Just One Shabbos

This week, over one million Jews in 101 countries will keep Shabbos — some for the first time ever — thanks to the Shabbos Project. This movement encourages Jews from diverse backgrounds to unite in keeping one full Shabbos.

At the risk of sounding presumptuous, I’d like to make a shamelessly conceited disclosure: I thought of it first. When I was only nine years old.

That was the year my fourth-grade morah shared the astonishing news that Mashiach could come by next Shabbos, if only the entire Klal Yisrael would commit to keeping one full Shabbos. “If all the Jews keep two complete Shabbosim,” she explained, “the Geulah will come. We already kept one after we left Mitzrayim, now all that’s left is just one Shabbos.” (In my memory, she concluded with “and we’ll all be free,” but that part was likely contributed by MBD’s classic hit, “Just One Shabbos.”)

Well, I wasn’t going to take this newsflash sitting down, and with the overconfidence and naivete of a nine-year-old, I hatched a plan. In those pre-Internet days, I imagined dozens of people scouring phone books for Jewish last names, calling on the forgotten Jews of the world to keep “just one Shabbos.”