Illustration
Photo: Israel Bardugo
Embrace our Shabbat
Op-ed: Making Sunday Israel’s official day off will be good for our economy and soul
I love Shabbat, and therefore I love the proposal to make Sunday a day off in Israel for shopping, errands, trips, cultural events and other activities.
I too want a quiet, family-oriented Shabbat, rather than a Shabbat dedicated to shopping. An ecological Shabbat where cars take a voluntary day off and our citizens go back to gracing the city with their feet and bicycle.
Yair Lapid
Sima Kadmon
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Should this idea be realized, Sunday may take in all the franticness and leave Israeli citizens with a green, leisurely Shabbat.
And there are more advantages: Sports activity will be easier to undertake and finally fulfill its role as a unifying element. Moreover, our country will be synchronized with the world.
Yet for me, the truly huge advantage would be restoring Shabbat’s calm.
Indeed, this proposal calls for extending the workday a little and again making Friday half-a-day of work, yet all of us will gain a whole day of challenging and fun family time, a day of shopping and trips that will be preceded by a relaxed Shabbat.
This will grant us natural separation between the day of rest and a dynamic Sunday that shall await us immediately after Shabbat.
Now that the prime minister established a committee to look into the issue, we better voice our support for the idea, because when a committee is set up, good, simple ideas usually end up undergoing strange mutations following lengthy discussions. I don’t want this to happen.
I pray that the committee headed by Professor Eugene Kandel will not only focus on money issues and also think about what will be good for the citizens. I hope that all sorts of political considerations will not torpedo this beautiful idea and believe that it will be good for our economy, and mostly good for our soul.
