But never on a Sunday

Picture this:

It’s Motzai Shabbat (i.e. Motza”Sh for the acronym fans among you).

You recited Havdalah; your Shabbat guests packed up, said their goodbyes, and left; and your Shabbat dishes were washed, dried, and put away.

And now, you can sit back and relax, because your weekend is only half over---

{cue: sound of blog post coming to a screeching halt}

Or, maybe not.

Because if you live here in Israel, your weekend is just about over.

After all, Sunday is the first day of the work/school week, and so now’s the time to focus on things like picking out clothes for the morning, packing lunches, and organizing schoolbags.

But relief may be in sight, because a number of activists and politicians have recently proposed that Sunday become a day-off from work/school.

As Jameel explains:

“According to the proposal, Saturday and Sunday will be official days of rest while Friday will become a half day work-wise...and an extra 30 - 60 minutes would be added to Monday to Thursday's workdays.”

Overall, I think this is an excellent idea.

Because as it stands now, Election Day is pretty much the only chance we have to schedule family get-togethers, trips, or casual outings.

And since it’s probably not in the national interest to have Election Day more than once every couple of years, it would be really nice to have a weekly equivalent (albeit without the government falling and the entertaining political commercials…).

But I have to admit that one aspect of this new proposal concerns me.

Under the current system, most professionals don’t work on Friday – hence, the popular saying:

“Even in chu”l (the Diaspora), they have Shabbat, but it’s only in Eretz Yisrael that we also have Erev Shabbat…”

There’s nothing as amazing as an entire country spending the day preparing for Shabbat – each person in his or her own unique way.

And while it’s true that one can certainly manage to get everything done on Thursday night – as we used to do, before we made aliyah - it’s just not the same.

Back in my corporate America days, I’d usually eat lunch at my desk during the winter months. It was the only way I could make up the hours, so that I could leave at a semi-reasonable time on Friday.

Meanwhile, YZG would rush home every Friday - just in time to jump into the shower before dashing off to shul.

I can’t say I miss any of that.

So, I guess the question is:

Would having Sundays off be worth the price?

What do you think?

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P.S. The latest Haveil Havalim is available here. Special thanks to Esser Agaroth for including my most recent Heblish post.