Toil away

“...in contrast to the view presented at the outset that physical toil was a punishment meted out to Adam after he sinned, we now see that labor was always part of the divine plan for him and part of his vocation in this world. The consequence of the sin was that labor became an arduous task and burden, not its mere existence. Human labor is a form of imitatio dei, in that the activities of the Creator are presented in the creation and Eden stories in a somewhat anthropomorphic fashion. Thus, human beings are following in His path both when they work for six days and when they rest on the seventh. What we have found in these two paradigmatic stories expresses a fundamental biblical outlook that labor is part of the human life as originally intended by the Creator.”—Jewish Bible Theology, pages 107-108

<idle musing>
I like that interpretation; it makes work an aspect of the imago dei—or as he says, imitatio dei. Either way, it makes work a part of living a holy life. No room for a dichotomy when you view work that way.
</idle musing>