One of the most important events in labor history happened in Exodus 20:10 when God commanded the Israelite people to rest every seventh day: “The seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work – you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns.” The concept of resting every seven days is one of the most important legacies of the Judeo-Christian tradition. And modern capitalism has declared war on this idea of Sabbath.
When I was a kid, it was still taboo in the South to work or do secular activities on Sundays (at least for middle-class people). As a kid, I never made the connection that the people behind the counter at Luby’s Cafeteria where we went every Sunday after church couldn’t go to church themselves because they had to make our food ready for us to eat it after church. We could eat out on Sundays, but the one thing we would not do was go shopping on Sundays, because Sunday was supposed to be a day for God and family (if you’re not working in the service industry). For much of my life, honoring the Sabbath was a sort of moralistic duty to God. It never occurred to me that God created this concept as a means for people to enjoy life.
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