The question is, should Sabbath keepers go out to eat on Shabbat. That is a question that should not be answered with a mere yes or no.
The short answer is “we are not Rabbinic”.
Our Mishnah, the Renewed Covenant letters, tells us:
“He who says “I am in Him” ought himself also to walk His halakha.” 1 Jo 2:6
It is actually a Rabbinic law that says not to buy or sell on the Sabbath. It is drawn from Talmud in tractates “Shabbat 113a, Beitzah 27a, Pasakhim 50b, and Shabbat 150a,b, and others.
This is like some of the other differences between us and Rabbinic Messianic people. I will express how we interpret the scriptures in this matter.
Before I start with later commentary, however, let’s go to the Torah and see what God says about the Sabbath:
Exodus 20:7-10
“Remember Yom HaShabbat, to keep it kadosh. Six days will you labor, and do all your work; but the seventh day is a Shabbat unto יהוה your Elohim, in it you will not do any manner of work, you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your man-servant, nor your maid-servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger that is within your gates; for in six days יהוה made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore יהוה blessed Yom HaShabbat, and hallowed it.”
So, what God said about the Sabbath is not to work on it, not to do your ‘regular’ work. “Mamlekhet Avodah”, is seen as “the work of your own kingdom”. You can see here that money is not mentioned at all, and at the onset there is no expression about buying or selling. For some people, yes, their daily work produces the exchange of money. For most of us, we are paid for our labor. But still, God does not say ‘do not exchange money on the Sabbath,’ when He gives us the command.
Our Jewish forebears, however, wrote in the late 5th/early 6th century that Nehemiah and the “Great Council” or “Great Sanhedrin” “created a fence around the Torah”. They set up ‘walls of protection’, which were new, manmade laws that were derived from Nehemiah and other prophets to create a set of rules that would keep the Jewish people from breaking Torah, in their minds. This ‘law’ is one of those rules. They read Nehemiah 10 and 13 and decided that any buying and selling of any kind must be forbidden:
10:29And the rest of the people, the Kohanim, the Levi’im, the porters, the singers, the Netinim, and all they that had separated themselves from the peoples of the lands unto the Torah of Elohim, their wives, their sons, and their daughters, every one that had knowledge and understanding; 30they cleaved to their brethren, their nobles, and entered into a curse, and into an oath, to walk in the Torah of Elohim, which was given by Moshe the servant of Elohim, and to observe and do all the Mitzvot of יהוה Adoneinu, and His ordinances and His statutes; 31and that we would not give our daughters unto the peoples of the land, nor take their daughters for our sons; 32and if the peoples of the world bring ware or any victuals on Yom HaShabbat to sell, that we would not buy of them on Shabbat, or on a Yom Kodesh; and that we would forego the seventh year, and the exaction of every debt.
13:19And it came to pass that, when the gates of Yerushalayim began to be dark before Shabbat, I commanded that the doors should be shut, and commanded that they should not be opened till after Shabbat; and some of my servants I set over the gates, that there should no burden be brought in on Yom HaShabbat. 20So the merchants and sellers of all kind of ware lodged without Yerushalayim once or twice. 21Then I forewarned them, [merchants and sellers outside the city] and said unto them, “Why do you lodge about the wall? If you do so again, I will lay hands on you.” From that time forth they came no more on Shabbat. 22And I commanded the Levi’im that they should purify themselves, and that they should come and keep the gates, to consecrate Yom HaShabbat. Remember unto me, O my Elohim, this also, and spare me according to the greatness of your mercy.
Most peoples’ interpretation of these passages focuses on the sale, whereas, the context shows us that the focus is on bearing burdens, just like the Sabbath command.
It is the physical labor that is the issue. In particular, it is the bearing of burdens, heavy exertion on the Sabbath. In chapter 10 above, the Jews anticipated ‘strangers’ bringing in heavy loads to sell. In chapter 13, they did. Nehemiah was concerned about the Jews unloading those heavy loads. The buying and selling made the unloading of heavy burdens necessary on Shabbat. Conducting of business to ‘build one’s own’ kingdom and not physically resting are the actual issue. Buying and selling was of a very particular sort, the kind that causes too much physical exertion. But, the Jewish Rabbis decided to say that ANY buying and selling was divinely forbidden. We do not believe that to be the case.
Even when I was in Jerusalem, I had to eat. I had to buy food. There were a few places where the cooking actually went on on Shabbat, and I bought food on Shabbat just like I did on other days in Jerusalem. Most people do not realize that God said in the Torah that we may work to prepare our food on Shabbat:
Exodus 12:16
“And in the first day there shall be to you a Mikra Kodesh, and in the seventh day a Mikra Kodesh; no manner of work shall be done in them, save that which every man must eat, that only may be done by you.”
These are HIGH SABBATHS. These were the VERY FIRST Sabbaths our people would keep upon being delivered from bondage, and God told them to cook food on them. The Jews were permitted to make bread/food on these High Sabbath Days. And we actually see them making the matzah on that first High Sabbath of the day of the 14th of Nissan, in order to have food to carry with them when they left on the night of the 15th. They bore their burden AFTER the end of the Sabbath, but they cooked their bread on the Sabbath of the 14th of Nissan.
God does not mean for us to starve, nor the eat cold food on the Sabbath.
Yeshua shows us that the Jews were already over-interpreting scripture in His day. We believe that’s another reason why He showed up when He did, to correct our Jewish people’s doctrine:
Luke 6:1
“It came to pass on a Shabbat, as Yeshua walked through the wheat fields, His Talmidim plucked heads of wheat and rubbed them in their hands, and did eat. 2But some of the men of the P’rushim said to them, “Why are you doing what is against Torah to do on Shabbat?” [It is not against Torah, that was a manmade rule] 3Yeshua answered, saying to them, “Have you not read what David did when he and those who were with him were hungry? 4He entered into Beit HaElohim, and took the bread that was on the Shulkhan יהוה and did eat it, and he gave it to those who were with him, that which was against Torah to eat but only for the Kohanim.” 5And He said to them, “Ben HaAdam is Adon of Shabbat.” 6And it came to pass on another Shabbat He entered into the Beit K’nesset and taught; and there was there a man whose right hand was withered. 7And the Sofrim and the P’rushim watched Him to see if he would heal on Shabbat, so that they might find an accusation against Him. 8But He knew their thoughts, and said to the man whose hand was withered, “Rise up and come to the center of the Beit K’nesset.” And when he came and stood up, 9Yeshua said to them, “I will ask you, what does Torah permit to do on Shabbat, that which is good or that which is bad; to save a life or to destroy it?” 10And He looked at all of them, and said to him, “Stretch out your hand.” And he stretched it out; and his hand was restored like the other. 11But they were filled with bitterness, and discussed with each other what to do with Yeshua.
In both of the instances above, the Pharisees over-interpreted the Torah. They thought they had to come up with a measure of force, to themselves determine what was work, what was too much work, in order to judge others by to see if they were breaking their command, which went beyond the Torah command.
They accused Yeshua’s own disciples of breaking the Torah, when He was their Rabbi and was standing right there watching them ‘work’. They judged His disciples, just like people judge us.
No one can conclude from Nehemiah that Inns within the city were not cooking food and selling it to their guests. Nehemiah was only addressing foreign merchants bringing in loads. Yeshua seems more concerned about the comfort of His Disciples when they were hungry on Shabbat than a Rabbinic rule that they could not pick a handful of grain. Yeshua was more concerned about healing the man with the withered hand than adhering to the Rabbinic notion that even prayer for healing or the doing of a miracle was beyond their measure of accepted effort on Shabbat.
Again, the Rabbis of Yeshua’s day had begun to create many over-interpreted rules, and they finally got written down in about the sixth century, and then added to for the last 1500 years. The Rabbis cite Nehemiah 10 and 13, Amos 8, Ezekiel 46, and Jeremiah 17. Today’s Messianic teachers are thus following the Rabbis who rejected Yeshua, instead of following Yeshua. Yeshua rejected the Talmud, which they say was ‘oral’ at that time. Again, it wasn’t written down for another 600 years.
This is what Yeshua was talking about when He told us:
“They bind heavy burdens and put them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to touch them, even with one finger.” Mat 23:4
This exposes what gets written down later, that Rabbis instruct Jews to cause gentiles or ‘lesser Jews’ to do things they can’t because of their Halakha. This is called by the Rabbis, amira le’nochri. They were content to cause others to ‘sin’, as long as they didn’t. And Yeshua loathed that idea.
This was not their only rule for which Yeshua chided them.
1Then there gathered to Him P’rushim and Sofrim who had come from Yerushalayim. 2And they saw some of His Talmidim eating bread with their hands unwashed, and they reproached them. 3For all the Y’hudim and the P’rushim, unless their hands were washed carefully, would not eat, because they strictly observed the tradition of the elders. 4Even the things from the market, if they were not washed, they would not eat [things from the market]. And there are a great many other things which they have accepted to obey, such as the washing of cups and pots and copper utensils, and the beddings of dead men. 5And the Sofrim and P’rushim asked Him, “Why do your Talmidim not walk according to the traditions of the elders [Rabbis], but eat bread with their hands unwashed?” 6He said to them, “The Prophet [Navi] Isaiah [Yesha-Yahu] well prophesied about you, O hypocrites, as it is written, ‘This people honor me with their lips, but their heart is far away from me. 7And they worship me in vain when they teach as doctrines the commandments of men.’ 8For you have ignored the mitzvah of Elohim, and you observe the tradition of men, such as the washing of cups and pots and a great many other things like these.” 9He said to them, “You certainly do injustice to the mitzvah of Elohim so as to sustain your own tradition. 10For Moshe said, ‘Honor your father and your mother;’ and, ‘he who curses father or mother, let him die the death.’ 11But you say a man may say to his father or his mother, ‘What is left over is Karbani [my offering];’ 12and yet you do not let him do anything for his father or mother. 13So you dishonor the D’var HaElohim for the sake of the tradition which you have established; and you do a great many other things like these.”
All of the examples given by Yeshua above were not written down by the Rabbis until the same time they said the “Great Sanhedrin” created the rule for not ‘buying and selling’ on the Sabbath. The late 6th century! There is not one shred of actual historical evidence that there ever was actually a ‘Great Sanhedrin’ that Nehemiah and his contemporaries attended to create all those rules. Most of the rules above were more likely created by the House of Shammai, or at least made more stringent, in the century before Yeshua showed up. That is when the ‘traditions of the elders’ emerged, for which Yeshua brandished the Rabbis of His day.
The Apostles rejected these rules. They rejected them when Yeshua was in their midst, and they rejected them afterward.
Peter was known to eat with Gentiles. This was a rule that some Jews followed, but all Rabbis followed and demanded. When Peter followed this Rabbinic rule, a former Rabbi, Paul, rebuked him to his face in front of all.
Gal 2
11But when Peter [Kefa] came to Antioch, I reproved him to his face, because he was to be blamed. 12For before certain men came from James [Ya’akov, Jerusalem, the House of Shammai, FALSE BRETHREN], Peter [Kefa] ate with the Gentiles; but after they came, he withdrew and separated himself because he was afraid of them who belonged to the circumcision group. 13And all the other Jews cast their lot with him on this issue, insomuch that Bar-Naba was also carried away by their dissimulation. 14But when I saw that they were not following uprightly according to the truth of HaB’sorah, I said to Peter [Kefa] in the presence of them all, “If you, being Jews, live after the manner of Arame’ans and not as do the Jews, why do you compel the Gentiles who have joined themselves to Judah to live as do the Jews? 15For if we who are of Jewish nature and not sinners of the Gentiles 16know that a man is not justified by the works of the Torah but by absolute trust in Yeshua HaMashi’akh, even we have trusted in Yeshua HaMashi’akh, that we might be justified by absolute trust in Mashi’akh and not by the works of the Torah; for by the works of the Torah shall no human being be justified. 17But if, while we seek to be justified by Mashi’akh, we ourselves also are found sinners, is therefore Adoneinu Yeshua HaMashi’akh a minister of sin? What profanity! 18For if I build again the things which I destroyed, I will prove myself to be a transgressor of the Torah.
Their sin? Keeping a Rabbinic Law! BREAKING FELLOWSHIP for Rabbis other than Yeshua. Judging people according to manmade rules.
This rule of not eating with Gentiles gets brought up with another rule, that of the House of Shammai, which said that gentiles who come to Judaism through faith in Messiah Yeshua or not must do so with the final rite of circumcision, after demonstrating that they will be obedient to their interpretation of Torah.
These “Judaizers” were likely the House of Shammai, though they are not directly mentioned. But Yeshua calls out The House of Shammai in Revelation 2:9 and 3:9. In the former and the latter, He calls them out for the very same thing Paul does when excoriating Peter for not eating with the brethren after these Jews show up in Antioch. They put a litmus test on others, when true Scripture says that one is inwardly a Jew when one’s heart is circumcised, which Deuteronomy tells us means that we keep the commandments of GOD. Yeshua told us not to keep the commandments of men. Not buying and selling on the Sabbath is a commandment of men, just like not eating with Gentiles, not eating food sold in the marketplace next to unclean meat, or that hasn’t been washed.
Paul also tells us to eat any kosher meat bought in the marketplace. They used to sell kosher meat right next to unkosher meat in the open-air markets. Gentiles were selling these meats in Gentile cities that way. Some Gentiles were likely doing so in parts of Israel, too, when the rule came out, because Israel was occupied, first by Greece, and then by Rome. But Paul tells us to buy the meat regardless. This is what Yeshua was addressing when He mentioned the Rabbinic rule about unwashed meat being forbidden, over in Mark 7. All of these things are manmade interpretations of God’s law, creating new rules to lord over men.
As stated above, the men who led Peter astray were FALSE BROTHERS. [Gal 2:4] They are the ones that caused the whole Galatian error, to which Paul said,
“who have come against us to spy out the freedom which we have in Yeshua HaMashi’akh, with the intention of enslaving us..”
We are free in Messiah. Paul was making a distinction between Messianic Jews/Gentiles, and Rabbinic Jews. We are not bound to the bondage of religious sin, which is worse than personal ‘moral sin’, because religious sin condemns others and divides the Body of Messiah. That is why Paul rebuked Peter in front of those Rabbis of Shammai.
We believe that the common interpretation of the passages mentioned above is an over interpretation of those passages.
Here are the passages the Talmud cites, and that many Messianic/Hebrew Roots people cite, some of them not knowing they are Rabbinic citations and interpretations:
Jer 17:
21thus says יהוה , ‘Take heed for the sake of your souls, and bear no burden on Yom HaShabbat, nor bring it in by the gates of Yerushalayim; 22neither carry forth a burden out of your houses on Yom HaShabbat, neither do any work; but hallow Yom HaShabbat, as I commanded your fathers; 23but they hearkened not, neither inclined their ear, but made their neck stiff, that they might not hear, nor receive instruction. 24And it shall come to pass, if you diligently hearken unto Me, says יהוה , to bring in no burden through the gates of this city on Yom HaShabbat, but to hallow Yom HaShabbat, to do no work therein; 25then shall there enter in by the gates of this city kings and princes sitting upon the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses, they, and their princes, the men of Yehudah, and the inhabitants of Yerushalayim; and this city shall be inhabited forever. 26And they shall come from the cities of Yehudah, and from the places round about Yerushalayim, and from the land of Binyamin, and from the Lowland, and from the mountains, and from the South, bringing Olah, and Z’vakh, and Minkha, and frankincense, and bringing thanks unto Beit יהוה . But27 if you will not hearken unto Me to hallow Yom HaShabbat, and not to bear a burden and enter in at the gates of Yerushalayim on Yom HaShabbat; then will I kindle a fire in the gates thereof, and it shall devour the palaces of Yerushalayim, and it shall not be quenched”.”
One can see that there is not one mention of ‘buying and selling’; yes, this is commerce, but it is heavy loads and building one’s business that is the issue, continuing one’s regular work.
To say that this applies to a hungry person purchasing a meal because he is hungry in America nearly 2500 years later is a bit of a reach. It is only understood that way under the lens of the Talmud, and those Rabbis rejected our Rabbi.
Ezekiel 46 is cited by some Messianic/Hebrew roots people as applying to this topic. Ezekiel is only speaking, however, about the inner workings of the Temple. And yes, the gates of the inner court were to be shut, and no one was to come in those gates until the Sabbath and on other High Days of the Torah. But not even the Rabbis stretch those verses to say not to buy or sell on the Sabbath.
We already looked at the Talmudic references to Nehemiah. But, there is one other place in the Talmud cited to justify their rules. Isaiah 58:
13If you turn away your foot because of Shabbat, from pursuing your business on My consecrated day; and call Shabbat a delight, and the kadosh of יהוה honorable; and shall honor it, not doing your wonted ways, nor pursuing your business, nor speaking thereof; 14then shall you delight yourself in יהוה , and I will make you to ride upon the high places of the earth, and I will feed you with the heritage of Ya’akov your father; for the mouth of יהוה has spoken it.”
The only part of that verse that could even be remotely applied to a hugry person buying a meal on Sabbath is ‘doing your wonted ways’. But, for us, having a meal with our brethren is not ‘wonted’; we are, in fact, commanded to fellowship, and to commune!
Mind you, we wish we did NOT have to go to restaurants on the Sabbath. If we had our own place, we would hold Oneg [delight in the verses above] there every Sabbath. But, we do not have the luxury of owning our own Synagogue.
We live in “Egypt”; we live among non-observant people, and their restaurants are already open. They are not bound by God’s covenant not to work on Shabbat, so they serve food to make money. We are not, however, bearing a heavy burden nor building our own kingdom or pursuing our own business, nor going on our wonted ways when we gather at a restaurant that is already opened for business, for a sacred meal of fellowship after the Sabbath service, especially given that we have no place of our own to have a traditional oneg. We trust that Messiah Yeshua is with us, and does not condemn us for extending our fellowship, and many times witnessing His Gospel to those who serve us.
Some people will see this as an excuse. It is not. It is simply that we see Our Master in our fellowship, and His hand in our times in those sacred meals. Much personal ministry goes on there. He is with us in those times.
In the end, our walk on Shabbat must mirror the Master who declared Himself “Adon of the Shabbat”—not a taskmaster binding us with chains of human invention, but a liberator inviting us to rest in His presence. As we gather around tables, whether in homes or humble eateries, let us remember that the true violation is not in sharing a meal with brethren, but in allowing man-made rules to fracture the unity Yeshua prayed for (John 17:21). Instead, embrace the freedom Paul championed: ‘Stand firm therefore in the liberty with which Mashi’akh has made us free, and be not harnessed again under the yoke of servitude.’ (Galatians 5:1). By honoring God’s Torah in spirit and truth—resting from our labors, delighting in His day, and extending fellowship—we fulfill the prophet’s promise: ‘Then you shall delight yourself in יהוה ‘ (Isaiah 58:14). May our Sabbaths not be defined by fences that divide, but by the boundless compassion that unites us in His kingdom, now and forever.