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JERUSALEM — It's a lovely Saturday afternoon on the highways of the Sharon region. With the roads clear of weekday traffic one can drive uninterrupted for miles past peaceful greenery, enjoying the tranquil Shabbat splendor.

But take the wrong exit and you are in danger of entering a world that makes weekday commercial activity in a large city seem calm.

It is a realm of bumper-to-bumper traffic, jammed parking lots and impossibly crowded stores with endless lines at the cash register. It is also where the rope in the religious-secular tug-of-war is most taut.

Welcome to the world of Saturday shopping.

Legal and legislative challenges are brewing against the status quo, which has enshrined the Jewish Sabbath as a mandatory day off for all Jewish merchants and their employees.

In Shefayim and other kibbutz shopping centers, authorities have tried to take action.

On Shabbat two weeks ago, inspectors from the Labor and Social Affairs Ministry entered stores at Kibbutz Gan Shmuel, accompanied by police. The storekeepers refused to cooperate with the inspectors, who insisted on knowing their religion and that of their workers; the two sides nearly came to blows. Shoppers shouted at the inspectors to leave.

No arrests were made, and the stores were not closed. The storeowners were ticketed — but, in what has become routine, they are likely to pay their fines and continue opening on Shabbat.

The inspectors wanted to know the employees' religion because of the peculiar wording of the 1951 labor code, which requires that any worker have at least 36 consecutive hours of rest per week.

For a Jew, the law dictates that these leisure hours include Shabbat; for a non-Jew, they must include his religion's designated day of rest or working days "acceptable to him."

Similarly, Jews are not permitted to work on Shabbat even in their own factories, workshops or stores. Non-Jews working in a non-Jewish area may.

"In this case the Jews are the oppressed population," says Anat Galili, spokeswoman for Am Hofshi ("Free People"), one of the organizations pushing for changes in Shabbat restrictions.

The thriving Shabbat commerce in kibbutzim and moshavim is related to a loophole in the 1951 statute. According to the law, a "collective organization" like a kibbutz or moshav cannot permit Jews to work on Shabbat "in a workshop, factory or agricultural fields."

It includes no specific reference to stores, because the idea of a retail outlet in a kibbutz was unthinkable at the time the bill was framed.

Whether branches of Ace Hardware or Toys R Us are protected by this provision is still open to legal debate. Some judges have upheld that argument, others have not.

Am Hofshi launched a campaign this week that would allow the labor laws to be challenged in the High Court of Justice.

When the Basic Law: Freedom of Occupation was passed four years ago, it contained a temporary clause that did not allow current labor laws to be challenged in the Supreme Court. Twice, the religious parties have won Knesset votes extending the clause. The latest extension runs out March 10, and Am Hofshi wants to prevent another.

"There will almost definitely be an initiative by the religious parties to keep the clause," which can only be extended with 61 Knesset members voting in favor, says Galili. "As far as we are concerned, Knesset members can abstain, go hide in the cafeteria, anything they want, as long as this clause is not extended."

Am Hofshi and Meretz are also operating a hotline giving legal advice to businesses visited by Labor Ministry inspectors.

So far, their strategy of helping businessmen fight in court has met with success. Recently, a Nazareth judge ruled that a business could not be fined for employing Jews on Shabbat because there was no way of proving beyond a reasonable doubt whether the workers were Jewish. He said a citizen's registration as Jewish in the population rolls was not prima facie evidence of his Jewishness. The government is appealing that decision.

Last Shabbat, Am Hofshi and Meretz demonstrated in front of the Shefayim stores in support of Saturday shopping. They will do so again, handing out stickers that read: "Shabbat – Ani koneh" ("Shabbat — I shop"). The two organizations have circulated petitions addressed to the prime minister and are planning a large demonstration in front of the Tel Aviv Museum in several weeks.

Controversy over Saturday commerce is not limited to the national arena or the fields of moshavim and kibbutzim. It has also become a flashpoint in large municipalities, most notably Tel Aviv.

Over the past decade, the status quo in Tel Aviv has evolved in favor of Shabbat openings in several areas: Many restaurants are non-kosher and open on Shabbat undisturbed. Theaters are open for performances and, despite the law against their operation, most cinemas are open as well.

But the prohibition against shopping is enforced. Each Saturday, municipal workers fan out across the city ticketing the many kiosk owners who keep their doors open for thousands of city residents who want to pick up an emergency carton of milk, bottle of wine or bag of nuts.

Tel Aviv councilman Michael Roeh of Meretz says the municipality could ignore the kiosks as it ignores cinemas and restaurants. "It is an absurd situation in which you have [Jewish] municipal workers going out on Shabbat to report and fine the open kiosks," Roeh says. "These kiosks, which fill the basic needs of hundreds of thousands of citizens, bother nobody."

Motti Regev, a lecturer in sociology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, says that the increased desire, ability and opportunity for Israelis to spend their one day designated for leisure as a shopping day reflects a global trend: Consumerism is becoming the most desirable leisure activity.

Many of the current Shabbat restrictions in Israel draw a distinction between cultural activities, which are permissible, and commercial activities. The problem, Regev says, is that culture and commercialism have become intertwined.

"More and more, shopping is viewed as a cultural act rather than an economic act."

But even the staunchest supporters of Saturday shopping and entertainment want some limits. Roeh notes that within Meretz and other left-wing, secular circles, few would agree to all businesses remaining open everywhere in the city seven days a week.