How was the concept of work interpreted in Jewish tradition?
The early rabbis attempted to define work, based on the description of the building of the tent of meeting. The Mishnah created thirty nine categories: sowing, plowing, reaping, sheaving, threshing, winnowing, cleansing crops, grinding, sifting, kneading, baking, shearing, blanching, carding, dyeing, spinning, weaving, making a minimum of two loops, weaving two threads, separating two threads, tying, untying, sewing a minimum of two stitches, ripping out stitches in order to replace them, hunting a gazelle, slaughtering it, flaying it, salting it, curing, scraping its hide, slicing its hide, writing a minimum of two characters, erasing in order to write them, building, wreaking, extinguishing, kindling, hammering, transporting. Modern Commentary on Work Aryeh Carmell describes shabbat as the control rod in the atomic pile of our genius: How does man show his domination over the earth? By fashioning all the things in his environment to suit his own purposes-the earth for his habitation,
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