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Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz: “A return to the life within oneself.”

The Sabbath, with its severe prohibitions against all work, is actually connected with the process of Creation.

Just as the creation of the world took place in six stages, six days of forming the things that comprise the physical world, so are the six days devoted to working on the material world, repairing it, building it up, raising it to a higher level.

And the Sabbath that follows is again a return to the life within oneself–a return, like that of the Creator himself, to the higher worlds, the spiritual essences, the changeless source of all change.

For being in the image of God, man must continue to carry or to supplement and to repair the original Creation and then retreat into himself, withdrawing from physical creativity and renewing the holiness that comes from rest and complete peace.

–Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz