Negative Mitzvah 320: It is forbidden to work on Shabbat
Exodus 20:10 "You shall not do any manner of work"

Before the first Shabbat of the world, HaShem completed His work of creation.

Everything had been created during the first six days and He declared Shabbat a holy day of rest.

HaShem wants us to rest from our weekday work, too.

He commanded us to keep the Shabbat holy and not do any work.

What work is forbidden?

What one person may find a fun hobby, another may view as a tedious job.

What does HaShem define as work?

The Torah defines thirty-nine forbidden activities which are called "Melachah" - work - and which may not done on the Shabbat.

Using those rules as a base, our Rabbis have taught us a code of laws instructing us how to keep Shabbat.

We are not allowed to do any of those activities which the Torah considers to be Melachah on Shabbat.

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To grasp at knowing how we are to our Creator:

Meditate upon the ray of light that pierces through a window on a sunny day -- and imagine how that ray exists engulfed within its source, the sun. So too, are the cosmos a nothingness absorbed within their Source, the Infinite Light.

Imagine the entire universe as a stream of conscious thought, and imagine how a single thought exists in its place of birth, within the depths of a Supernal Subconscious, a place before words, before things, where there is only One.

We created beings cannot perceive the Source with our flesh eyes, and so we see a world. But to the Source there is no being, no entity, only the Infinite Light.

Yes, we are here. But in the Higher Reality, there is nothing else but Him.

From: Bringing Heaven Down to Earth by Tzvi Freeman - tzvif@aol.com