Open for all, open for Shabbat

Official kickoff awaits green light from Jerusalem Rabbinate.

By ORRI J. AVRAHAM
Open for Shabbat sign (photo credit: ETTI GAL-OR MENDELOVITCH)
Open for Shabbat sign
(photo credit: ETTI GAL-OR MENDELOVITCH)
A rich and vigorous community life is among the first vital signs to look for in every healthy society.
In modern Israel, rekindling such a culture has perhaps become more imperative than ever as a counterweight to an increasingly individualistic, often alienated, Western worldview.
In the same vein, some say the concept of a seventh day of rest could not have been any more relevant than in the present era. If Shabbat was the Jewish nation’s invaluable gift to the world more than three millennia ago, how much more so in the fast-paced information age, when most working people hardly find time in their routine for themselves or their loved ones.
Here in Jerusalem, a group of six students engrossed by this idea insist that the potential of Shabbat to strengthen community life remains wasted to a large degree. The weekend, they say, offers a precious opportunity for local residents to spend their leisure time together and enrich neighborhood culture through common activities that are conspicuously absent.
No less important is their observation that most of Jerusalem’s neighborhoods already possess the common spaces for such community ventures to take place on Shabbat. The keys to the cafés, restaurants and bars that would otherwise remain locked up and idle could be handed over to locals for meaningful use over the weekend; that is, for Friday- night neighborhood gatherings and recreation. These would include no commercial activity and be strictly observant of Shabbat, of course, so as to extend an open invitation to religious and secular residents alike.
“The possibilities here are essentially unlimited,” explains Matan Hayat, among the founders of the aptly named Patuah L’Shabbat (Open for Shabbat) project.
“These venues would become neutral spaces where neighbors could engage for the first time,” Hayat explains. “What content they then choose to cast into it is entirely up to them. It might be a lecture, a board-game night or a yoga session. Each neighborhood according to its character, but always in keeping with Shabbat, to be as inclusive as possible.”
Under the auspices of the New Spirit NGO, Hayat and his friends resolved to set this promising trend into motion by reaching out to businesses willing to lend their places for the weekend. Soon enough, they were overwhelmed with calls not only from eager restaurant owners, but also from enthusiastic community leaders and rabbis.
Rabbi Benny Lau is perhaps among the keenest supporters of the idea, having advised the founders of Patuah L’Shabbat on how to keep their events in accordance with Halacha.
“This is a truly blessed initiative,” says Lau. “Creating new cultural and spiritual content where there currently is none is something everyone should agree on, regardless of how they identify religiously.”
The project might very well help lay the foundations for a meaningful bridge between the different subcultures that often live almost parallel lives within Jerusalem. Haredi, religious and secular Jews might share the same public transportation system and meet in the workplace, but scarce interaction in their private and communal lives – of the sort that Patuah L’Shabbat promises to inspire – could mean a city quite literally split into separate tribes in a generation or so.
After many weeks of prodigious preparation, last Friday was designated to be as the grand opening of Patuah L’Shabbat, with Nahlaot’s renowned Hahummus Shel Tahini restaurant as the first proud host.
Among the more prominent invitees were lecturer Tomer Persico and Deputy Mayor Ofer Berkowitz, with the former to speak on Jewish meditation. The remainder of the evening was reserved for the participants to do what the initiative ultimately strives for – meet one another and talk face to face.
A last-minute objection to the long-anticipated event on the part of the Jerusalem Rabbinate, however, brought it to a screeching halt.
To the surprise and dismay of those who had toiled to make it a reality, the restaurant’s kashrut supervisor issued a warning at the last minute that he would withdraw its kashrut certificate should it be opened on Shabbat, even if just for a community gathering. Respectful of the rabbinate and determined to form an understanding with it for the long run, the organizers were compelled to announce the event’s postponement on the very day it was meant to be held.
The Jerusalem Rabbinate’s opposition to a project whose sole purpose is the enrichment of Shabbat culture and the strengthening of community life in Jerusalem has baffled many. According to the rabbinate, headed by Chief Rabbi Aryeh Stern, its apprehensions stem from a general worry that physically opening kosher restaurants on Shabbat could, even without any commercial activity involved, somehow create a breach by which Jewish law is broken.
As rabbinate spokesperson Avinoam Kutscher plainly put it, “This is a question that has essentially never reached the rabbinate’s table: whether businesses could be allowed to open without pay on Shabbat and without food being served by the restaurant or guests. The rabbis must discuss this thoroughly and respond accordingly.”
Yet other voices claim the rabbinate’s disapproval of the Patuah L’Shabbat program is driven mostly by a blind fear of any minor change that might threaten the status quo.
“There is no real reason to oppose this initiative,” Berkowitz, the deputy mayor and head of the Hitorerut B’Yerushalayim Party, insists.
“The organizers envision activities that are totally in keeping with Jewish law for the very reason they wish to see religious residents coming in large numbers to these events. This is a move toward connecting people within communities and between communities, and could only make life in this city better for us all.”
Indeed, a quick call to Beit Yisrael Halls in Jerusalem, one of many venues that cater to the haredi community, would reveal that prepaid meals and other events are regularly held on Friday nights with the rabbinate’s approval, rendering the latter’s claim for halachic difficulties somewhat bewildering.
Still, the spirited organizers behind Patuah L’Shabbat have set their minds on working together with the rabbinate and not against it in the hope of including it in turning the project into a citywide endeavor open to all. In the coming week, a series of sit-downs between the two sides is set to commence, by which an agreement might be reached.
“We are optimistic and believe we can find common ground through dialogue,” Eti Gal-Or Mendelovich, of the founders, says. “We want to use Shabbat as a platform to bring people together into open discourse, rather than to split them further apart.”