Last week, President Donald Trump issued a proclamation for Jewish American Heritage Month that included a call for Americans to honor 250 glorious years of American independence by celebrating a “national Sabbath” on May 15-16. I immediately posted that I would be celebrating “Shabbat 250,” (or “Shabbos 250” as I would pronounce it). However, some people privately questioned if such a call by a Republican President would indeed be embraced by all Jews. I, for one, sure hope so.
Let’s be clear. Jews don’t observe the Sabbath because the president of the country tells us to. The week after Shabbos 250, Jews around the world will celebrate the holiday of Shavuos. That is the day we commemorate the giving of the Ten Commandments, which includes the instruction from G-d to keep the Sabbath. Since then, Jews have kept Shabbos for thousands of years. They have been fired from their jobs because of Shabbos, suffered imprisonment and even death, and ignored edicts from governments and rulers who commanded them otherwise. But that is exactly why we should observe Shabbos 250.
For Jews who grew up in the freedom and comfort of the United States, risking one’s life to keep Shabbos, can sound like a story from ancient times. But for Jews in the former Soviet Union, Sabbath observance was not a lifestyle choice. It was an act of defiance, a declaration of identity, and in many cases a ticket to prison, exile, or worse.
Few stories capture this better than that of Yosef Mendelevich, the Soviet refusenik who insisted on living as a Jew even when the state tried to crush every expression of Jewish life. I once had the opportunity to meet Mendelevich at Agudath Israel’s annual convention where he was a guest speaker and I will forever be inspired by his faith and courage. Mendelevich related that he refused to work on Shabbos and for that he was punished with solitary confinement and three additional years in the Soviet gulag. His “crime” was fidelity—to faith, to tradition, to the weekly day of rest that had sustained Jews for millennia.
The contrast is striking. In the USSR, Shabbos was treated as subversion. Today, in the United States, our President is calling our religious devotion an “enduring pillar of a thriving culture,” and encouraging Americans to observe Sabbath.
My family and I keep Shabbos every week and we are always trying to strengthen our observance. For me, Shabbos 250 is about using the period between this Friday sundown and Saturday night to express my appreciation for the bedrock principle of religious liberty upon which America was founded, and to reflect on the historic role America has played in serving as a haven for embattled Jews the world over.
The question for American Jews is not whether the President’s proclamation is a reason to observe Shabbos this week or any other week. The question is whether we truly appreciate the extraordinary privilege of living in a country where Shabbos can be kept without fear and even the President encourages us to do so. If you agree that these truths are self-evident, Shabbos 250 should get our unanimous vote.
Rabbi A.D. Motzen serves as the national director of government affairs for Agudath Israel of America