What is Shabbat? That would depend on whom you ask. The observant Jew views it as a holy day, a taste of the world to come. Haim Nachman Bialik, Israel’s national poet, called Shabbat “the most brilliant creation of the Hebrew spirit.” Abraham Joshua Heschel, the non-orthodox theologian, viewed it as a “palace in time,” a sanctuary, where a Jew is invited in to visit each week and listen to the inner voices of his soul. The Israeli lawmaker, of necessity dry and purposeful, has enacted laws for work and rest hours, including an official day of rest.
But what is the reality of Shabbat? Religious sanctity is limited to narrow confines. The Hebrew spirit blows mainly within books. An invisible hand has perverted the palace in time into a shopping mall made of marble and neon. Enforcement of the day of rest lies in the hands of four undercover inspectors from the Ministry of Labor.
Shabbat’s special status has been trampled and crushed in the public domain of the Jewish State: 20% of the economy’s wage earners work on Shabbat; 27% of commercial areas operate; 600,000 Israelis leave their homes to engage in the rite of consumerism, plunking down several billion shekels each year. Market forces continue to plow ahead, turning the day of rest into a Shabbat of work.
In this Shabbat of work there is social discrimination: the weaker segments of society, those with no alternative, work in shopping centers to serve the middle and upper class. And there is religious discrimination too - small businesses whose owners observe the Sabbath lose out on the most profitable day of the week.
The High Court of Justice has recently confronted this reality. Its judges have ruled that the values of the State of Israel, as a Jewish and democratic state, are compatible with prohibiting enforced work, including on Shabbat - thus further reinforcing a clear path plotted by previous generations of judges. As far as the Court is concerned, enforcing the day of rest is justified from a religious-national, as well as societal, aspect. Judicial rhetoric waxes eloquent: Shabbat is a central value of Judaism - the soul and the “essence of its character.” It is our national asset. Shabbat safeguards the humanity of the worker, his quality of life, honor, and relationship with family. The judges rightfully elucidate that a Shabbat of rest is not based on any religious coercion. All this is true and clearly in accord with international conventions, laws and rulings in other Western, liberal countries. It is quite ironic that here, in our corner of the world, these simple statements are perceived as “courageous pronouncements” from the High Court of Justice, or, even, in the eyes of others, as capitulation to the religious.
Regrettably, the High Court of Justice is wary of commenting on the yawning and incomprehensible gap that exists between binding law and the realities of the working Shabbat. Rule of law cannot exist without enforcement. In this respect, the Israeli Shabbat, aside from all its other shortcomings, is an unmistakable expression of the illegality prevalent in Israeli society. The Shabbat economy is, in part, a black economy