Israel the Sabbath was distinguished by the words of instruction and
comfort offered by the prophets to the people who consulted them on the
day of rest.(1469) During the Exile and afterward the people assembled on
the Sabbath to hear the word of God read from the Torah and the prophets
and to join in prayer and song, which soon became a permanent
institution.(1470) Thus the Sabbath elevated and educated the Jewish
people, and afterward transferred its blessings also to the Christian and
Mohammedan world. Especially during the Middle Ages the Sabbath became an
oasis, a refreshing spring of water for the Jew. All through the week he
was a Pariah in the outside world, but the Sabbath brought him bliss in
his home and spiritual power in his Synagogue and school. Cheerfully he
bore the yoke of statutes and ordinances that grew ever heavier under the
rabbinical amplification; for he hailed the Sabbath as the "queen" that
raised him from a hated wanderer to a prince in his own domain.(1471)

Modern life has worked great changes in the Jewish observance of the
Sabbath. Caught up in the whirl of commercial and industrial competition,
the Jew, like Ixion in the fable, is bound to his wheel of business, and
enjoys neither rest for his body nor elevation for his soul on God's holy
day. True, the Synagogue still preserves the sanctity of the ancient
Sabbath, however small may be the attendance at the divine service, and in
many pious homes the family still rallies around the festive table,
lighted by the Sabbath lamp and decorated by the symbolic cup of wine. But
for the majority of Western Jews the Sabbath has lost its pristine
sanctity and splendor, to the great detriment of Jewish religious life.
Therefore many now ask: "Is it sufficient to have a vicarious observance
of the historical Sabbath, the 'sign between God and Israel,' by an hour
or two in the Synagogue, but without rest for the entire day? Or shall the
civic day of rest, though Christian in origin and character, take the
place of the Jewish Sabbath with its sacred traditions, so that possibly
at last it may become the Sabbath day predicted by the seer upon which
'all flesh shall come to worship before the Lord'?"(1472) In the halcyon
days of the reform movement in Germany this view was often expressed when
the radical reformers celebrated the civic day of rest as the Jewish
Sabbath, not in the spirit of dissension, but for the sake of giving
Judaism a larger scope and a