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Back to Question of the Week Dave |
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A:Dave's question seems to present a real conflict between two important Jewish values: Shabbat and Tikkun Olam--the healing/repair of the world. On the one hand, Judaism teaches (and my experience agrees) that Shabbat is an immensely important practice that spills into the rest of our lives; it is life-changing. Indeed filling Shabbat with rest, prayer, family, and Torah may so help us to spiritually order our lives, that it becomes "possible" to feed the hungry or do other similar mitsvot during the rest of the week. On the other hand, our prophets have taught us that bringing healing to others in body and spirit is one of our most important obligations. In the prophetic reading for Yom Kippur morning, the prophet Isaiah seems to say that feeding the hungry would be a better way to observe even Yom Kippur, than empty fasting and beating the breast. I'd like to contrast this question with two related ones that were dealt with in Reform responsa from Rabbis Plaut and Jacob. Those questions dealt with participating in building projects--building homes or other structures--for the poor on Shabbat. In those cases, both rabbis suggested that the questioners find ways of supporting the building projects without actually building on Shabbat. Of course, the basis of these responsa was a desire to encourage fuller Shabbat observance for the reasons I explained above. And the rabbis wondered why the building had to take place on Shabbat. But some of the important points of those cases differed from the question of working in a food bank. First, rabbis Plaut and Jacobs emphasised that there was no immediate pikuach nefesh (pikuach nefesh=saving of a life:the prohibitions of work on Shabbat are always susbended to save a life) involved in building on Shabbat: presumably the tennants could wait one more day for the building to be completed. In the case of a food bank, however, it may be that one day of food would have life-and-death consequences. Second, while building a building is clearly a violation of both the spirit and the letter of traditional Shabbat observance, there are many activities that one might do at the food bank do not violate the letter of Shabbat observance. (Whether they violate the spirit is the issue of this whole question.) Given these differences, and taking into account Isaiah's teaching on Yom Kippur, it seems to me that volunteering in a food bank may be a reasonable choice on Shabbat. There is some midrash that supports this. Shabbat is said to be a foretaste (1/60th) of the perfected messianic world. And there is a story of a certain rabbi who was granted a vision of heaven and hell. In each location the people sat around a long banquet table with plenty of wonderful food in front of them. In each location, everyone's arms were braced straight at the elbow, so they couldn't bring their hands to their mouths. In hell, the people just sat like that, tormented by the presense of the delicious food. In heaven, they swung their arms over to feed their neighbours and all enjoyed a wonderful feast. So feeding one's neighbour may indeed be a Shabbesdik foretaste of messianic days. Nonetheless, I know that many Jews make a special point of volunteering on Christian holidays. Perhaps it would taste even more like messianic times if non-Jews did the feeding on our Shabbat and we did the feeding on their days of rest! written by Rabbi Jeremy Schwartz |
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