Every time the Torah mentions the observance of Shabbat, it also mentions the six working days, as it is written: “Six days shall work be done, and the seventh day shall be a day of rest. We see that the commandment does not imply taking care of Shabbat only, but also working the rest of the days. But what is the relationship between the six days of the week and the rest on Shabbat, is not the commandment not to work on the seventh day enough? Rabbi “Bechaie” opens a window for us to understand the matter: “During the six days we must serve God even while working, just as the patriarchs did it even while tending the flock, or performing other physical labor”. However, the seventh day should be exclusively for God without involving our work. If we analyze the verse again, we will appreciate that it does not say “Six days shall you labor”, actively, but “Six days shall work be done” passively. But did not God condemn man to toil for a living? Certainly, He did so after Adam sinned by eating of the fruit. However, since it is possible that a person may want to turn his work into his main goal in life, as well as believing that his work success depends only on him, which is not the case, since according to our tradition, God is the provider of all our goods, that is why the Torah said “work shall be done” in a passive way, to remind us that we only contribute our grain of sand, and that work should be a means to connect us to God.
George Deek is an Arab-Israeli diplomat. In 2018, Deek was appointed Israeli ambassador to Azerbaijan. He is the first Israeli Arab Christian to become an ambassador. Deek grew up in an Eastern Orthodox Christian family in the Ajami neighborhood of Jaffa, in a building where the other tenants included Muslims, Catholics, Jews and a Catholic priest of Jewish ancestry.[2][3] His father, who worked as a tax advisor,[3] was one of the leaders of the Christian community in Jaffa who served as chairman of the Orthodox Association, and was considered a well-known and popular figure in the city until in 2015 a square was inaugurated in his memory in Jaffa in the presence of Mayor Ron Huldai.[4] According to Deek, his grandparents fled to Lebanon for safety when the 1947–1949 Palestine war, having been told that the Jews would slaughter them if they remained in their homes, but expecting to return home once Arab armies defeated the Jews.[3] According to Deek, when the war ended, his grandparents felt that they had been “deceived”, and decided to return illegally to their home in Jaffa rather than remaining in Lebanon as refugees. Since reentering the country was illegal, Deek’s grandfather, an electrician, was arrested and jailed.
