celebrating shabbat question - Page 2

[RidentMama]

There's a women's ministry that produced an article about celebrating Shabbat...lemme find it...
The Shabbat Meal
I, too, have been looking into this, especially with children in the home now, I'd like to do something that sets the Sabbath apart, starting at sunset.

[Magelet]

smeisnotapirate, I'd love the challah recipe if its good. I have a few, and none of them have turned out light and fluffy and pull aparty, they end up heavy, like sandwhich bread. tasty, but not my mental image of challah.

[doubledutch]

[QUOTE=RidentMama;13230491]There's a women's ministry that produced an article about celebrating Shabbat...lemme find it...
The Shabbat MealQUOTE]

i was surprised to find this was a christian website!

[leerypolyp]

It won't take you long to feel like you fit in, either. First time I went to adult services (as opposed to children's services) I got totally lost in the siddur and could barely remember to open the book the right way (I still open Hebrew books upside down a lot of the time). Second time, I pretty well knew how things were going to go, and also made sure to sit next to a longtime member and just watched what she did!

Anyway, Shabbat shalom. I am naughty, on the computer on Shabbos...

[DashsMama]

I'm coming to this thread a little late, but wanted to chime in that we have just started celebrating Shabbat at our house too. Like others have suggested, we're taking it slowly. We pick-up the house a bit beforehand and set the dining room table with nice linens. I make a nice meal and bake challah. I light the candles, and we all sing the blessing over them. My dh says the blessing over the wine and bread. Then we enjoy a relaxed meal together. After dinner we sometimes sing Shalom Alechem (The Wiggles version, LOL) around the table, clear the table and then play whatever board games the boys want to play until bedtime. We also try not to do any housework or drudgery on Saturday (but will drive, shop, write, etc.)

We all really look forward to Friday night. I was surprised to notice that it made the weekend feel like three days long to me!

Now I'm trying to get up the courage to call a local rabbi and get connected with a community. That's going to be the hard part for me. Thanks for this discussion mamas!

[StarJune]

Originally Posted by DashsMama

We all really look forward to Friday night. I was surprised to notice that it made the weekend feel like three days long to me!

:

It is so lovely and refreshing. :

We started celebrating Shabbat last Fall and have been taking it slow with our growing observance. I clean and prep beforehand in order to really be organized and have almost everything done. I prepare the challah on Thursday night and let it rise till Friday morning. Now that lighting is later in the evening, I can bake it just before lighting and it is fresh out of the oven. In the winter I bake it in the morning because the night falls so quickly and it is rushed after work.

I usually make: Chicken Breast, Baked Salmon, Veggies, a side dish and Challah. Plus wine, of course.

In the winter I found that I was making beef stews or simmering steaks that could cook slowly all day.

We light and say blessings over the candles, wine and bread. I am now learning the blessing after the meal but it is sooo long. I am starting with the first paragraph and going bit by bit.

We don't drive, watch tv, use the phone or computer. I am still adjusting to not using the microwave to re-heat things. I am starting to buy kosher meat which is tremendously expensive around here.... so starting with eating it for Shabbat. We eat meat 5-6 times a week and need to ease it into our budget.

I check candlelighting times at www.chabad.org. If cookies are enabled it remembers your location and it will come up automatically when you go on the site. I also write down the weekly parsha because we read and discuss it on Saturday morning after breakfast. We are not within walking distance to a shul so we study together.

I am hoping to memorize most of the prayers/blessings and learn more songs. My next major goal is to keep kosher completely at home. Then....

Take it in stages. That was recommended to me and I am glad that I did. I know when I began I was so zealous that I wanted to do everything perfectly all at once, which was NOT realistic. Doing it this way makes it more pleasurable and motivates me to become more observant.

I will type out my challah recipe. It is the best . It is soft and fluffy and pulls apart easily. I never use a knife on my challah. I always break it apart with my hands and serve it. It is a sweet challah and it is delish. :

[honeysesame]

magelet, baby's crying so i got to go but feel free to pm me i am in the bay area and would be happy to talk about various local options i know of!
shavua tov-- a good week!
ps i don't really know how pm works but i will try to figure it out!

[doubledutch]

Originally Posted by StarJune

Take it in stages. That was recommended to me and I am glad that I did. I know when I began I was so zealous that I wanted to do everything perfectly all at once, which was NOT realistic. Doing it this way makes it more pleasurable and motivates me to become more observant.

this is a good reminder. i thought i was being realistic by thinking about just friday night and not all of saturday, but i have to maybe also realize that friday night is not going to be perfect for a long time! so far i can only manage to say (that is, clumsily read) the blessing over the candles. then i'm like, "okay, then there's another one for the wine [as i pour the grape juice and let it overflow and all that] and another one for the challah, which is why it's covered during the wine one, so that we get to say the bread one although we're not going to because . . . " and the kids are like "bread! juice!" but they get that it's special and we're just all learning.

[AngelBee]

[Magelet]

hey everyone. I was looking back at this thread, and its been forever, it seems like. Thank you so much for the advice. I started with just lighting the candles, and saying a blessing. I don't remember if I looked it up in Hebrew or said it in English. Now BF and I light the candles every week. I love it. We're working on adding wine/grape juice, and challah. Sometimes we do, sometimes we don't. Its been so wonderful, a special part of the week. Even non-religious non-jewish BF says its growing on him, and he actually kind of likes it, because its a special thing we do, and not just humoring me:.

I'd like to go to shul on friday nights but I have a question about that. Services at the nearest congregation (I thought we'd try it first because its walking distance which would be awesome) start at about 6:15. Candle-lighting times have been about 8 pm here lately. Are you supposed to light the candles et al really early, before you go? do they end in time to be back to light them before sunset? is it one or the other? I'm just not quite sure how to do both. I imagine in the winter, we'd light the candles at around 5 or 5:30 so that would work, but what about during summer? I'm also trying to get up my nerve to call the rabbi, before I go, (or for shabbat dinner) but I'm still scared. Still thank you all so much for helping me, its been so wonderful starting to celebrate shabbat! tia.

[Ruthla]

I'm not really sure how it works with Friday night services being so early. Orthodox shuls vary the time of Friday night services, depending on when Shabbos starts that week. I'd suggest calling the rabbi of the synagogue you want to attend, and ask him or her about candlelighting.

[merpk]

[QUOTE=doubledutch;13231181]

Originally Posted by RidentMama

There's a women's ministry that produced an article about celebrating Shabbat...lemme find it...
The Shabbat MealQUOTE]

i was surprised to find this was a christian website!

Editing.

I'm not surprised.

It is a standard operating procedure in missionizing-to-the-Jews organizations to have all sorts of seemingly philo-Jewish stuff on their sites.

Not that that site is necessarily missionizing-to-the-Jews. But it is always within the realm of possibility, isn't it.

[georgia]

Hi, everyone

I need to ask that we shift focus back to the OP's original questions and not get into debate about other websites here in Spirituality since this is intended to be a support-only zone. A new thread for issues where there's disagreement can be started over in Religious Studies. Please PM me directly with any questions or comments rather than posting to the thread. Thanks so much for your understanding and cooperation

[Mommal]

Are you supposed to light the candles et al really early, before you go?

I think it depends on whether or not you can get back in time to light candles before sundown. My understanding is that you can light candles early- because adding more Shabbat and more light to the world is a good thing- but you shouldn't light them late because then you're subtracting Shabbat and light from the world.

I would definitely call the shul and ask how late services go. If you can't be back in time to light candles before sundown, light them early and leave them burning.

I just wanted to refer back to your original post, in which you said you were considering whether or not to convert before having kids. I know this thread isn't supposed to be about that- but can I urge you to do it anyway? Converting can be a long, complex process, and it's going to be much harder to complete it with small children in tow. (Ask me how much I've gotten done on any front since my DD was born!) If you convert, your children are automatically Jewish- you don't need to convert them, as well. My advice is to have your conversion process- if you decide to go through with it- supervised by an Orthodox or at least Conservative Beit Din (Jewish Religious "Court"). That way, if your children grow up and wish to marry someone observant, they will not be told "Sorry, your mom's conversion wasn't kosher enough, you need to re-convert."

My SIL is a convert and when she and my brother were searching for a Beit Din to supervise her conversion process, they really looked long and hard for one that was "right" for them. The conversion process took about a year.

[Magelet]

Thanks. I will call the synagogue.

On the conversion front, I don't know. I think I probably will, but we'll see. It would be strange to be really happy in a reform synagogue but need to find a conservative to convert... On the other hand, would I be comfortable being as observant as I am and would like to be in a conservative? on the other hand, would they accept my future dh? I'm not sure about finding a conservative rabbi who will be ok with that fact that my partner (future husband) is not jewish, and has no plans to convert, I thought almost all were not ok on "interfaith" marriages. Not that its exactly interfaith, he was raised like me, without any real religion, and is not in the least bit religious. He's pretty much an athist. we plan on raising our kids jewish. I do recognize that its harder to do that in an interfaith marriage than with both parents jewish. I don't know much about the conversion process, but if I did that, I would DEFINITELY do so before kids. (Unless G-d had other plans for us, of course).

[rebirth]

I was born and raised jewish, even kosher, but got away from it long enough to meet, fall in love with and marry my husband. I cannot imagine my life without him, and we are expecting our first... but I do wonder if I would make a different decision if I could go back. We won't be raising our children interfaith style-only jewish, and he is happy to learn jewish traditions and to teach them. He goes to shul with me and loves it. We are even working slowly to kasher our kitchen. He was raised southern baptist but is supportive of not teaching that heratige to our children.

What is now striking me is that he won't be able to participate in so much for our children. He won't be able to have an aliyah when our child is born, or participate as a father should at all the significant times in our children's lives. I feel like I have done them a disservice. I know I shouldn't, but I do pray that he finds his jewish soul and is pulled in his heart to convert. I want to have a seder at our home and have my husband lead it, and so much more.

I cannot say for sure what I would change, but expecting this baby makes me think so much about the what ifs and what we are giving up.

[smeisnotapirate]

Originally Posted by rebirth

I was born and raised jewish, even kosher, but got away from it long enough to meet, fall in love with and marry my husband. I cannot imagine my life without him, and we are expecting our first... but I do wonder if I would make a different decision if I could go back. We won't be raising our children interfaith style-only jewish, and he is happy to learn jewish traditions and to teach them. He goes to shul with me and loves it. We are even working slowly to kasher our kitchen. He was raised southern baptist but is supportive of not teaching that heratige to our children.

What is now striking me is that he won't be able to participate in so much for our children. He won't be able to have an aliyah when our child is born, or participate as a father should at all the significant times in our children's lives. I feel like I have done them a disservice. I know I shouldn't, but I do pray that he finds his jewish soul and is pulled in his heart to convert. I want to have a seder at our home and have my husband lead it, and so much more.

I cannot say for sure what I would change, but expecting this baby makes me think so much about the what ifs and what we are giving up.

I sympathise. Totally.

[Magelet]

being in a similar position, I so very much do as well. I wrote out a whole long post about it then lost it. what I can say is, if ya need someone to talk to about it, I'm here.