Our Jewish tradition invented the idea of free time. Before Moses received the Torah on Mount Sinai, people did not understand what leisure was all about. They worked, and often forced their slaves to work until they dropped. People did have time off, but only by the proclamation of royalty, only because the king decided to have a party. Leisure was in the province of the wealthy and only happened to the poor by happenstance.

The Torah changed all that. First the Torah declared that all, even kings, must obey the law. The law was a way to utopia. Kings, at best, could improve the climate of work for the moment—but they were never tied to the moment and could change their minds and make what was a heaven into a hell at any particular time, and for no particular reason.

However, the Torah commanded that rich and poor, man and beast, and even field had the right to rest. A slaveholder did not have the authority to make his slave work when the Law said quite unequivocally that he did not have to work. A man did not have the authority to work his animals, his cows and sheep when he did not have to work.

Yet that law by itself was not sufficient. A man who did not work could still ruin his leisure with thoughts about work. Not working does not create leisure; not working can result in a waste of time. So the Torah commands us to make leisure time holy, to fill it with a meaning unknown during the work-a day week. On that day we are commanded to discover the world and to find God. On that day we are commanded not to do what is usual, but to do that which is unusual.

For the Jew holiness is found in the wonder we find about us, holiness is found in our ability to thank God for myriad blessings, and to recognize that the greatest of all blessings is our ability to take the time to give relevance and meaning to a world that is usually defined by work and work alone.

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