
In 1951, Abraham Joshua Heschel published a monograph titled simply, The Sabbath. It consisted of ten short chapters, comprising of less than a hundred total pages, illustrated with original wood engravings by Ilya Schor.
Early in the book, Heschel establishes the unique importance the Bible places on rest:
“It is, indeed, a unique occasion at which the distinguished word qadosh [a transliteration of the Hebrew term for ‘holy’] is used for the first time: in the Book of Genesis at the end of the story of creation. How extremely significant is the fact that it is applied to time: ‘And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy.‘ There is no reference in the record of creation to any object in space that would be endowed the quality of holiness.”
As Heschel elaborates, this idea was new. In pagan religions, places were holy; a sacred mountain, say, or a deified river. But the Abrahamic faiths found something Godly in a ritual of rest amid the flow of time.