Why You Must Add Ordinary Time to the Holy Sabbath

"The children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath" (Exodus 31:16). This is what Rabbi Natan says: profane one Sabbath on his behalf so that he may keep many sabbaths. And Rabbi Elazar says: "to perform the Sabbath" refers to a matter in which a covenant was cut. And what is this? This is the covenant of circumcision. And Rabbi Elazar ben Perata says: From where do we know that whoever keeps a single Sabbath properly, Scripture credits him as though he made the Sabbath? Scripture teaches, "to perform the Sabbath throughout their generations, an everlasting covenant." And Rabbi [Yehudah the Prince] says: From where do we know that whoever keeps a single Sabbath properly, it is credited to him as though he made the Sabbath from the day the world was created until the dead live again? Scripture teaches, "to perform the Sabbath throughout their generations, an everlasting covenant." Another interpretation: "The children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath": that one must add from the profane to the holy. They give a parable about this: like a lion that rouses fear before it and behind it. Just as with a lion, which kills only in this world, people are wary of it for many miles before and behind, how much more so the Sabbath, which kills those who profane it both in this world and in the world to come! Rabbi Meir gives a parable: to what may the matter be compared? To one who guards an orchard. If he guards it from within, it is not guarded; if he guards it from outside, then it is guarded. So with the commandments: we must make a protective guard for them from outside. And some give another parable: as for a sword, its protection is only its sheath; as for these garments, their protection is only the chest; so too sabbaths and festival days, their protection is only the [surrounding] profane time. Rabbi Yitzchak says: If the cities of the Levites, for which there is no liability of being cut off nor of lashes, require open land outside them of two thousand cubits on every side, how much more so do sabbaths and festival days require open land before them and after them!