Holiness in Time, Not Only in Space | My Jewish Learning

The seventh day is like a palace in time with a kingdom for all. It is not a date but an atmosphere.

Both the Temple and the Tabernacle were elaborate structures, a complex mass of stuff arranged in intricate concentric patterning around a charged emptiness at the center. The Holy of Holies, the sacred space at the center of the sanctuary, was essentially a vacated space, a place no one could ever enter except the high priest, and even he for only

Our task as seeking, questing people, every day of our lives, is to live in the presence of God and to mediate that presence to the larger world. In the words of the psalmist (Psalm 16:8), “Shiviti HaShem la-negdi tamid,” we must set God before us always. The process is endless, the lure is great, and the moment is now.

The Temple had been destroyed, but the Divine Presence was everywhere, yearning for the Jews to uncover it. Wherever people ate and said words of Torah, wherever people sat as a court and gave justice, whenever the sick were visited or the hungry fed, there was the Divine Presence.

To sanctify the seventh day does not mean: Thou shalt mortify thyself, but, on the contrary: Thou shalt sanctify it with all thy heart, with all thy soul and with all thy senses.

It is generally accepted that Judaism as a religion is more oriented to holiness of time than holiness of place.