Jewish angels? Who knew?

There are many melodies to the traditional Shabbat song Shalom Aleichem. But the newest one out there is the last song written by acclaimed musician Debbie Friedman, who died about a year ago. Clergy across the country are pledging to sing Debbie’s version of “Shalom Aleichem” on Shabbat in a few weeks to honor her memory, and to teach this song to their congregations. (To watch Debbie’s version, click here, and to hear a few different versions, click here.)

What’s interesting about “Shalom Aleichem” is that it’s a song about angels. I never really think about angels as a Jewish concept (though as it turns out, they kind of are). The song is based on a story from a Talmudic legend.

Rabbi Yosi ben Yehuda taught: “Two ministering angels–one good, one evil–accompany every Jew from the synagogue to his home on the Sabbath eve. If they find the candles burning, the table set, and the bed covered with a spread, the good angel exclaims, ‘May it be God’s will that it also be so on the next Sabbath,’ and the evil angel is compelled to respond ‘amen.’ But if everything is disorderly and gloomy, the evil angel exclaims, ‘May it be God’s will that it also be so on the next Sabbath,’ and the good angel is forced to say ‘amen.’” Read the rest of this entry →

• Posted in Parenting, Traditions
• Tags: angels, debbie friedman, friday night, shabbat

In 2007, I was in the middle of my Judaic study for conversion. I had been to very few Shabbat services in the synagogue. My first full service was on Hanukkah Shabbat.  That particular week services were done “in the round” and I remember being so excited to celebrate two holidays in one night.  My husband warned me not to get my hopes up, “Hanukkah isn’t a big deal, you’ll barely notice.” I remember the service was beautiful. The cantor’s voice was captivating and even made me forget how intimidating the Hebrew was.

I waited, and waited and still no mention of Hanukkah. The torah portion touched on the story a little but there were no bells or whistles. There was no jubilation. At the end of the services a Hanukiah was lit and they gave everyone with a December birthday a chocolate bar. This concluded the service.

I was bummed. That was it?

If I were considering giving up Christmas, I had hoped to take comfort in the fact that at least there was SOME Jewish holiday in December that I could celebrate with enthusiasm.  But the minor role that Hanukkah plays in the Jewish calendar was never more apparent than on that night.

I remember when our Rabbi talked about Jewish holidays he said that his favorite holiday was Shabbat and that Jews were infinitely lucky because we are able to welcome it every week. If you were to ask my toddler what his favorite holiday is, he would tell you “baht-baht.” He asks all week when Shabbat is. He talks about challah and wine and candles.  He brings me his Shabbat books and it brings tears to my eyes to watch him dance around at tot Shabbat on Friday mornings.

The last three nights when we’ve lit our menorah, he’s clapped “candles! baht-baht! again!” and instead of telling him that we have to wait until next week we get to say, “Tomorrow. We can light them again tomorrow.”

Tonight is the Hanukah Shabbat that I’ve been waiting for — a minor holiday blending with a major one that will bring twice the candles, and twice the blessings. My toddler’s excitement for these two holidays both burning brightly together fills my heart with joy and this weekend I remember not the faith of my past – but the light of my future.

• Posted in Parenting
• Tags: friday night, Hanukkah, shabbat

Please, please, can't it be time for Hanukkah yet?

As I’ve explained before, we’ve been working hard on creating a family Shabbat with our 2-year-old. (It’s pretty amazing what the kid learns from a little Tot Shabbat, a Kveller singalong, and some awesome books from PJ Library.)

Every Friday night, we light candles, drink some grape juice, and eat some challah. Abigail knows that when we light the candles we cover our eyes, and she knows the order of the blessings, and though she can’t say the words yet, she knows to say “AMEN!” at the end. She calls it Shabbat-time, which I think is so adorable I can’t stand it.

Last Friday, my husband was getting ready to leave for work and he said, “Abigail, tonight when I get home we’ll do Shabbat-time together.” With palpable excitement, she responded, “And dreidel and presents?” He explained, “No sweetie, that’s Hanukkah. Tonight is Shabbat. Hanukkah is in a few weeks.”

Abigail got really quiet. I figured everything was fine, until she burst into hysterical tears. You know the kind–huge drops of water rolling down her face, nose instantly running, the kind of loud screams that make the neighbors think you need an ambulance? This kid was so upset that it wasn’t Hanukkah yet. Of course, my husband and I thought it was the funniest thing ever. Eventually I got her to calm down by reading our latest PJ Library book, Hanukkah Oh Hanukkah.

Hanukkah, oh Hanukkah, you can’t come soon enough in our house.

Shabbat shalom!

• Posted in Baby & Toddler, Parenting, Traditions
• Tags: friday night, Hanukkah, PJ Library, shabbat, tot Shabbat

Thanksgiving? Shabbat? Where am I??

Fed up after watching yet another how-to-make-the-perfect-stuffing demo, I posted as my Facebook status, “Thanksgiving. The holiday where the rest of Americans learn what it’s like to make Shabbat every week.”

I must have struck a chord with my cadre of Facebook friends. A chorus of “likes” rapidly appeared on my post. My fellow Shabbat-celebrating moms and I enjoyed a virtual chuckle at all the Thanksgiving fuss, when we know that almost every week, we plan intricate menus, invite hordes of guests, and fuss over every detail from the place settings to the flowers. And we often do it twice(!), investing that level of preparation into TWO meals on the same weekend instead of just one since we have Friday night dinner as well as Saturday lunch to worry about. And somehow we manage this, without every single talk show host and magazine article giving us step-by-step how-to’s and hand-holding along the way. So forgive us if we can’t help but feel that all the stress about cooking the perfect turducken or green bean casserole is a little overblown.

My Facebook status did get me thinking about the connection between Thanksgiving and Shabbat. In fact, I have found the Thanksgiving analogy very helpful when trying to introduce Shabbat to those who are new to the concept. For instance, a few years back, when our local grocery store installed a kosher deli and bakery, I reassured the supermarket big-wigs at the grand opening that the kosher department was destined to be a financial success. I explained, “You see, it’s like my friends and I shop and cook for Thanksgiving dinner every week. Twice.” While they peered at me skeptically at the time, I have no doubt the store’s profits in the years since have proved me right. Read the rest of this entry →

• Posted in Traditions
• Tags: shabbat, thanksgiving

Last week, we announced that we’d be giving away a copy of Amy Meltzer’s newest book, The Shabbat Princess. The only catch was, you all had to send in your cute photos of your little ones celebrating Shabbat anyway they knew how. We got some great entries–from challah-baking to dressing up for Shabbat to playing outside with family. But this one was our runaway favorite. We think the way he’s shoving the challah in his mouth is adorable, and did you notice he’s using a fork? So civilized!

Congratulations to the Gerber family, and keep your eyes peeled for the book’s arrival in the mail.

Shabbat Shalom!

• Posted in Parenting
• Tags: Books, contest, shabbat

Our friend Amy Meltzer has just released a new book called The Shabbat Princess. It’s the story of a little girl who might be a tiny bit princess-obsessed, and wants to dress up the Shabbat table so it’s worthy of a princess. (Traditionally, Jews welcome the Sabbath Queen on Shabbat, but there’s nothing in the prayerbook about a princess!) This sweet story has been a hit with the preschool set, and we have no doubt that your little one will love it too.

So how do you get your hands on a copy? Well, besides buying it on Amazon, you can enter our Shabbat giveaway! Send in a photo of your kid doing something Shabbat-related (making challah, taking a Shabbat nap, or well, do anything really) and you’re officially entered in the contest. Please know that by sending us your photo, you’re allowing us to use it on Kveller and show the world how darn cute your kid is. Send photos to info@kveller.com by Thursday, November 10, and we’ll pick a winner and announce it on the blog next Shabbat.

Shabbat Shalom!

• Posted in Parenting
• Tags: Books, contest, friday night, giveaway, shabbat

Our challah didn't quite look like that...

As you may have read, my family’s been trying to create our own Friday night traditions for a while now. Some have worked, some have not. And last week… well…

Last week we had all the best intentions. There’s a new butcher in the neighborhood, and my husband’s been wanting to make his mom’s brisket recipe ever since we didn’t get it over the High Holidays. So he bought a brisket, marinated it, cooked it. (It was delicious–this isn’t the failure part yet.)

But we decided we might as well go all-out. We’ve been meaning to make challah for months, and last Friday seemed like a perfect time.

So we used a recipe that we’d gotten from a friend. As we made it, my husband retold one of his favorite stories–of a time when he was a camp counselor and his friend tried to make challah with her bunk. She ordered all the ingredients for the recipe through the camp kitchen. She followed the recipe exactly… not realizing that the “packet of yeast” called for in the recipe was quite different than the industrial-sized packet the camp kitchen had provided her. But when the dough started taking on a life of its own, she realized there’d been a problem. Funny story, right?

Well, it’s less funny when you consider what happened here. We let the dough rise (no yeast issues here), and braided it together with our 2-year-old daughter. She was really excited to eat the challah when it was done. We were too.

A few hours later, we lit candles, made kiddush over the wine, said a special blessing over our daughter, and said the hamotzi blessing over the bread. And then we tried to eat it. And discovered that it had about five times the amount of salt a challah should ever have. Entirely inedible, which made for a very sad 2-year-old.

But, on the plus side? When we told Abigail that we were going to have Shabbat, she said, “We light da candles!” So it seems our weeks of Tot Shabbats and Kveller singalongs have paid off.

Here’s hoping that we find a better challah recipe for this week… or at least learn how to FOLLOW a recipe! Shabbat Shalom!

• Posted in Activities, Recipes, Traditions
• Tags: brisket, challah, friday night, shabbat, tot Shabbat

I suppose I should start by apologizing to my friends. Well, just a few of them. The Jewish ones. Who have kids. That are old enough to be in Hebrew school.

You see, we scheduled my daughter’s 3rd birthday party for a Saturday morning.
I know. It’s a shanda.

It wasn’t a mistake. We weren’t thoughtless about it. We weighed all of our options, and decided to go with Saturday morning. (I’m not sure if that makes it better or worse.) Of course, I feel compelled to explain our decision. Or maybe defend it. Or both.

We thought about Sunday morning, but we’ve just signed the baby up for music class and the big girl up for swimming. The classes are both on Sundays precisely so we can go to services on Saturdays. But our preschooler isn’t old enough to start the preschool program at our synagogue, and we only have Tot Shabbat once a month. So, we have three weeks each month when we may go to services, or go for a hike or hang out with friends, or do something else that doesn’t involve errands or electronics. Read the rest of this entry →

• Posted in Parenting
• Tags: birthday, Holidays, shabbat

I didn’t grow up in a camping family. Don’t worry, we traveled plenty to see family and important sites in the U.S. and abroad. But “let’s pitch our tent over there” are not words that I ever heard. My tent camping experiences come mostly from trips during and after college. However, when my husband and I got engaged we decided one of the places we had to register was REI, for all of the future camping trips we would be taking with our future kids.

Our first camping trip as a family was one night spent on a windy Sonoma, CA beach with our 13-month-old not quite yet walking daughter. We brought Shabbat candles, a bottle of grape juice and a big fresh challah, and had a nice Friday night dinner al fresco. At that time we didn’t celebrate Shabbat as regularly as we do now, but somehow it seemed to be the right thing for camping. Now that toddler is a three-and-a-half-year-old synagogue pre-school student who is so in tune with what she learns at home and at school about Judaism. She is the one who gets her kippah out at 3pm on Friday in anticipation of Shabbat. And she is the one who is really teaching us the meaning of giving charity, as she is a little obsessed with putting every coin she finds into one of her various tzedakah boxes.

Read the rest of this entry →

• Posted in Traditions
• Tags: camping, friday night, shabbat

Shabbat begins in just a few hours, so do you know how to celebrate? There’s the fun stuff, like the songs we sing and foods we eat, and the slightly less fun stuff, like the traditional rules and prohibitions.

We’ve got a new quiz to test just how Shabbat savvy you are. Give it a shot, and then challenge your friends.  And then have yourself a nice Shabbat.

If you want to brush up before test time, read up on Shabbat basics, Shabbat blessings, and all about Havdalah.

Take the QUIZ now!

• Posted in Traditions
• Tags: featured, quiz, shabbat