I’m not a religious person but before I went to Israel I read a friend’s book that described the "sweetness of the Sabbath" and wondered what it meant. Then I got to Israel and altogether I’ve experienced three or four Sabbaths there, and now I know what my friend meant by the phrase. Observing the Sabbath is commanded by Jewish law, and when you’re in West Jerusalem, you’re forced to experience the Sabbath, and sense its glory.
As Friday passes, you feel the Sabbath approaching. You know that your busy life is about to be shut down. You cram in some last activities. My last Sabbath in Jerusalem, this meant participating in protests in the morning and early afternoon, hanging out at an uprooted Palestinian family’s house in East Jerusalem, then running to meet Jerry Haber for a late lunch.
Before dusk comes, the streets have emptied and the last cabs are scooting around. I walk through West Jerusalem to get to a friend’s place, have a long idle Sabbath dinner with family, then walk back late that night, all the way to my hotel in East Jerusalem. There’s a wonderful peacefulness in the streets of West Jerusalem. You see rich old Americans walking around, New York Zionists from their accents, getting to their apartments. Through a window, you see some men praying in a narrow shul. Turning on my light, I’m mindful of all the absurd demands of the Sabbath, and wonder if I’m reading my book, or studying it, and if that matters.
The next day I sleep late because there’s not much to do on the Sabbath but visit and pray and read and talk. Though truth be told, my last Sabbath, I think I got a private bus to Tel Aviv, hung out with secular friends.
I thought about the Sabbath yesterday when I was talking with a Jewish activist who works in solidarity with Palestinians but expressed some apprehension about people’s agendas. I’m not a river-to-the-sea type, he said. I said, That’s fine, there’s room for many different attitudes.
I felt that my friend was concerned for the Jewish population of Israel, and I respect that concern. I told him my feeling about the Sabbath and said, No one will ever take that away from us. No one wants to either. No matter what happens in the political resolution of Israel and Palestine, if it’s one state or two, or a binational state, if the right of return is exercised at last and there are many more Palestinians in Israel– no one is trying to hurt the Jewish religion, or erase Jewish culture. In fact, if you need any reason to work for a just peace in historical Palestine, you only need to see the restrictions on Muslims trying to reach the third holiest site in Islam, the Al-Aqsa mosque, to remind yourself that something is really screwed up.
Right now in Jerusalem, Sabbath is approaching.
