2 min read
ByMiriam Shaviv, Miriam Shaviv
During the month of March, I will be publishing a daily proposal to transform the British Jewish community. Email your own idea (up to 350 words) tomiriamshaviv@thejc.com
Today's idea comes from Natan Levy: Turn Shabbat into the Greenest day of the week
When my secular Israeli cousins told me that Yom Kippur was their favourite day of the year, I was shocked. What could turn the Day of Atonement into the highlight of a kid’s calendar? So they showed me their bikes. “It’s not just Yom Kippur,” they told my seriously, “it’s Yom Ofanayim (Bike Day).”
Yom Kippur is bike day because no matter how irreligious one considers oneself, in Israel no one drives on Yom Kippur. The streets become the domain of children and pedestrians. Air pollution levels drop dramatically and fatal accident rates stay down all day.
Yom Kippur in Israel reveals what can happen when a nation holds a day of rest en masse.Just imagine this occurring once a week, every week, that’s the Jewish vision of Shabbat. A concept so alive with potential that it could transform a world overburdened with pollution and greed, a world sunk in 24-hour Tesco and toy producing factories in China where the conveyer belts have no ‘off’switch.
The world yearns for a day of rest. We Jews must do the reminding.When Christianity and Islam appropriated Shabbat to Sunday and Friday respectively, the focus shifted awayfrom the details of communal law and towards spiritual self-reflection. But for the Torah, Shabbat was always a weekly cessation from exploitation and injustice.
“Six days shall you accomplish your activities, and on the seventh day you shall stop, so that your ox and donkey can rest, and the son of your servant and the stranger can recover their soul.” (Shemot 23:12)
The call of Shabbat still echoes into modernity. As cars have replaced donkeys on the road, and 10-year-old chocolate slaves in the Ivory Coast stand in for servants, the necessity of Shabbat has not waned.
The potential to transform Shabbat - and transform our community - is only possible when we recognise and integrate various foci of observance from across the Jewish spectrum. For the already observant family, choosingfair trade chocolate on Shabbat engenders new sensitivity for the stranger in the Ivory coast. For the ecologist, one day a week without driving or shopping provides a haven of sustainability.
When the Chief Rabbi went to Lambeth Palace to speak on the religious response to climate change, he urged faith leaders to remember the transformative potential of the Sabbath. Afterwards, the Archbishop’s environmentalliaison asked me only one question: Does every Jew keep the Sabbath? Not yet, I answered quietly. Not yet.
Rabbi Natan Levy is the head of the LSJS Jewish Responsibility Unit
Check out our previous ideas: 10 - Focus on people, not institutions
9 - Create an online platform for Jewish students, 8 - Appoint anti-antisemitism champions, 7 - Share our synagogues and community centres with other religions, 6 - Establish a Succah in Trafalgar Square, 5 - Create a 'community service' programme for young Jews, 4 - Recruit older people to volunteer for the community,3 - Establish a fund for the Jewish arts, 2 - Pay membership fees to your community, not your shul, 1 - Make 2010/11 the year of synagogue renewal