The Sabbath is not just another day of the week, nor even a special day. It sums up the week and gives meaning to it.
The weekdays are marked by the acts of Creation, ever repeated by the descent of the divine plenty into the world.
And parallel to this descent it is man’s function during the week, in the order of things, to fix and to set the world right wherever it tends to go wrong.
This includes correcting the world, in the physical sense, by work and action on the external frame and, in the spiritual sense, perfecting the world by performing mitzvot.
For in the realm of the human soul, man’s work on himself, his constant correcting of faults and spurring to activity of his inner being, constitutes a ceaseless creative effort.
–Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz