The upcoming Christian and secular holidays, Christmas and New Years, fall out on two consecutive Saturdays. I don't know how often that happens, and I doubt Torah Tidbits will give us the stats and the probabilities for such a sequence.
Rabanit Tzviya Eliyahu, the wife of Rav Mordechai Eliyahu zt"l, realized the opportunity this would present in the sense that on two consecutive Shabbos days Jews will not have a need to go to work. She saw the opportunity presented that it would therefore be easier to encourage people to keep shabbos, thus presenting the opportunity have all or most Jews keep two Shabbatot in a row thus guaranteeing the immediate arrival of Mashiach, as per the dictum of the Gemara.
She got a team together and they promoted their message in a number of countries. They say the response has been tremendous. Obviously not every Jew is going to keep Shabbos completely, but perhaps enough will, the one Jew who will tip the scales will be keeping Shabbos in some way, and Mashiach will come.
The Rabanit says that before her husband died he said that the time is ripe and all the conditions have already been met and all we need is just the one Jew who will tip the scales, and the redemption will be immediate. He said, everything happened already, including the war of Gog and Magog, and we have experienced everything we need to experience. We are ready.
It happens once in seven years. Not precisely once in any given seven years, but on the average, any date in the Gregorian calendar is as equally likely to fall on any day of the week.
ReplyDeleteDo many Jews in non-Jewish countries have to go to work on Saturdays in general? And isn't the Rabbanit aware that most chilul shabbat has nothing to do with one's occupation?
ReplyDeleteanonymous - I dont know if you are right or wrong about how often it happens, but there is a difference between the chances of it happening on any given day (perhaps 1 in 7 as you say), and the actual result of how often it falls out in that pattern.
ReplyDeleteyoni - in the article you see she is aware of that, but she also thinks that it is much easier to deal with if goign to work is not the issue. If it is leisure than people have an easier time, perhaps, to take the day off and do some minimums (which is what she says she is instructing people in)
Rafi,
ReplyDeleteWhat pattern are you talking about? Christmas and New Years are always on the same day of the week as each other.
of them falling specifically on Saturday (obviously they both fall out on the same day)
ReplyDeleteTo be more precise, any secular date on the calendar will fall out on a given day of the week approximately 1/7 of the time.
ReplyDeleteHowever, it's not exactly once every seven years. 365 divided by 7 does leave a remainder of 1, thus the day of the week for any secular date shifts 1 day each year. However, leap years are 366 days, thus shifting all dates following February 29 by 2 days. However, this will average out over time.