Observe the Sabbath day, to make it holy as YHVH your God commanded you. Six days you will labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is Sabbath to YHVH, your God. You shall not do any work, you and your son and your daughter and your male and female servant and your ox and your donkey or any animal, or any stranger who is within your gates, so that your male and female servant will rest like you. And you will remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt and YHVH your God brought you out from there with a strong hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore, YHVH your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day.
--Deuteronomy 5:12-15
We learn the above version of the 4th Commandment in Deuteronomy, the book of Torah that we read in this season of reflection. This year, the month of Elul, which includes Yom Kippur encompasses Labor Day, a national holiday dedicated to working Americans. This is the time when, as Jews, we measure our conduct by our values and are invited to return to our best selves. What a great opportunity to look at those next steps we can each take to bring our Shabbat values into our weekday, workday lives! This year, PJA& JFSJ is partnering with Hand In Hand: Caring Across Generations to focus on domestic workers and their employers. In house meetings, in synagogues and in our political work, we are working to ensure that the people whom we trust to care for the ones we most love are treated with the respect -- and receive the remuneration -- that they have earned. (It's part of our work with Labor in the Pulpits.) We find it unacceptable that domestic workers are often not protected by workers’ compensation insurance, not paid overtime for working shifts that can last for over 12 hours, not afforded access to 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep and, incredibly, not even paid minimum wage. Judaism assumes that each human being commands respect for having been created in the image of God. The 4th Commandment is not given for a future world in which all distinctions of class, gender, nationality and other forms of discrimination have been abolished. It teaches that, even in an imperfect society like ours, basic human rights apply to everyone. Crucially, the text calls Jews to remember our own history as exploited workers as a guide to how to treat others.
This emphasis on the holiness inherent in every person, no matter what their status or occupation, is a key reason for why our Talmud is so concerned with contract law. A contract is an agreement between human beings, each of whom is made in the image of God.
We usually hire domestic workers at challenging times—our parents are ill; our children need care. We hire these workers not because we’re wealthy, but because we need to go to work ourselves. We want very much to do the right thing for everyone concerned. This Elul, we have a chance to bring our values home. |
