sabbath draws the Jew back into the

reality of time. In this Jewish reality time bestows significance to things, rather than

vice versa.11

The sentiment of freedom from thinghood would have been a completely

foreign concept for the community of which Judaism emerged. Judaism arose during

the Bronze Age when technical civilizations were taking form.12 The Judaic concept

of a mandated day of rest would have been inexplicable to the surrounding

space-oriented culture of that time. The differences between Jewish values and

6
Heschel, 3.
7
Heschel, 5.
8
Heschel, 6.
9
Gordon, R. P. The God of Israel. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007),224.
10
Heschel, 8.
11
Heschel, 6.
12
Kaiser, Walter C., Jr. History of Israel. Nashville, TN: B&H Publishing Group, 2010.
those of their surrounding culture forced Jews to further consider their relation to

technical civilization. The philosophy of the Sabbath encompasses the Jewish

adjacency to secular culture. The Sabbath does not symbolize a rejection of technical

civilization but rather an assertion of the supremacy of time over space.13 The

assertion of the supremacy of time over space points to a key theme in the Judaic

effort to sanctify time: the separation of the temporal from the eternal.

For the Jew, time is above space. Everything spatial is lost with the simple act

of closing the eyes, but time cannot be stopped.14 Time is the fullest metaphor Jews

have for God. While space can be changed and developed, time is unable to be

manipulated by man. Time belongs exclusively to God. Therefore the Sabbath is the

ultimate reminder that the world does not belong to man, and that man ought not to

be oriented around the temporal.15 Heschel writes, “The likeness of God can be

found in time, which is eternity in disguise.”16 Heschel’s connection of time to God

makes the sanctification of time an ultimate concern. When a Jew is concerned with

time, he is in reality dealing with the Divine. Henceforth, the observation of the

Sabbath becomes the Jew’s ultimate expression of devotion to God, and an

encounter with eternity. The six days leading up to the Sabbath are oriented

completely around space, while the seventh remains as a symbol of eternity.17

One of the principle tenets of the Jewish faith, the belief in eternity, hinges on

the idea that there is a time beyond the one man is currently faced with.

13
Heschel, 27.
14
Heschel, 97.
15
Heschel, 99.
16
Heschel, 16.
17
Heschel, 6.
Furthermore, all time emanates from eternity.18 While there is differentiation

between sects of Judaism, many Jews view their lives on earth as preparation for

eternity. The Judaic emphasis on eternity alludes to some concrete idea upon which

the Jews fix their eyes. However, the closest any Jew can come to an understanding

of eternity, the focal point of their lives, is the Sabbath. The Talmud declares the

seventh day to be of the same flavor as eternity.19 Beyond what the Jew can know

about the Sabbath there is little to anchor their minds on regarding eternity. Despite

this fact, there is clarity upon one aspect of eternity: it resides within each Jew.20

With the seed of eternity in the heart of every Jew, the Sabbath takes on a

new weight of caring for others as well as the self. Observation of the Sabbath

therefore becomes the ultimate act of preparation for a Jew. There is a consensus

among many Jews that if one does not honor the Sabbath they will not be able to

experience the life to come. A Jew that ignores the Sabbath fails to grow the piece of

eternity within their soul and therefore rejects eternity.21 The significance of earthly

time is found in its relation to eternity. The Sabbath must therefore be the central

tenet of Judaism, for it is by the Sabbath that all else finds its purpose.

For many Jews, all of life is lived in anticipation of the next. Similarly, the

preceding six days of the week are seen as a pilgrimage towards the Sabbath.22 The

Jew moves through the week longing for the Sabbath as for a bride.23 According to

Judaic tradition the soul longs for the Sabbath, and the Sabbath for man as a bride

18
Heschel, 101.
19
Heschel, 74.
20
Heschel, 74.
21
Heschel, 74.
22
Heschel, 89.
23
Heschel, 53.
for her groom. At creation time was “one eternal” in the fullness of its holiness, but

God was forced to divide time to allow it to coexist with space.24 Time, the holiness

of God, was divided but God gave man the Sabbath. For that reason, the Sabbath is

when God’s people experience a restoration of the holy oneness of time. 25 In the

observance of the Sabbath, man and the seventh day are reunited as lovers on their

marriage day.

In Hebrew, there is no distinction between the word for marriage and the

word for sanctification.26 The act of observing the Sabbath is then an act of

sanctification. Unlike marriage however, the Sabbath remains holy regardless of the

presence of man.27 But as a bride the Sabbath longs for man in his absence. The

sanctification of the Sabbath is when oneness is restored and is therefore an

affirmation of holiness. The seventh day was the only creation God called holy. As the

only creation declared holy, the Sabbath is the single fount of holiness in the world.

At its essence, observation of Sabbath is an acknowledgement that all holiness is

from God who resides in the realm of time. Consequentially, the observation of the

Sabbath becomes the ultimate act of sanctifying time.

From Heschel’s vantage point the Sabbath is the fullest expression of what it

means to be a Jew. While the Sabbath is an essential part of the Jewish faith, critics

have refuted the intensity with which Heschel regards the Sabbath. Although,

Heschel does seem to take a rigorously orthodox approach to the observance of the

24
Heschel, 53.
25
Heschel, 52.
26
Heschel, 55.
27
Heschel, 82.
seventh day it is consistent with Judaic values he outlined previously. According to

Heschel, the Jews primary purpose is to sanctify time.

Upon first encounter, the concept of the sanctification of time seems rather

nebulous. However, when coupled with Heschel’s description of God as he relates to

space and time it becomes clear that an approach of the divine must be conducted

through time. The sanctification of time then becomes an act of setting apart the

holy from the temporal. The traditional Judaic observation of the Sabbath begins

with the ritual of the HAVDALAH, which is translated as an act of separation.28 As

Heschel iterates throughout his book, the Sabbath is the day on which every Jew is

reminded of the sanctity of the seventh day over all other time. Therefore the

Sabbath is first and foremost a ritual act of separation.

Ritual is a fundamental part of subscribing to most religions. Judaism takes

the honoring of ritual especially seriously. Within Judaism ritual is seen as the

honoring of time, man, and space. Each of these objects is sanctified, respectively,

according to the order in which they were created. It is only through ritual that man

could honor something as abstract as time. The ritual act of resting the body in

observation of the Sabbath clears the way for the spirit to encounter the Divine.

Jewish historian Jacob Neusner writes, “We do not have faith in deeds; we attain

faith through deeds.”29 Ritual acts are therefore a way of attaining faith. The ritual

makes way for holy encounters within the sanctity of time.

28
World Heritage Encyclopedia, comp. "HAVDALAH." World Journals. Database of
Academic Research Journals.
29
Neusner, Jacob. Understanding Jewish theology: classical issues and modern
perspectives. (Binghamton, NY: Global Publicaitons, 2001), 100.
 From the vantage point of efficiency-oriented culture the Judaic perspective

on the ritual observance seems arbitrary. Furthermore, Heschel’s instruction to

abstain from all negative emotion in addition to work initially appears overly

ascetic.30 However, his strict invocations are validated with the consideration of the

significance of ritual to the Judaic tradition. With the knowledge of man’s relation to

time and space, Heschel’s argument for the observance of the Sabbath is the only

logical progression for the acting out of Jewish beliefs. The spirit needs the body to

be at rest so that man may grow nearer to divine presence; the Sabbath is the fullest

manifestation of this belief.

Regardless of the significance of the Sabbath being anointed at creation,

Heschel’s emphasis on ritual in his presentation of the Sabbath provides an ideal

metaphor for honoring God’s sovereignty. The Sabbath was presented to man at

creation as a gift from God, but it is also a reminder that God is the great giver of the

gift; the world is not man’s own. While the Sabbath blesses man, the ritual

observance of the Sabbath is also a blessing to God.31

Heschel’s book gives a concise presentation of the multitude of meaning

contained in the Sabbath. The Sabbath’s role as a source of freedom from space as

well as a reminder of the coming of eternity provides the groundwork for an

understanding of the Sabbath as a force of sanctification. When man departs from

the realm of space he is left with time, the realm in which God speaks, and oneness

with God is reestablished. Heschel’s regard for the Sabbath as a representation of

the restoration of the oneness of God and Israel revitalizes the meaning of the day,

30
Heschel, 68.
31
Heschel, 54.
allowing it to be again a great catalyst in the sanctification of time within the Judaic

tradition.

Bibliography

Gordon, R. P. The God of Israel. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.

Heschel, Abraham Joshua. The Sabbath: Its meaning for modern man. New York, NY:
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005.

Kaiser, Walter C., Jr. History of Israel. Nashville, TN: B&H Publishing Group, 2010.

Neusner, Jacob. Understanding Jewish theology: classical issues and modern

perspectives. (Binghamton, NY: Global Publicaitons, 2001), 100.

Rad, Gerhard Von. Old Testament Theology: The theology of Israel's prophetic
traditions. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001.

World Heritage Encyclopedia, comp. "HAVDALAH." World Journals. Database of

Academic Research Journals.