Weekly Chasidic Story #952 (s5776-24 / 13 Adar A 5776)

The Rebel Against Shabbat - A Modern Tale

One Shabbos, he decided to teach those impudent Ultra Orthodox a lesson. He drove his car down Meah Shearim Street "like a Roman charioteer," as he described it...

Connection: Weekly Reading-the opening verses speak of the prohibition against doing certain forms of work on the Shabbat.

The Rebel Against Shabbat - A Modern Tale

Rabbi Benyamin Adilman was told this by a man he met about ten years after this story took place.

It was sometime in the 1960's when the strictly religious Jews --the so-called "Ultra Orthodox" - of the Meah Shearim neighborhood in Jerusalem first attempted to close their main street to traffic on Shabbat. They set up trash bins across the road and there was anger and indignation all around.

In response, some secular Jews decided to form a committee to oppose the closure of the street, calling it by a name which declared their opposition to "religious coercion." They saw it as coercive against the secular that the Ultra Orthodox wanted to close the street which runs through their completely Shabbat-observant neighborhood. This committee against religious coercion used to bus ruffians into Jerusalem on Shabbat from kibbutzim and other places to attack and beat up Ultra Orthodox male demonstrators.

This man was one of those ruffians who went up to Jerusalem to fight religious coercion by beating up the Ultra Orthodox in order to force them to open the main street in their neighborhood to traffic, including the city bus line #1.

One Shabbat, he was in Jerusalem with his own automobile and decided to teach those impudent Ultra Orthodox a lesson. He drove his car down Meah Shearim Street "like a Roman charioteer," as he described it, with pedestrians scattering in panic, pregnant women sprinting from the street and women with baby carriages bouncing across the uneven pavement. All this was to show them that they can't impose their "Shabbat" on him!

One resident, a local teacher, had the presence of mind to memorize the number of his license plate and look it up the next day at the motor vehicle Licensing Bureau. Then he looked up the registered owner's telephone number and called him up. Ascertaining that the man on the line was indeed the wild driver, he invited him to his home for Shabbat, explaining that he wanted him to see what Shabbat is and "why it means so much to us."

The driver declined, explaining that he would not want to spend the whole of Shabbat in such an environment. The teacher said, "I am inviting you to be my guest, not my prisoner. You are free to leave whenever you want. Just do me the courtesy of parking your car outside the neighborhood."

He could find no honorable way of refusing a challenge so reasonably presented, so he showed up Shabbat evening for Kiddush and the meal. They talked somewhat and he left. As he was leaving, his host invited him to return another Shabbat and, to reinforce the invitation, called him during the week.

Eventually, he came again for Shabbat. And again. And again. Over the next year or so, he became first an occasional Shabbat guest, then a frequent Shabbat guest and finally a regular Shabbos guest. Over period of two to three years, he became Shabbat observant and then fully religious.

Commented Rabbi Adilman (in the early 2000's, when the street closure demonstrations and opposition had moved to a newer neighborhood - y.t.):
A motorcade of secular Jews driving down Bar Ilan Boulevard on Shabbat is an opportunity to talk to them. They are in your neighborhood on Shabbat. So invite them for Kiddush. They have never seen you in a positive, sympathetic way before. Great good can come of it!
~~~~~~~~~~~

Source: Source: Adapted by Yerachmiel Tilles from //nishmas.org, the website of "Nishmas Chayim: Center for Torah, Chassidus and Jewish Spirituality."

Connection: Weekly Reading-the opening verses speak of the prohibition against doing certain forms of work on the Shabbat.

Yerachmiel Tilles is co-founder and associate director of Ascent-of-Safed, and chief editor of this website (and of KabbalaOnline.org). He has hundreds of published stories to his credit, and many have been translated into other languages. He tells them live at Ascent nearly every Saturday night.

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