Shabbat
Shabbat is the day of rest, as commanded by god. It starts on Friday night. The family gathers for a special meal and the mother of the family lights two candles and says a blessing to welcome in Shabbat. This is how Shabbat started: God worked on making the world and heaven for six days. On the seventh day, after completing his work, he rested. He blessed that day, making it Shabbat. Here is a miracle of Shabbat: Abraham and Sarah were on a journey to spread the idea of monotheism. Their journey took them from Ur Casdim to Charan (Mesopotamia) to Canaan. In Sarah’s tent, there was a miracle that claimed that the Divine Presence dwelled, the lamp she lit every Friday for the day of rest, surprisingly burned all week till Friday morning. When Sarah died, the miracle of her Shabbat lamp died out. Here is a short story about Moses and Shabbat: Moses saw that the slaves were working nonstop and so he asked the king to give them a day in the week to rest or they would die. The king let them have a day to to rest and that day was Shabbat.
This is a picture of welcoming Shabbat.
©2013 Akash K. Nayar