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What’s for Shabbat dinner?

by Leah Koenig · February 9th, 2007
Shabbos Meals

This afternoon, a couple friends and I are making Shabbat dinner together. On the menu: roasted root vegetables (from the Union Square Greenmarket), sauteed kale with garlic, mushroom seitan bordelaise, homemade whole wheat challah, wine (combination of kosher, organic, and neither).

I’m pretty psyched about that menu, and about the group of people I’m sharing the evening with. But that’s not the purpose of this post… Before moving to NYC, I rarely had Shabbat dinner. Growing up, my family lit candles and ate dinner together on Friday nights. But as my brother and I grew, it became a struggle to get us all together at the table. In college, Shabbat was not part of my week for various reasons - I wasn’t particularly observant, didn’t have a community, etc.

But living in Brooklyn as a 20-something, Shabbat dinner has slowly become a weekly ritual, and one that I particularly look forward to. I love how relaxed it feels (even when I’m hosting), and how there always seems to be enough food and enough chairs, despite the number of guests. I love the steam that rises from the warm belly of fresh challah. I love sharing conversation over good food, and I love that it’s totally not weird for the table to break out in song.

As someone who has come into this ritual more recently, and thinks its unlikely I’d be celebrating Shabbat dinner nearly as frequently if I lived anywhere other than NYC - I want to hear what YOU do for Shabbat dinner?

Maybe your minyan in Denver has Friday night potlucks. Maybe your challah is blessed at a table with your family in Kansas City? Maybe you’re in college in California, and you go to Hillel’s Friday night dinner? Maybe Shabbat isn’t Shabbat for you without a certain food or personal ritual.

Whatever you do, I want to hear about it. To me, one of the real beauties of Judaism is the various and creative ways that Jews live it. And although Shabbat dinner carries with it certain traditional rituals and obligations, there is also a lot of room for personalization and new traditions. So tell me, what are you making for Shabbat dinner?

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4 Responses to “What’s for Shabbat dinner?”

  1. Alix Says:
    February 9th, 2007 at 12:21 pm

    Leah,
    Your post made me smile, as I grew up practically never celebrating Shabbat, and didn’t really do it that much when I was a 20-something living in New York, either. It took me to move back to California to find people who certainly would not be considered observant by observant Jews, but we consider ourselves observant just the same. While I occasionally do not celebrate Shabbat for the occasional reason, I make sure to always light candles. When I traveled by myself in Asia several years ago, for the first time, I took enough tea lights to light every week, no matter where I was. I would often be by myself, in my room, and would light them, and just think about the previous week’s travels and where I had been the Friday night before. It became a way of connecting to back home, even when I felt alone.

  2. Ben Murane Says:
    February 9th, 2007 at 12:30 pm

    Since I don’t live with or close to “observant” Jews of my style (i.e., the Lubavitch next door don’t consider me observant, a la Alix’s observation above) out in Crown Heights, I have become either a solitary Shabbat guy or a committed potluck minyan hopper. (I bring a drink which I can easily purchase, but I benefit from everyone else’s culinary joy.)

    My favorite Shabbat to myself was quite accidental: without Shabbat plans and with a house devoid of groceries, I resigned myself to a ritual-less Shabbat. Until I found some beer in the fridge. And then I found some slices of not-so-stale wheat bread, which after some olive oil and red wine vinegar tasted amiable. And noticing my oil-cup menorah, I set up two wicks. I lit my candles, I said kiddish, I said motzi. And it was my Shabbat, entirely of my making. No specially purchased wine, no “Shabbat” candles, no challah. It was Shabbat as Shabbat occured, naturally and without hype.

    And it was beautiful.

  3. Sarah Rose Says:
    February 9th, 2007 at 12:41 pm

    Such a great post. If it weren’t for happy memories of Friday night meals, I might have been the most assimilated, lost-to-the-tribe Jew in the world. It’s hard not to love a religion that commands you to have a dinner party once a week.

  4. BabkaNosher Says:
    February 9th, 2007 at 4:14 pm

    We never celebrated Shabbat in any way when I was young. When I became engaged to a non-Jewish man (who later became my hubby), I started having a very basic Shabbat dinner… I knew that i wanted my kids to be raised in a more Jewish home than I had experienced and I didn’t want Hubby To Be to be shocked when we had kids and *poof* all kinds of things became Jewish. Those Shabbat meals have grown over the years. We spend Shabbat with friends as often as possible. Sometimes the meal is very simple (always with homemade challah, though!), sometimes it’s a feast. As our kids are growing, it becomes better each year!

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