The signet ring.

God gave us a gift. Once a week, he told us to rest, as he rested. A reminder, a connection, a holy day, a delight. This day is not meant as a religious observance, but as a joyful day to separate from the mundane, and connect with the Holy one who created the heavens and the earth in 6 days.

God made us as a mirror reflection of himself. We need to stop and reflect every week on shabbat.

It’s a need. We need it. We forget we are made in His image so easily. We love to create, and build and we deceive ourselves so quickly into thinking we have created something better.. but everything we do is copywork. We reflect what He has already done. Or we reflect someone else, or something else. And any of those other reflections is idolotry. So we must return to our mirror and re-calibrate!

It should be a joy and a delight, not a difficult, demanding yoke.

Thus says the Lord:
“Keep justice, and do righteousness,
for soon my salvation will come,
    and my righteousness be revealed.
² Blessed is the man who does this,
    and the son of man who holds it fast,
who keeps the Sabbath, not profaning it,
    and keeps his hand from doing any evil.”

³ Let not the foreigner who has joined himself to the Lord say,
    “The Lord will surely separate me from his people”;
and let not the eunuch say,
    “Behold, I am a dry tree.”
⁴ For thus says the Lord:
“To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths,
    who choose the things that please me
    and hold fast my covenant,
⁵ I will give in my house and within my walls
    a monument and a name
    better than sons and daughters;
I will give them an everlasting name
    that shall not be cut off.

⁶ “And the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord,
    to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord,
    and to be his servants,
everyone who keeps the Sabbath and does not profane it,
    and holds fast my covenant—
⁷ these I will bring to my holy mountain,
    and make them joyful in my house of prayer;
their burnt offerings and their sacrifices
    will be accepted on my altar;
for my house shall be called a house of prayer
    for all peoples.”
⁸ The Lord God,
    who gathers the outcasts of Israel, declares,
“I will gather yet others to him
    besides those already gathered.”

Isaiah 56:1-8