CCAR RESPONSA
Annual Meeting on Shabbat
5751.5
She’elah
We have been unable to attract enough members to our annual congregational meeting and are wondering whether it would be appropriate to hold such a meeting on a Friday evening.
Teshuvah
The question requires us to explore a number of issues. They concern the nature of Shabbat, the way we observe it as Jews, and especially as Reform Jews, and the nature of an annual congregational meeting.
Tradition, which is generally very strict about observing Shabbat in all its minutiae, is surprisingly permissive when dealing with the question before us. Its proof text is Isaiah 58:13:
If you refrain from trampling Shabbat,
From pursuing your affairs on My holy day;
If you call Shabbat “delight,”
The Eternal’s holy day “honored” …
The Rabbis reasoned that “your”, that is human, affairs were forbidden, but God’s business was not. Hence, matters dealing with the welfare of the community were allowed to be discussed on the Sabbath.1
The Prophet also challenges us to the mitzvot of oneg shabbat, Shabbat joy, and of kibbud shabbat, Shabbat honor, which is the subject of the Fourth Commandment.2 These mitzvot give the day its distinctive character and go beyond the duty to abstain from prohibited labor. One should turn away also from those activities which, though permitted, interfere with the honoring of Shabbat and making it a time of joy. The ordinary should give way to the special and thus, congregational worship, study, and festive celebration with family and friends should be the order of the day.
For this reason, meetings of any kind are generally not scheduled for Shabbat, even though they might halakhicly be permitted. This abstention has become quite general in the Jewish community, which constitutes a case where popular practice (minhag) has become more stringent than the Halakhah would demand.
Maimonides, in dealing with this type of divergence, ruled that minhag cannot annul that which is forbidden, but can prohibit that which is permitted.3 As a general custom, the minhag of a community was respected, though of course not every minhag deserved that approbation. Thus, when it could be said to have been practised and approved in error one should pay no attention to it.4
How does the halakhic permission to hold communal meetings and the popular practice of prohibiting them fit into this schema? The answer is that the rabbinic permission was given at a time when Shabbat was strictly observed by the Jewish community, and therefore the occasional exception could be tolerated. Holding a meeting for the welfare of the community did not in any wise diminish the respect for Shabbat or its meticulous observance; it was seen for what it was: an unusual but necessary exception.
In our time the situation has radically changed; the community as a whole is lax in its observance of Shabbat and therefore the minhag of not holding meetings on that day has become a fence, meant to guard against a further erosion of Shabbat awareness and respect. Clearly, the practice of discouraging meetings on that day is designed “to keep Shabbat holy,” and Jewish law would caution against overriding such a minhag.5
Rabbi Freehof was nonetheless permissive in this case. While he preferred that meetings not take place on Shabbat he reiterated the halakhic rule that such meetings were indeed permissible, but at the same time he cautioned against the inclusion of financial matters in the discussions.6
We feel certain that, were he asked the same question today, he would rule differently and agree that the sense of Shabbat holiness has diminished so severely that every further intrusion should now be quite aside from the fact that congregational meetings have in any case a way of focusing on financial issues.
Since Rabbi Freehof published his responsum, the Reform movement has made a sustained effort to re-enforce the sense of Shabbat holiness amongst its members. To this end, the Central Conference of American Rabbis has stated:
Kedushah (holiness) requires that Shabbat be singled out as different from weekdays. It must be distinguished from the other days of the week so that those who observe it will become transformed by its holiness. One ought, therefore, to do certain things which contribute to an awareness of this day’s special nature, and to abstain from doing others which lessen our awareness.7
Congregational meetings are generally perceived as secular occasions and would by that very fact further undermine the sense that Shabbat is a special day. We should make every effort to increase rather than to diminish this sense, even in the face of good intentions. Regrettably, Reform congregations have a hard enough time to inculcate amongst their members the awareness of Shabbat holiness. Trying to involve them in greater participation in Temple business is certainly laudable, but doing it at the expense of the Shabbat spirit appears to us as counterproductive.
The problem of poor attendances at annual meetings is wide-spread and not restricted to congregations. Yet secular organizations do not hold such meetings on Shabbat, and congregations should not set the wrong example in the community by doing what popular minhaghas so far discouraged.
Notes
[1] Here too the relevant sources were explored by Freehof in a responsum, “Congregational meeting on the Sabbath”, Reform Responsa (1950), pp. 40-50.
[2] The classic definition of these dual requirements is found in Rambam, Yad, Shabbat 30. One’s time on Shabbat ought to be divided so that half of it is devoted to God (Torah study and worship) and half to personal rejoicing (see BT Pesachim 68b; Tur, Orach Chayyim 242).
[3] Yad, Shevitat-‘Asor 3:3; Responsa of R. Shelomo ben Shim’on Duran, no. 562. (Yad, Issurei Bi’ah 11:14).
[4] See Yad, Issurei Bi’ah 11:14; and cf. BT Pesachim 50b-51a; Nedarim 81b; and Tosafot to Eruvin 101b.
[5] Further on this issue, see Responsa of R. Yitzhak ben Sheshet, cited in Kesef Mishneh to Yad, Issurei Bi’ah 11:14; see also Isserles, Shulchan Arukh, Yoreh De’ah 194:1; also R. Yechezkel Landau, Responsa Nodah Biyhudah I, Yoreh De’ah, no. 54.
[6] L.c., footnote 3 above.
[7] A Shabbat Manual (1972), pp. 6 ff.; this sense is reiterated in Gates of the Seasons (1983), pp. 11 ff. See also F.A. Doppelt and D. Polish, A Guide for Reform Jews (1957), p. 9: “Activities which are clearly not in the spirit of Shabbat should be planned for other days.”