The Secret Language of Bings: Year Four (Part Eleven)
Last week's EfM class was about the Sabbath. It was also the first reading that I can recall for a long time that was not written by a Christian, but rather by a rabbi who died after a Jewish shabbat some fifty years ago. We'll be reading him next week too.
It became obvious after the first few minutes of class that few people brought up in the Christian liturgical tradition were familiar with the concept of "keeping the Sabbath". I felt like I was the only person for whom the dead rabbi's simple, journeyman prose resonated as clearly today as the day it was written. For, it was the language I had grown up with as a Baptist in Brooklyn. "Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy" was something I had heard over and over again in Sunday school lessons. I'm pretty sure - without googling it - that it's one of the Ten Commandments.
And yet, I felt as if I'd suddenly grown an extra head as I explained (after Arline called on me) the great lengths my mother went to in order to avoid using the kitchen stove on Sundays; not doing housework or sewing unless it was an emergency. And, instead of lunch and dinner (or supper as we called it) we just ate dinner. For that reason, i always thought of Sundays as a Fast Day out of deference to the Sabbath. Susrprisingly, no one - not even the Roman Catholics - mentioned foregoing red meat on Fridays.
It became obvious after the first few minutes of class that few people brought up in the Christian liturgical tradition were familiar with the concept of "keeping the Sabbath". I felt like I was the only person for whom the dead rabbi's simple, journeyman prose resonated as clearly today as the day it was written. For, it was the language I had grown up with as a Baptist in Brooklyn. "Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy" was something I had heard over and over again in Sunday school lessons. I'm pretty sure - without googling it - that it's one of the Ten Commandments.
And yet, I felt as if I'd suddenly grown an extra head as I explained (after Arline called on me) the great lengths my mother went to in order to avoid using the kitchen stove on Sundays; not doing housework or sewing unless it was an emergency. And, instead of lunch and dinner (or supper as we called it) we just ate dinner. For that reason, i always thought of Sundays as a Fast Day out of deference to the Sabbath. Susrprisingly, no one - not even the Roman Catholics - mentioned foregoing red meat on Fridays.