Shabbat U.K. - Agreeing to disagree as the key to Unity

A couple of years ago, I remember hearing an interesting anecdote about the late R. Soloveitchik: When Chabad were promoting a Shabbat campaign in the 70s advertising the beauty of the day through pictures of the pristine white table cloth and crispy challah, he would react in irritation that Shabbat is not about nice tablecloths and fluff and that such advertising gave an overly sentimental and inaccurate portrayal of the Sabbath day.

Truth be told, those of us who are not such halakhic purists can admit that sometimes shabbos is mainly about the sitting back, relaxing and eating something someone's grandma might have been the best at cooking. What I found really excellent about the whole Shabbat UK idea is that it managed to do something striking in getting people to agree and disagree about the same topic in order to create great unity.

For example, for some, Shabbat UK was about a potential to reach out to Jews and to make them more involved religiously. A perfect opportunity for Kiruv. For others who would never approve of the aims of outreach organisations, it had different, more communal implications and was more about getting people together in the community regardless of observance. In fact, if you were to sit down 50 randomly selected people and get them to honestly discuss the 'point' of the day you could get 50 different answers. But the point was that the Shabbat concept provided something for everyone along with fertile ground for disagreement. Both those elements, in my opinion, are crucial to creating vibrancy and unity within a community.

In most areas, I really enjoy disagreement. It provides an excellent platform for creativity and the development of my own ideas. I spend most of my life doing essay-related things, and from experience it is very difficult to write anything until I find something juicy to argue against or grapple with. So too in communal activities. Disagreement is often very productive as long as you can find the maturity to agree to disagree. This is why I am such a fun of the Shabbat U.K model. It revolves around the near-universal love of Shabbos (although I did see some strange complaints about an Ashkenazi run conspiracy which should be referred to as Shabbos U.K rather than Shabbat but can't please everyone) albeit for very different reasons. 

I love the song 'America' by Simon and Garfunkel. One of my favourite lines in it is 'Cathy I'm lost I said though I knew she was sleeping.' It perfectly sums up feelings of alienation and loneliness. Being Jewish from a sociological perspective has always had much to do with belonging to something greater than yourself. Yet sadly alienation remains a common theme across the religious spectrum, particularly amongst the youth. I suggest that this model is an excellent one to follow as a means of addressing that: 1. Find a common ground, however broad, 2. Get people in the same physical space and 3. embrace the broigus. It's great fun.     
Shabbat Shalom











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