"Close for Shabbat" sounds simple until you have to write it down as a clock time. Shabbat starts at sunset on Friday, but shops close before candle lighting, communities differ on how long before, and Saturday night's reopening depends on nightfall, which isn't sunset either. Then there are holidays, which move every year and last a different number of days depending on where you are.
Here's how Shabbify handles each of those, and which parts you decide.
Where you are
Sunset depends on location, so Shabbify starts with your Shopify store address and time zone. For most stores that's correct as it is.
If your business follows another community's times, set a custom location in the app. A store that ships from New Jersey but is run from Jerusalem can follow Jerusalem's times, or the other way round.
Friday: minutes before sunset
Shabbify closes the store a set number of minutes before sunset on Friday. The default is 18 minutes, the common candle-lighting time. You can set anything from 0 to 120 minutes before, so a community that lights 40 minutes before sunset can close then.
Some stores prefer to stop taking orders at midday on Friday (chatzot, the halachic midday worked out from that day's sunrise and sunset) so nothing is sitting in a queue when Shabbat comes in. That's a one-setting switch: Weekly close mode: Chatzot.
Saturday night: minutes after sunset
The store reopens a set number of minutes after sunset on Saturday. The default is 60 minutes, which lands after nightfall in most places and most seasons. You can set up to 180 minutes after sunset if your practice is later, for example 72 minutes as Rabbeinu Tam.
Yom Tov
Jewish holidays follow the Hebrew calendar, so they land on different Gregorian dates each year. Shabbify generates them for you: Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot (first days, Chol Hamoed and Hoshana Rabbah), Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah, Pesach (first and last days, Chol Hamoed), Shavuot, plus Purim and Tisha B'Av, which don't close the store by default but are there if you want them.
Two details Shabbify gets right so you don't have to:
- One day or two. Outside Israel most holidays last two days; in Israel, one. Shabbify decides by your store's time zone. A store in Israel gets one-day Yom Tov; everyone else gets two.
- The same minutes as Shabbat. Holidays use the same minutes-before and minutes-after settings, so your Yom Tov closure starts and ends the way your Shabbat closure does. A holiday that runs into Shabbat (or out of it) becomes one continuous closure.
Each holiday can be turned off, given different times, or given its own closed message. You can add your own closures too, for a fast day, a family simcha, or a week away.
Holidays are generated a year at a time and refreshed every quarter. If you change your location or your minutes, you can regenerate them.
What Shabbify doesn't decide
Shabbify follows the settings you choose. It doesn't claim rabbinic endorsement or halachic accuracy, and the defaults are just that, defaults. Please check that the times match your community's practice; the app shows the next closing and reopening time on its Home page so you can compare with your own calendar before the first Shabbat.
Checking the result
Open Shabbify's Home page: it shows whether the store is open or closed right now, the next change and a countdown. The Holidays page lists every upcoming closure with its exact start and end. And if you'd rather ask, Shopify Sidekick can answer "When do we close this Friday?" using the same schedule.