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“Israel’s Day of Light and Joy is a comprehensive and serious study of the sinuous history, dynamic cultural and political forces, and various religious ideologies surrounding the meaning and application of a Jewish Sabbath. For documentary-historians complete answers and the full story may never be known, none the less, Israel’s Day of Light and Joy verifies the truth of what nineteenth-century essayist Ahad Ha’am wrote, ‘More than Israel has kept the Sabbath, the Sabbath has kept Israel.’”

—Fred Reiss San Diego Jewish World

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“This is a masterful piece of scholarship. Levenson has somehow managed to combine a rigorous historical-critical analysis of the Sabbath with a theologically sensitive discussion of the meaning and value of the Sabbath as it has developed into the present day in a fresh, readable volume seasoned throughout with wit and good humor. I learned much reading this book. I highly recommend it for anyone who wants to understand the historical development of the Sabbath and its continuing value in a modern culture characterized by individualism, burnout, exhaustion, and (often) the loss of a sense of purpose and meaning.”

—Jason Staples, author of Paul and the Resurrection of Israel: Jews, Former Gentiles, Israelites

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