February 25, 2005/Adar I 16 5765, Volume 57, No. 26
Celebrating Shabbat at home
VICKI CABOT
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That's how the sages describe the Sabbath.
If that is so, then Noam Sachs Zion and Rabbi Shawn Fields-Meyer have given us just enough to tempt us. Zion is a director of education and curriculum writing at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem; Fields-Meyer teaches at the Conservative Rabbinical School in Los Angeles, and she is the founder of Ozreinu, the Jewish support group for special needs families.
Their new book, "A Day Apart: Shabbat at Home, A Step-by-Step Guidebook with Blessings and Songs, Rituals and Reflections," (Zion Holiday Publications, $24.95 paperback) provides enough practical advice and spiritual underpinnings to entice both those with little or no Sabbath experience and those with longtime adherence to the traditional seventh day rituals. The book is loaded with how-tos and infused with a wonderful smattering of Jewish wisdom, providing less a scholarly feel than a suitably contemplative one. It makes the celebration of the Sabbath truly a temptation.
Zion, whose "A Different Night," written with David Dishon, and "A Different Light, The Big Book of Hanukkah," edited with Barbara Spectre, have quickly become holiday staples, and Fields-Meyer have used a similar approach with this book.
From its colorful soft cover to its easy to use format, it is inviting. Shabbat observance, from day-before preparations through the Sabbath eve and next day ritual, is treated in 13 consecutive chapters. Each begins with guidelines and then includes sections dedicated to getting started, tradition, parent-child activities and reflections. Beautiful art is displayed throughout, from striking black and white photos that capture the joy of family and the specialness of the day (my favorite is an impish toddler seated with a challah almost as big as he is on his lap), to engaging graphics and reproductions of art masters such as Rembrandt's "Jacob Blessing His Children" and Marc Chagall's "Lovers on the Promenade."
But it is the introductory essays and excerpts that set the tone. Zion and Fields-Meyer have helped themselves liberally to the Jewish masters, from Abraham Joshua Heschel, in his quintessential ode to the seventh day, "The Sabbath," to Zionist thinker Ahad Ha-am, to Rabbi Judah Lowe, maharal of Prague. They have also drawn on contemporary voices - Rabbis Larry Hoffman, David Wolpe and Joel Lurie Grishaver and the renowned Rabbi David Hartman. They lend their thoughts on the import of the Sabbath day and what it means for us to desist from work. "Labor is a craft, but perfect rest is an art," writes Heschel.
"So on Friday night I stop," writes Wolpe.
Zion writes that while the Sabbath connotes a cessation of work, it also demands a measure of human labor.
"We literally make our own Judaism," he writes in his introductory essay. "The more we 'make Shabbat,' the more it means to us. Kiddush is an active verb meaning 'to dedicate,' to make sacred the time of the seventh day. We, with human intentionality and creativity, have the power to evoke Divine blessing on a weekly basis."
He also emphasizes the significance of home observance and the opportunity the weekly holiday provides for reconstituting relationships.
And so the first chapter, "Welcoming Shabbat," includes a list of "pleasurable preparations," running the gamut from taking a hot bath or shower to setting the table to laying out special clothing. It also includes a challah recipe, a tekhina, or meditation, asking an angel to assure that the challah will rise, and a suggestion to incorporate the Sephardic custom of a late Friday afternoon coffee break to calm the nerves and assuage the appetite into family practice.
"Whoever does not prepare on the eve of Shabbat shall not eat on Shabbat," Zion and Fields-Meyer cite from Ecclesiastes Rabbah 1:36.
And so the preparations - and practice - continue from candle lighting to hand washing to singing and praying, to Torah talk and conjugal blessings. The authors handle all with care and a very human touch.
It is a book meant to be used, and if there is a criticism, it is the flimsy cover and hefty 168 pages that may not stand up to the inevitable spilled wine, sticky fingers, and weekly use. A sturdier cover and binding would increase cost - but might also add considerably to durability.
Included in the book are blessings and songs in Hebrew and English and enough anecdotes, prayers and stories to vary Sabbath rituals for each of the 52 weeks. Delight in the Sabbath, teach the sages.
And delight in this new, wonderful guide.
"A Day Apart" is available from www.haggadahsrus.com. Call (877) 308-4175.
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In preparation for Shabbat Across America on March 4, Jewish News presents a series of articles about different types of Shabbat services in the Valley. Past stories were "Shabbat across America" and "That Shabbat feeling" (Jewish News, Feb. 11) and "Not the same old, same old" (Jewish News, Feb. 18). |