What is the Jewish Sabbath and why is it on Saturday?
The Sabbath/Shabbat/Shabbos/Shabbath is the seventh day of the week. It begins around sunset Friday night and ends around nightfall Saturday night. In some Western languages the word for “Saturday” means “The Sabbath”, such as “el Sa’bado” in Spanish. The Sabbath commemorates G-d’s refraining from continuing creation on account of the world being “complete.” We emulate this by refraining from various categories of “creative work,” such as starting a fire, building items, and ploughing fields, and lots of smaller-scale activities related to these. However, Sabbath meals are festive and song-filled, Torah learning is encouraged, and married couples are encouraged to reconsummate their union. The idea is to refrain from weekday activity in order to devote the day to sacred matters. The laws of Shabbat are extremely complicated, and the various movements differ considerably concerning which activities are permissible and which activities are encouraged. A popular thumbnail sketch is The Sa
