The Servants of the King

Maimonides explains that idolatry began not with rebellion against God, but with a seemingly reasonable act of reverence. The wise generation of Enosh honoured the sun, moon, and stars as God’s servants, believing that honouring them honoured their Creator. Over time, however, gratitude became transactional worship, and the servants became masters. Idolatry begins as a gradual drift, not a deliberate decision.

The same process occurs in everyday life. The fine introduced to discourage lateness in Haifa’s day-care centres instead turned a moral obligation into a purchasable service. Likewise, money, technology, and even religious observance can begin as instruments for good and gradually reshape our values, until we serve the very things meant to serve us. As the Psalmist warns, we become like the things we worship.

Shabbat is the Torah’s answer to this drift. By stopping our work and setting aside our instruments, we gain the perspective to distinguish what has value from what merely has a price. Just as God ceased creating to see that His work was good, Shabbat allows us to step back, remember what matters, and restore our blessings to their proper place—as servants, not masters.

The ideas are shaped and based on the work of Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, and influenced by Maimonides, Nachmanides, Don Isaac Abarbanel, Samson Raphael Hirsch, David Zvi Hoffmann, Ben-Zion Meir Hai Uziel, and Uri Amos Cherki.