If you were born a slave in Egypt, then for sure you would not know how to read or write.  You
wouldn't have any time growing up to play. Your ambition in life? Not to be  assigned to heavy stone duty at the pyramid site at height of the Egyptian summer. 

Suddenly you are free from Egyptian slavery, praising God  Almighty Who brought you out of bondage. 
God provides you food to gather and you build huts for shelter.  After six days of working and
gathering, God insists on the Sabbath, a time to cease working and  gathering.  So you go from being a
slave with no control over your time to a free person who has some control over your time and complete permission from God to cease working. 
 
Shabbat is God's Gift to you and all your generations, wherever you live, whatever the work and social commitments, activities or errands.  Shabbat goes on whether you remember it  or not. It is still here, an
available gift, an obligatory gift. It is easy to forget it is a gift from God when you are too tired to open it.


And yet Shabbat offers rest and renewal. It frees you from the burdens of life.  It reminds you of
eternity.  It reawakens your  spiritual side.  It gives you time  to learn more about the Teachings of God. 
It gives you time to rediscover hope.   

Shabbat is our timeless connection to God. When you make the time for Shabbat, when you stop, even for a moment's repose, you keep that connection to the time of God's Creation of the heavens and the earth. You keep  that connection to the slaves God freed from bondage in Egypt.  You keep alive that spark between you and your fellow Jews throughout the world and throughout time.

It is just a thought, a moment among the many you can have from a Shabbat sundown to sundown. But it is a connection that spans generations and separates the holy day from the rest of the six days. Every week you get another Sabbath opportunity to bring forth holiness and reconnect. Don't let time fly away. Hop instead on the wings of the Shabbat angels and fly together.