The ‘First Shabbat’: A World Calling Us Home
In a move that should send a tremor through the Jewish world, an official proclamation connected to Jewish American Heritage Month has encouraged Americans to observe a “National Shabbat.” For 25 hours—from sunset Friday, 28 Iyar (May 15, 2026), to nightfall Shabbat, 29 Iyar (May 16, 2026)—the highest office in the United States has invited a nation to stop. This is not merely a political gesture; it is a historic and public recognition by President Donald J. Trump of the spiritual foundation that has sustained the Jewish people through every exile and every storm for thousands of years.
Why now? The reasoning behind the President’s call is as powerful as it is humbling. A free society cannot survive on material success alone. Its foundations rest upon the *Mesorah*—the timeless values of the Torah that teach that a human being is not a machine.
By encouraging a National Shabbat in honor of America’s 250th anniversary, President Trump is recognizing that human dignity and liberty are not merely social contracts, but divine truths rooted in the belief that every person is created *B’tzelem Elokim*—in the image of God. Shabbat is the living testimony to that truth. It is the one day that reminds the world that we are not slaves to work, screens, or endless pressure, but souls with purpose and destiny.
There is an acknowledgment here that the power of Shabbat is not merely a private Jewish idea, but part of the moral fabric upon which civilization itself stands.
There is also a profound, almost painful irony in this moment. If the leader of a distant nation can recognize the light of Shabbat from across an ocean, why do we sometimes struggle to recognize it here at home?
In Israel, Shabbat too often becomes a battleground—a source of political and social tension. But what would happen if we chose, even briefly, to see it differently? What if we saw Shabbat not as another issue to argue over, but as a national day of soul?
During Parshat Bamidbar, which reminds us that every Jew was counted and mattered, Shabbat can remind us once again who we truly are. Even if we cannot always find peace in the public square, perhaps we can still find it around the Shabbat table.
If the President of the United States can call for unity through Shabbat, surely we—the people of Shabbat—can lead that call ourselves. We should not need the nations of the world to remind us how precious our *Yerusha* truly is. It is time to bring the light back home.
Our Sages taught a staggering principle: *“If Israel were to keep two Shabbats properly, they would immediately be redeemed.”*
For many years, we have treated this as a distant dream, an elevated ideal beyond our reach. But perhaps now a rare opening has appeared before us. When the President of the United States officially encourages the observance of a “National Shabbat,” perhaps the first of those two Shabbats is already being placed before us.
This is a historic opportunity to fulfill this timeless mitzvah with a unity that spans the Jewish world.
If we—in Israel and throughout the Diaspora—merit to keep this Shabbat together, we will not merely be responding to a public call. We will be returning to the very core of our identity. We will show that we are still capable of standing as *Am Echad B’lev Echad*—one people with one heart.
The nations of the world have recognized the power of our Shabbat. Now it is our turn to truly live it. And if we can find the strength to guard this first Shabbat together, perhaps the second one—and the *Geulah* for which we have prayed for generations—may finally be closer than ever.
**Yidden, hit Shabbos!**
**יהודים, שמרו שבת!**
**Djudios, guardad la Shabat!**
**Keep Shabbos!**
**שמור את יום השבת לקדשו**
