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I
t was Sept. 20, 2016, and I was
sitting in a lecture at Partners in
Torah in Detroit alongside my
cousin. As South African Chief Rabbi
Dr. Warren Goldstein, founding
director of the Shabbat Project, got
up on stage, I whis-
pered to her, “This
is the person who
brought us together!”
Let me tell you how
it happened.
I first heard about
the Shabbat Project in
2014. In the buildup
to the event, many
people were talking about the proj-
ect in Detroit. I liked the sound of it
and told my husband and my then
14-year-old daughter I was going
to keep that Shabbat with people
around the world. I hoped they’
d
be as excited as I was. This was my
opportunity to break it to my family
that I wanted to experience a full
Shabbat and more deeply connect to
Judaism.
That Saturday, I took the day
off from work. The Thursday night
before the big Shabbat, I attended
the community-wide challah bake,
sitting at a table alongside my
daughter, my sister and my niece.
It was so amazing to be there with
hundreds of other Jewish women and
girls.
As we were watching the braiding
demonstrations, a young woman
approached our table with a friendly
smile and asked if we’
d like some
help with braiding. It turned out she
was our cousin on our mother’
s side.
The family hadn’
t seen or spoken to
each other in many years.
The next day, I pored over the
checklist in the Unofficial Guide to
Keeping Shabbat booklet. I went on
to keep Shabbat in full for the first
time in my life.
About six weeks later — the
Shabbat of Chanukah — I was
invited to a bar mitzvah. It was a
last-minute invitation. At the lun-
cheon, in walks our cousin from
the Challah Bake! “Mazel tov!”
she exclaims. She had recently got
engaged and wanted to invite me to
her wedding. A week later, the invita-
tion arrived in the mail. I cried when
I opened it. I thought to myself, “I
have family that keeps Shabbat, too.”
I felt like it was a personal gift from
God.
The wedding was in the middle
of January and was indescribably
beautiful. We met so many new
cousins and found out we all live
within a few miles of each other!
The uncle of the bride came to find
us during dinner to join them for a
family picture. Later that evening, he
invited us to his daughter’
s engage-
ment party. We went and when we
received the invitation in the mail
for the wedding in New York that
June, we all drove to New York and
celebrated together.
Fast forward to the Great Challah
Bake of 2015. My daughter, my sister,
my niece and I are seated at a long
table. The table is filled with cous-
ins we now know, and all of us are
preparing challah. I had recruited
more friends to join us. I told them
our amazing story. I told them how,
during the 2014 Shabbat Project, I
kept Shabbat for the first time and
that I’
ve kept it ever since. And
I hoped that they too would feel
inspired to keep just one Shabbat.
My cousin and I talked that
night about getting a table together
for even more family for the Great
Challah Bake in 2016. And that is
exactly what we did.
The Shabbat Project of 2018 in
Michigan was my fifth consecu-
tive year participating. It began on
Thursday night making challah with
close to 700 other women and girls
at the Royal Oak Farmers Market.
This challah bake was as profoundly
moving for me as the others. From
three or four of us at the first challah
bake, we now had 30 people joining
us, family and close friends, at four
different tables. The cousin who ini-
tially connected us surprised me at
the challah bake, so there was also a
sense of coming full circle.
Making challah with these new-
found family members for the past
five years has affected my life in an
indescribable way. Our extended
family and my immediate family
have been brought together no less
dramatically — both my daughter
and my husband have begun keeping
Shabbat.
There is an urgency to erev
Shabbat — especially Friday after-
noon — which I’
ve come to under-
stand. I look forward to preparing
each week — to the mania of rushing
around making sure that everything
that needs to be done is done — and
especially to the calm that descends
as soon as those candles are lit.
While I was excited to celebrate
Shabbat in its entirety for the first
time in 2014, we are now together
as a family, enjoying the peace and
beauty of Shabbat. It is something
that we look forward to all week. It
all started with one Shabbat. ■
Marilynn Yarbough, an office manager from
Huntington Woods, will take part in the sixth
annual Great Big Challah Bake Monday, Nov.
11 at the Royal Oak Farmers Market.
It Started From One Shabbat
views
essay
Marilynn
Yarbough