One of the more curious reactions to the recent call for Jews across America to celebrate Shabbat in honor of the nation’s 250th anniversary was the controversy it generated. Not because disagreement itself is surprising. Jews, after all, have been arguing for centuries. But because it revealed something deeper and more troubling about our moment.

We have become so politically polarized that many people can no longer encounter even Shabbat without first asking whether it belongs to the right or the left.

That is a tragedy, because Shabbat belongs to neither.

Shabbat is not Republican. It is not Democrat. It is not conservative or progressive. It does not belong to cable news, social media tribes, or ideological movements. Shabbat belongs to the Jewish people.

Indeed, one of the greatest dangers facing modern society is that politics has ceased being merely something we debate and has instead become something from which people derive identity itself. Increasingly, people no longer say, “I hold certain political views.” Rather, politics becomes the lens through which they see the world, judge others, form relationships, and even determine where they feel spiritually at........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)