July 1, 2016 – Sarasota, FL
Na’aseh v’nishma — “We will do and then we will understand” (translation by Rabbi Angela Warnick Buchdahl – Senior Cantor of Central Synagogue in New York).*
For my first 17 years of life (1964-1982), my Nana, Poppop, Grandma, and Grandpa kept the Sabbath every Friday night. While I didn’t participate in the actual day’s preparations as I was too little and probably in school, when I arrived to either of my grandparents’ homes, the table had already been magically decorated with ritualistic tokens – Sabbath candlesticks, white candles, the Kiddish cup (wine goblet), and the challah (braided egg bread), tray and its cover. The best china dishes adorned the place settings, crystal water glasses shimmered from the crystal or pewter chandeliers, napkins were folded like perfect origami triangles with two forks, a soup spoon and a knife, and the food smells wafted from room to room making my belly vibrate with anticipation and my mouth water incessantly. Both my nana and grandma served the best meats, fish, vegetables, stuffed cabbages and Manischewitz Concord Grape Wine. I never wanted to miss a Shabbat meal even as a teenager when I was pulled by the secular football games and various parties. Shabbat was that special to me and when I missed it, I felt plenty of Jewish guilt unless I was attending a BBYO (B’nai B’rith Youth Organization) convention. Friday night dinners were full of love. Family stories would be revealed, kindness and laughter would fill the dining rooms and our honored guests would chime in with their own experiences. As an only child, it is also where I learned about manners, the Torah, synagogue life (positive and negative), my grandparents’ childhoods, how they met, who their parents were and the life they led in Europe, their wedding stories, and everything that came before me. It is also where I was commanded to try weird foods like salads, beef tongue, red beets, herring, lox and onions, sardines, and to taste sweet wine. My mom was a single parent and didn’t cook, but she worked a lot. That made me a latch key kid and an expert at preparing TV dinners with that gross Salisbury steak and warm applesauce or chocolate pudding. So after a week of soggy dinners usually alone, Sabbath dinners were very big deals to me. It has finally dawned on me as to what Ahad Ha’am, the father of cultural Zionism, famously said: “More than Jews have kept Shabbat, Shabbat has kept the Jews.”
As I left home to attend college (Oxford College of Emory University) and then graduate from Emory University (the Jewish college of the South), I ironically began loosing my Jewish identity like a slow drip from a water faucet left on in the dead of winter so the pipes would not freeze. Practicing Judaism while trying to be a college student proved challenging. Jewish symbols and rituals would save me from myself and eventually lead me to my husband of 30 years.
In August 1987, I had signed my first professional high school social studies teaching job in Decatur, Georgia and I had one week to whoop it up before my dream of becoming a public school teacher would come true. My step-sister was celebrating her engagement to a Jewish St. Thomas, USVI guy. I arrived in St. Thomas on the Monday before official celebrations and played pretty hard at the local beaches, and then Kellie announced that Shabbat dinner would be at her in-laws, Rhoda. When we first met, she embraced me as if we were long lost cousins and adamantly proclaimed that I was to meet just the right Jewish man tomorrow. It was a shiddach. Rhoda was my matchmaker. I am not sure how Kellie described me to her, but she announced that the match would be with Captain Steve Weinberger who I would later find out was like a third son to her. I fantasized the rest of that night. Suddenly, Shabbat dinners were alive and well again, and I remembered the gifts of Shabbat from my grandparents.
At 9:00 am the next morning, I ran down the dock to announce the arrival of the wedding party to the crew of the Coconut, where I instantly met the very handsome Magnum, P.I. looking Captain Steve Weinberger. I am not sure how I didn’t fall off of the dock in shock, but I managed to compose myself enough. He commanded the 52 foot trimaran sailboat, The Coconut, that Kellie had commissioned for a full day sail for all of her wedding party. That was it. The shiddach complete. I had met the man I would marry two years later and hopefully spend the rest of each of the 52 Shabbats a year celebrating with him, with family, and friends.
It was that moment, that a clearer understanding of the impact that Shabbat dinners had on me; I can tell you that when Shabbat was out of my life, I changed. And once they were back in my life, I changed again, and so on. In hindsight, my grandparents designed a beautiful gift for me and offered me guidelines to be responsible for myself, my community, and my world.
When Steve and I had kids, Shabbat was alive and well, but we experienced a intense family crisis (my mom, Marilyn, was beaten by her husband of 35 years) and Shabbat faded away again because her husband destroyed our Sabbath meals when we were together with his abusive alcoholic behaviors.
It didn’t help that my mom had been diagnosed with the dreaded Lewy Body Dementia coupled with the add-on of Parkinson’s Disease. In addition, my mother-in-law, Carol, was suffering with vascular dementia, but we were unaware of it at the time even though we suspected something was awry. As both of their diseases progressed, I racked my brain as to how to bring some joy to both moms.
Luckily, our very dear friends, Tali and Sam, had often invited us to their Shabbat table and we would partake. It took us a while to re-embrace the rituals and the traditions of the Shabbat dinner, but as it was familiar, they grew more comfortable again. That’s when it dawned on me – we needed to reinstate Shabbat for our moms. But the notion didn’t solidify until Steve and I decided to attend a Friday night service where Rabbi Brenner Glickman’s sermon encapsulated the message that Shabbat keeps the Jews and he gave permission to all congregants to celebrate Shabbat in their own personal style. So, instead of moping about my our mom’s conditions and replaying the negative Shabbat scenes that lead me astray, we rekindled the traditions on behalf of our moms. So, we decided that we would invite different guests each week to our table to celebrate with us with the hope of bringing joy to our moms. Our first experiment commenced with Uncle Harold (Carol’s brother), and his wife Aunt Marilyn, Cousins Joel, Noreen, Steve and Carson, Mitch, my brother-in-law, Grandma Carol, Mimi (my mom), their caregivers, Jake (our son) and Steve and I. What was remarkable is that when we sang the blessings, our moms chanted each of them with a grin. In their ordinary lives, they can speak very little, but that night was a Shabbat spark. Now I understand.
Dinner #1 – fresh wild caught fish, challah, squash/yellow tomato/sweet potato/onion casserole, cold cucumber salad, sangria, Shabbat candles!
References:
*Salkin, Jeffrey K. Text Messages: a Torah Commentary for Teens. Jewish Lights, 2013.