4 | MARCH 9 • 2023 

PURELY COMMENTARY

guest column

A Lifetime of Shabbos Dinners
M

any perspectives are 
incorporated into the 
ways the Sabbath is 
celebrated. Some people cele-
brate it as the most important 
holiday in the Jewish calendar. 
Some say, since 
it is the most 
frequent holiday, 
it is the most 
important. Others 
say because it is 
the only holiday 
mentioned in 
the Ten Commandments, it is 
therefore the most important. 
Still others might point to the 
fact that since an entire book 
of the Talmud is devoted to the 
Sabbath, this alone points to its 
importance. 
I can’t say that I agree or 
disagree with these educated 
and intellectual perspectives. 
What I do know is that my 
family has regularly celebrated 
the Sabbath nearly every Friday 
night of my life. And, because 
it is something so very special, 
I have, on my own, celebrated 
it nearly every week of my life. 
While it may be true that its 
specialness is its importance, it 
seems to me more the other way 
around. That is, because it is so 
ordinary and regular, week in 
and week out, the regularity and 
very ordinariness is that which 
makes it so unique.
However, even in my lifetime, 
many of the elements of the 
celebration have changed. In my 
grandfathers’ homes, the men 
came home from work as early 
as possible. They washed and 
bathed, so they could put on 
fresh clothes and were ready to 
sit down for supper as near to 
sundown as they possibly could. 
I remember my grandmother 
lighting the Shabbos candles, 
gently waving her hands as 

if beckoning the good spirits 
into the room. My dad and my 
uncles sang the prayer welcom-
ing the peace and solemnity 
of the day of rest, and then the 
extended Shabbos blessing 
over the wine. Then there was 
a succinct “Ha motzi” blessing 
thanking God for the grain 
from the earth. Then the order-
ly mayhem of feeding 14 indi-
viduals a three-course chicken 
dinner with hot tea and dessert. 
The five baby girls had 
already been fed, diapered, 
swaddled and lined up in 
the hall next to the dining 
room. The three boys were 
dismissed to the living room 
where the eldest tuned in the 
14-inch black-and-white TV 
to I Remember Moma and The 
Friday Night Fights, all while the 
grownups sipped their hot tea 
and argued politics, exchanged 
family news and teased one 
another as they had for the 
20-some years they’
d been hav-
ing Shabbos dinner.

THE NEXT GENERATION
When I was 5 or 6, my grand-
mother’s age and infirmity 
dictated she could no longer 
prepare such a feast on a weekly 
basis. Each of the five couples of 
my mother’s sibship held their 

own very similar Shabbos din-
ner, diminished mostly in scale. 
 At our house, the major alter-
ations were a few small changes 
in the melodies of the prayers 
and blessings, the absence of 
hot soup during the spring 
and summer, and the bent of 
the after-dinner conversation, 
which mostly meant that my 
sister and I stayed at the table 
because there was nothing of 
redeeming value on TV at that 
hour.
As I grew older, the major 
changes in Friday night dinner 
were mostly secular in that we 
were expected to have opinions 
during the after-dinner conver-
sations. Conversation ranged 
from the importance of follow-
ing directions to the meaning 
of political parties and from 
favorite flavors of ice cream to 
the underlying principles of 
Kashrut, the Jewish dietary laws.
And, rather than the kids 
retiring to the couch, my father 
practiced his post-prandial 
somnolence while we washed 
and dried the dinner dishes. 
There wasn’t anything novel 
or unusual about Shabbos 
dinner. Our Catholic friends 
ate fish on Friday, and our 
Protestant friends had Sunday 
dinner after church. As we 

entered our teenage years, we 
learned that permission to 
attend a dance or social event 
was highly unlikely to be grant-
ed on a Friday evening. In later 
years, when we were living at 
school, a call home was expect-
ed on Friday evening, and you 
could expect a thorough grilling 
if you forgot.

MY OWN SHABBOS 
DINNERS
Another 10 years further on, 
on the drive back to Ann Arbor 
after our honeymoon, my wife, 
Lindy, and I had a relatively 
brief but serious discussion 
about Shabbat dinner. I was sur-
prised to hear myself say, “I can’t 
quite explain why, but Shabbat 
dinner is important to me, and 
I’
d like to make it a family time.
” 
This led to a conversation 
about which rituals and tra-
ditions we liked and might 
include in our own Friday eve-
ning rite. It turned out that we 
both wanted surprisingly simi-
lar elements in our own Shabbat 
ritual. We’
d light candles with 
the candlesticks her mother 
gave us. We’
d sing an abbrevi-
ated version of the blessings 
over the wine and bread. Lindy 
despised Mogen David concord 
wine. Initially we did not live 
near an established Jewish bak-
ery. So, Lindy got in the habit 
of making our challah bread. 
The habit became a tradition 
to the extent that we can count 
with our fingers the number of 
Shabbat dinners where we have 
not had a home-baked challah. 
And, so within a couple of 
weeks, we’
d found and assem-
bled the pattern of a lifetime of 
Shabbat dinners. Oh, of course, 
there have been additions and 
alterations. Along the way, we 
found a set of beautiful but 

Ray Buch

continued on page 7

