One of the common pre-aliyah worries I have heard (and something that we definitely thought about before coming over) was the loss of Sundays. In the United States, custom is (despite all claims of separation between church and state) for Sunday to be a “day off” from whatever it is that you may be doing – being a student, or working, even though you may not be going to church, Sunday is a day of rest with no religious obligations.

I remember back in college, Sunday’s would normally be a day when I would tell myself that I was going to study, and then basically waste alot of time, maybe do some learning, watch some football. You know, have a day off. After college, once I got married and started working, Sunday was still a day when you really didn’t have so many obligations, and could very easily spend a whole day accomplishing next to nothing (and somehow, still get tired doing it).

Things don’t work that way in the Holy Land. Sunday is a just a regular work/school day. Shabbat is the universal day of rest, and almost everyone has off of work on Friday (or at least they only work half a day) in order to get ready for Shabbat. So when you make aliyah, you give up the Sunday day off, and get Friday instead (which can’t really be considered a day off in the same sense that Sunday was, since you do have to clean up and get ready for Shabbat). For those who “can’t live without their Sundays” this can introduce some anxiety and stress (especially when Shabbat ends at 8pm and you have to wash the dishes, prepare for work and the kids have to do their homework).
(It is interesting to note that there has been a movement to go to a 5 day work week – which would really be 4.5 days because no one would work a full day on Friday, in order to encourage Shabba observance. Right now, since Shabbat is the only real day off, many secular Jews use it as a shopping day or to go to the beach. If there was another day off in addition to this, then hopefully more people would try being Shomer Shabbat…or something like that.)

The funny thing is, since making aliyah, not having Sundays hasn’t been so bad. Admittedly, this has a lot to do with the flexibility of my schedule – I work for a company in the US (I am the Israel office), so I do not have to be in the office by 8am Sunday morning. However, I normally have to do a full day’s work on Sunday (to make up for the workday that I missed on Friday). Looking back, it seems that my pre-aliyah Sunday’s were normally very unproductive. Now they are as productive as any other day – something that is slightly gratifying when going over what you have done in a given day or week.

So though this may not apply to all, I think that given the right approach and situation, the loss of “Sundays” is not necessarily such a bad thing.