Shabbat Book
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As we keep or break the Sabbath day, we nobly save or meanly lose the last and best hope by which man arises. — PRESIDENT ABRAHAM LINCOLN, NOVEMBER 13, 1862 All life should be a pilgrimage to the seventh day. — RABBI ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL Checking One’s Time Piece by Moritz Daniel Oppenheim (Germany, c. 1866) 12 Welcoming Shabbat | Candle Lighting | Shalom Aleichem | Blessing Children | Song of Songs/Eishet Hayil | Kiddush Welcoming Shabbat לִאת שַׁבָּת Setting the Shabbat mood baking bread, eating cake, collecting tzedakah, meditating Pleasurable Preparations Clearing Off Our Desk Before the Shabbat Vacation Celebrating Shabbat begins not with sundown feed your children or your whole family a but with the hours — and even days — pre- pre-Shabbat snack so that they will not Before leaving on a vacation people ceding it, transformed into the pleasures of be ravenous and impatient during the usually are consumed with myriad minor preparing for a beloved and honored guest and Friday night ceremonies before dinner. tasks, all the little accumulated chores friend. Here is a brief checklist for honoring The Children of Israel’s first experience that now clutter the desktop. this royal guest and getting your home, with Shabbat began on Erev Shabbat . Each uncompleted task has its yourself and your household members into — the “eve” of Shabbat which means not own claim on our freedom. And finishing the right mood. Do some, not necessarily all Friday evening but Friday morning. Recall them liberates us to begin our vacation. — and certainly, do them in the proper spirit: that Jewish days begin in the evening so Indeed, finishing the last one may mark your calendar and plan for Shabbat the “eve of Shabbat” is the morning and actually commence the vacation whether bake or buy a special treat — and at afternoon before sunset of the incoming or not we ever leave home. least two Hallahs and a good wine Shabbat. The first commandment was not . Now obviously no one can ever straighten up — put aside mentally and to refrain from work but to do double work complete all the little tasks. Sooner or clear away physically the workday items — to collect a double portion of manna later, as the vacation departure clock (muktzeh)from the table and out of the from Heaven which fell in double the usual ticks down, we decree arbitrarily that dining room amount on the day before Shabbat. The whether or not they are done, we are take a hot bath or shower two Hallahs on the Shabbat table signify done . We renounce their claims on us. put out and wear special clothing the double portion of Divine generosity as To do so requires great spiritual self- set the table with your most beautiful well as the extra work put in every Friday to control. service items enable us to eat well (while still refraining from further gathering and baking of bread Well, it is like that with the Day of arrange lighting and fragrance — flowers, on Shabbat). Even in the desert era of Being too. Every seventh day we clear perfume or incense, and Shabbat candles miraculous manna, Shabbat meals required off our desks. Of course we are not enjoy music — sung or played human effort and pre-planning. The Rabbis finished. And from the looks of our world, relax , take a deep breath, meditate applied the motto — “Whoever does not hopefully God isn’t finished either. — take in the sanctity of the moment prepare on the eve of Shabbat will not eat — LAWRENCE KUSHNER, contact those far away whom you love and on Shabbat” (ECCLESIATES RABBAH 1:36) — as THE BOOK OF WORDS: TALKING SPIRITUAL LIFE, hug, kiss and bless those close to you in LIVING SPIRITUAL TALK, JEWISH LIGHTS general advice for all aspects of life. your household (evening) | Hallah | Talking Torah | Songs/Zemirot | Birkat HaMazon | Oneg/Pleasures | Kiddush (day) | Havdalah 13 Home-made Judaism ‘This is for Shabbat’ On every day of his life Shammai ate In getting ready for Shabbat, the physical God to dwell, also, within that space and in honor of Shabbat. How? When he activities prepare our soul for the time. That is why Maimonides requires chanced upon a nice piece of meat temporal passage from the weekday into everyone to participate in the physical [in the market, he would purchase it sacred time. It may be compared to the preparations for Shabbat even when there is and] declare, “This is for Shabbat.” spatial pilgrimage, the climbing of a holy nothing to prepare: If, on the following day, he found an mountain, in which getting to the top “Even if one is a person of high rank and even more desirable piece of meat, he involves a spiritual transition: the more does not as a rule attend to the shopping would set the second piece side [for effort, the harder the climb, the higher the or other household chores, one should Shabbat] and eat the first [during level of sanctity is reached. The Rabbis’ nevertheless perform one of these tasks the week] . From the first day of motto was lfum tzara agra, “the reward in preparation (Kibbud) — for Shabbat, the week direct your efforts towards is equal to the effort expended.” Or, in for that is the way to honor it. There were Shabbat. (TALMUD BEITZA 16A) mundane terms, the harder one works at great Talmudic scholars who used to split an achievement, the more it means. This is firewood for cooking, cook or salt meat, the key principle of “home-made Judaism”: plait wicks, light lamps or go to the market human meaning is derived not necessarily to buy food and drink for Shabbat. In fact, “An Extra Effort” from an external aura, a Divine emanation, none of them customarily performed such Wendy Mogel, consultant on raising but rather from our sanctification of time tasks on weekdays. However the more one children, comments that we need to put and space. The investment of the self in does in the way of preparation for Shabbat, extra effort into the Shabbat meal beyond something makes it sacred, and it invites the more commendable.” (MAIMONIDES, MISH- what is minimally necessary. “Even a trifle NE TORAH, SHABBAT LAWS 30:5) prepared in honor of Shabbat is called The farther in advance we Oneg Shabbat, a Shabbat delight.” (TALMUD prepare, the more the whole SHABBAT 118A) week is unified into a project “Jewish mysticism teaches us that food aimed toward its culmination starts out full of holy sparks and that we in Shabbat. have the opportunity to transform it and In a sense we can look elevate it further. How? By applying our upon the whole of Creation by humanness to it — by preparing it with God as six days of preparation care and arranging it attractively. for Shabbat. God’s six days “When you work hard at something of labor are analogous to it means more to you. Convenience “someone who sets about foods, although useful and practical, may to build a palace. First that undermine your family’s efforts to make person beautifies it and your table an altar. Children learn best then lays it out, hangs its from hands-on activities that involve many walls with embroideries and senses, so cooking and setting the table are afterwards sweeps the house excellent ways to transmit values. Since we and adorns it with tapestries have to eat anyway, cooking together, even Polishing Silver Candle Sticks for Shabbat. By Faige Beer, 1980. and woodcarvings.” (GENESIS infrequently, covers two bases: quality time (Beit Hatefutsot Archive) RABBAH ON GENESIS 1) and getting a necessary job done. 14 “Judaism commands us to perform hiddur miztvot, to beautify the com- Welcoming mandments, to go the extra mile. By Shabbat preparing special foods and setting the table with special care for Shabbat dinner, the mystics say that we get a taste of the world to come. “At our house, everybody gets involved in the Shabbat dinner preparations. My husband does the cooking. I cut the flowers from the garden and the children arrange them and set the table with the ritual objects: kiddush cup, candles, and Hallah. We don’t have exciting deserts during the week but for Shabbat dinner I take down an etched glass cake stand with a pedestal and put on a paper doily. It’s my younger daughter’s job to arrange the bakery cookies or rugalach or fruit tart on the stand. Shabbat dinner is a big production that I would never consider doing on a daily basis. But it caps our week, slows us down, and draws us together in a powerful way.” (WENDY MOGEL, THE BLESSING OF A SKINNED KNEE) The Next Generation’s Matza Ball Soup (Dorfman kitchen, Long Beach, Mississippi). Photo by Bill Aron. The Spiritual Hot Tub Preparing one’s home and one’s table to greet the Divine pres- our world, we must prepare and perfect the body, for the body is ence is inadequate without preparing one’s own body and mind. the throne for the spiritual . Like the house, the body must be restored.” (MOSHE CORDOVERO, TEFILLA LE-MOSHE 10:2) “Every eve of Shabbat, Rabbi Judah ben Ilai asked that a tub filled with warm water be brought to him. In it he would wash After the body is refreshed, it is time for a weekly meditative his face, his hands and his feet. Then as he sat wrapped in his moment using the the special mood, melodies and lyrics of linen robes with the tzizit fringes, he seemed like an angel of Kabbalat Shabbat.