“On the Seventh Day God ended His Work and He Rested”. The Book of Genesis describes how the world was created and the overwhelming interpretation of the story comes from this Seventh Day. For thousands of years, the Jewish people have looked at the seventh day as the day of rest. The Sabbath quickly became a corner stone in Jewish religion and through the ages Jews have been mistreated and killed for their refusal to defy the Sabbath. To this day, observant Jews celebrate the Sabbath and the State of Israel, the “homeland of the Jews” has incorporated the Sabbath as the official day of rest. Israel has Sabbath laws, that places restrictions on shop openings, public transportation (including flights) and working hours.
On a personal level, observant Jews do not travel on the Sabbath (Insurance companies sell car insurance that excludes driving on Saturday if you so desire), they do not watch television or listed to the radio, they do not use their phones and do not switch electricity on or off, nor do they use their stove and do not cook and do not handle money or perform financial transactions.
Over the years, technology has been developed to ease up on these restrictions, and automatic switches are available now to turn electricity on, to switch on the TV and to keep food warm that was cooked before the start of the Sabbath. But many will look upon these gadgets as defeating the purpose of the Sabbath, which is actually true.
Many Israelis, while proclaiming themselves Jewish, have given their own interpretation of the Sabbat rules and various levels of observance have been developed over the years. The strict observant Jews will take all aspects of the Sabbath serious while their neighbors may sit down for the Sabbath dinner after having lit the Sabbath candles and say the prayers but after dinner turn on the TV to watch a nice show, or go out and drive to the city to go dance or watch a movie. Still others, may ignore the Sabbath completely and behave as they would on a regular day off.
There has always been friction between observant and secular Jews about Sabbath rules and observant Jews have blocked highways and thrown stones at passing cars in protest against the “desecration of the Sabbath”, while secular shop owners have defied the demands to close their shop on Saturday and will open and receive customers (and financial penalties).
In particular, the lack of public transportation has been a problematic issue for secular Israelis and private initiatives have had buses operate on Friday night mostly to transport youth into the city to enjoy themselves, without the dangers that are coupled to driving by themselves. In the past couple of years, mayors in the Tel Aviv area have organized regular Friday night bus rides and these have been very successful with youngsters using them and parents happy that their children don’t drive. Political opposition to these initiatives have been sometimes fierce, but people like Arye Deri, even when he was Interior minister, could not find ways to stop it.
The argument of the Religious circles in Israeli politics against the “desecration of the Sabbath” has always been that it damages the “Jewish” character of the State of Israel but if the character of a State is defined by its ability to suppress the freedom of their citizens, that appears to be a character flaw.
Most religious politicians, even with their desire to keep the Sabbath “Holy”, do realize that changes that lift more and more of the restrictions regarding aspects of the Sabbath are unavoidable and that Israelis will prefer to do what they think is right with respect to the Sabbath and political strings should not be attached to their free will.
So now, the Religious Affairs ministry has come up with a project that aims to increase the “Empowerment of the Sabbath”. The project, that will be executed by a private organization (“Fulfilling Israeli Judaism”) and publicly funded at a rate of 190 million shekels.
The organization claims that the Sabbath is a National Asset and should be looked upon as going beyond attempts to enforce it, but more as a uniting common denominator of all Jews. This sounds as an attempt to pull the Sabbath out of the realm of religion but the result will be that the project will show religious people as “Better” that the secular ones. It is incomprehensible that a government ministry will spend government money on efforts to create divisiveness between religious and secular people and attempts to show that religious life, including the observance of the Sabbath is better and not from a religious point of view but also from a social and cultural aspect. It appears no more than a (probably futile) attempt to make Israelis more religious but using different arguments. To some it may sound of interest but whichever way you look at it, it is still missionary behavior and it cannot be that the Israeli government, or any other organization for that matter, takes it upon herself to make Israelis more religious.
Religion is a right of every person but at the same time a government of a (democratic) State should remove itself from religion completely.
Does that mean that Israeli Democracy is not what it seems or what they want to make it look like?
I hope you found this article interesting and I welcome any comments you may have.
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