There are many laws connected to Shabbat. The laws of Shabbat try to create an atmosphere in which the day can be experienced in a special unique way. For example, observant Jews do not drive or ride in cars on Shabbat. This means that they must live close enough to their synagogue to walk to it. The result is that observant Jews end up living in the same neighborhood and visiting each other on Shabbat. So the rule creates a community.
Activities which have a creative nature or which effect physical changes in nature were forbidden. Our Sages learned this from the fact that the law forbidden melacha on Shabbat and the portion teaching about the work of the Mishkan follow one another in the Torah. They concluded that only creative work which was done for and in the Mishkan and which are creative in nature were forbidden on Shabbat.
If Shabbat were intended only for rest, for abstaining from work, then the criterion of what was forbidden would depend on how difficult the task was and how much exertion it required. But since our resting on Shabbat is to bear testimony to the creation of the world, just as Hashem was occupied, as it were, with creating the world during the six days of creation and ceased the work on Shabbat and desisted from it, so must we stop doing any creative work on Shabbat.
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