Vertical.
The link to the ages.
And horizontal.
The link to society.
Miri Regev is hardly a household name, certainly not outside of Israel. In one small gesture, however, she stood tall, very tall, for Israel and the Jewish people. She became the poster child for the Jewish link to the ages and the self-respect that a Jewish state needs internally in order to thrive.
As we understand it, Miri Regev, Israel’s Minister of Culture and Sport, is not personally observant. Nonetheless, she decided not to attend the opening of the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro this evening out of respect for Shabbos. Whether she would attend, or not attend, was not, she understood, about her own beliefs or practices. It was about something larger than herself.
She understood what Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben Gurion, understood when he moved up the declaration of Israel’s independence in 1948 from Shabbos to Friday. As secular as they get, as removed from Jewish observance as one can possibly be, David Ben Gurion understood that for the Jewish people, Shabbos stands for something major, something eternal, whether one personally observes it or not. One does not declare a state on Shabbos, he said. And he didn’t.
In this spirit, Miri Regev tried to make arrangments to stay within walking distance of the Olympics’ opening ceremony. Not that difficult a task, one might think. In a different age, it might not have been. But in the age of terrorism and super-security precautions at the massively attended Olympics, it proved impossible.
So she said: I won’t attend the opening ceremony. It wasn’t something that normally would have put her off, but she realized that, as a minister of the State of Israel, she represents something larger than her personal habits and preferences. She represents a Jewish state, a symbol of Jewish ideals and perseverence through the ages, and she represents a Jewish society many of whose members do not ride on Shabbos, whether they identify themselves as “dati” (religious) or not, whether they vote for religious parties or not.
We salute Miri Regev for her gesture in honoring Shabbos.
It is a gesture whose spirit, if more widely emulated in Israel, would go a long way to healing the various divisions within Israeli society.
Copyright © 2016 by the Intermountain Jewish News
