Tag Archives: Shabbat
Family Shabbat: Checklist and Timeline
Oh, how I envy those who have celebrated Shabbat as part of their lives since childhood. For them, the routine and ritual of the event seems to come naturally: they were there to help set the Shabbat table, listen to their parents and grandparents recite the blessings, sing songs that are now etched in their memories, and read Torah at Saturday services with friends and neighbours. I envy the innate comfort they have with the holiday, the effortlessness with which they participate, the sense of security and connectedness that its practice brings. As a Jew trying to come back to my Jewishness, I have had to learn the Shabbat rituals and obligations, sifting through religious texts, rabbinic instruction, historical overviews, how-to-guides, and directives from well-meaning columnists, bloggers, and friends. As a Reform Jew, I have then had to critically examine these obligations and their meaning within the context of my personal circumstances. As the Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR) stated in the Centenary Perspective of 2004, “within each area of Jewish observance Reform Jews are called upon to confront the claims of Jewish tradition, however differently perceived, and to exercise their individual autonomy, choosing and creating on the basis of commitment and knowledge.” In what follows, I have outlined the Shabbat I have created with my family, informed by the mitzvot of remembering Shabbat and keeping it holy.
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Shalom Aleichem
When God Blinks
Shabbat requires bravery and daring.
It challenges the very notion of consistency, of constancy. It is an affront to normalcy. It threatens reality, sanity, of waking in the morning to see the sun arise each day.
It flouts planning. Steps. Control of the world, ourselves. Of believing there is a self that is ours.
Shabbat is unknown. A turning left. The untrod path. The creative life in-utero
It precludes tomorrow’s monotony. Questions our next breath.
Shabbat reveals a world beyond. Of dreams. Where other forces rule. Where elephants climb through needles’ eyes.
It is the pause between, the no-man’s land, the dark of light, the in of out, the light of dark, the in-between.
Shabbat is vibration. The proof in rest of endless movement; the comma in perpetual
motion,
motion,
motion.
Shabbat takes planning, preparation for submission, a yielding to the unknown, the irrepressible. A readiness, as best we can, for that which is beyond, wild, in the hands of the Other.
It is an expedition, with tools of civilization discarded, of gadgets and comfort left behind. It leads, with faith, forward, leaving behind reality’s rhythm, groping without light in a world not of our making, illusion laid bare for a day, as we journey into nothingness, the world left on its own to breathe, to rest, to linger in the void.
What will be? What will be?
Shabbat is Kabbalah’s proof. G-d’s hidden habit revealed of recreating every moment the world anew. The affirmation of nothingness and some other force behind.
The place where artists live. From where inspiration sprouts. To where dreams head.
From this void all things emerge. The blind fare best. And those who love to leap fly with closed eyes and held breath, anticipating their destination with uncertainty and thrill.
What will be?
Who will I be?
Will there be me?
This pulse is always there, everywhere. But on Shabbat it is ours. We enter cautiously its space, its time — welcoming the Other in our lives. Affirming what we know deep in ourselves but lack the courage to replace with it the normality of our lives, the illusion of our continuity.
And at its end, we emerge, blinking, startled, curious, bewildered by the world anew. What’s happened while we stayed away?
Strayed away?
Did something die?
Is there still me?
Without us, did it all go on?
Who mastered the world while we dreamt?
Or are we dreaming now?
Who mastered the world?
G-d.
With miracles, and masters still.
Just for a moment, for these few hours in eternity, He let us in. We entered His reality. He allowed us to glimpse existence as it is when He blinks. He let us touch the place from which we too are born anew each moment, with infinite opportunity to become, to transform, to discover…
…with courage and daring.
The bravery of Shabbat.
The creative life sprung forth.
From nothing.– Jay Litvin
Remember Shabbat and Keep it Holy: First Steps
My three children and I had a tradition of celebrating the end of our week at work and school with Friday night “Party Night” for several years before I began my Jewish journey. This usually meant that the normal rules of the week were set aside: no-one had to do homework, take a bath or shower, or rush to get through dinner. Instead, we would go to the store and buy candy, order pizza, sit in our pyjamas and watch a movie or something on television. There was no stress or formality to the evening, and I would often let the children stay up later than usual and sometimes we would have a sleepover in my bed. We would try to eat at the table some nights, and go around the table to say three things we were happy about that week, one thing we wanted to change, and one thing we liked about the others. It was a very special time for us when we felt very close to each other.
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Jew Schooled 