This week’s parasha is Parashat Emor. Emor means "speak." This parasha lists the annual callings of holiness: Shabbat, Passover, Shavuot and Sukkot. However, I would like to focus on Shabbat.

Rabbi Sacks says that Shabbat was created by G-d as the seventh day of the week to rest. While the first six days of the week are for labor, the seventh was created by G-d to rest and spend time with loved ones. But Rabbi Sacks says that was not the only reason for the seventh day; it is also a day of freedom, even for servants, and even for domestic animals. It is a day where no one is a slave, because He took our ancestors out of Egypt, from slavery to freedom.

To understand why Rabbi Sacks believes this to be the case, we must look at what the Torah says about Shabbat. In the version of the Ten Commandments found in Exodus, we are told to rest because G-d rested on the seventh day; we copy our Creator by doing the same thing. However, in the second version found in Deuteronomy, the reason changes entirely. It says we rest because we were slaves in Egypt.

Rabbi Sacks explains that this shift transforms Shabbat from a religious tradition into a statement that we were freed from Egypt and we shall mark that with a special tradition. In ancient times, rest was for the elites and the royals. The idea that slaves, animals, or laborers should have a day of rest was unheard of. By creating Shabbat and making it mandatory regardless of one’s status, the Torah introduced the idea of a fair world. On Shabbat, the relationship between those who dictate others' lives for six days a week—the employer and employee, or the master and servant-is given up. As Rabbi Sacks put it, "Passover tells us how the Israelites won their freedom. Shabbat tells us how they kept it."

Without our weekly day of rest, we don't have the separation that G-d intended for us when He created the seventh day. Shabbat is almost like a "reset button" to make sure we don't get lost in the cycle of only working. In a school environment, the pressure to work is constant. Whether there are exams, sports, or social media telling you to get off your phone and start working, it is easy to feel overwhelmed and feel as though school is our only purpose. It is easy to get hung up on the last grade you received; we almost become "slaves" to the expectations of ourselves and others.

Shabbat offers us a way out: one day a week where we stop working, where we focus on ourselves by stepping away from screens, where we have control, and where we remember that we were created by G-d. The way He intended us to be will not be determined only by grades and other achievements.

I ask one thing from everyone here: this Shabbat, whether you keep it or not, use this time not just to turn off work, but to spend time on your relationships—your family, your friends, and most importantly, yourself. Remember that you are free, and you have the power to say for this one day, "I am free."

Written by Sacha, Grade 10