Shabbos Project: Worldwide ‘holy flash mob’

In recent weeks, The Jewish Star has reported on upcoming Shabbos Project activities in the Five Towns (for an update, see page 29 in this week’s edition). Here, we are presenting a report on Shabbos Project around the world.

Hundreds of thousands of Jews. Hundreds of thousands of challahs, candlesticks, and zemirot. Havdalah.

For Shabbos of Oct. 23–24, through 5,000 groups in 500 communities around the world, Jews of all ages and levels of religious observance will come together to celebrate the Jewish people’s oldest friend: Shabbos.

“Shabbos has been with us since the formation of our people and with every step of our Jewish journey, Shabbos has accompanied us,” says Rabbi Dr. Warren Goldstein, chief rabbi of South Africa and founder of the project, now in its third year. “Shabbos Project is like a reunion, a reconnection with our oldest friend.”

Shabbos Project started as a local South African event in 2013 

In 2013, after Rabbi Goldstein suggested, during a conference presentation, the idea hosting a communal Shabbos experience, he “felt forced” to make it happen. He says he expected 1,000 or 2,000 South Africans to join him for Friday night dinner and commit to try to keep the 25-hour day of rest. In the end, nearly 7,500 people take part. 

After the event, when Rabbi Goldstein put up a video and participants shared their personal experiences through social media, thousands of emails poured in, asking how the South African event could be emulated elsewhere . In 2014, The Shabbos Project took place in 465 cities in six countries.

“I think there is a thirst for Jewish unity,” Rabbi Goldstein tells JNS.org. “People are thirsting for Jews to rally not because we are forced to by our enemies, but because it is something that we want, that we are doing around the positive values of who we are.”

Rabbi Goldstein also believes people crave a day to disconnect from the modern, fragmented, distracted, demanding world, and to reconnect on a spiritual level with G-d, community, and family.

Still, he says that “no one dreamed” Shabbos Project could reach the size it is today or bring joy to so many individuals.