26 | JANUARY 25 • 2024 J
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OUR COMMUNITY

Editor’s Note: “Celebrating 
Shabbat” is a continuing series.
A

mit Weitzer of 
Huntington Woods, 
her husband, Evan 
Major, and two children, 
Raviv Weitzer-Major, 5, 
and Lior Weitzer-Major, 
2, like making Shabbat 
special. Growing up in West 
Bloomfield, Amit’s family 
had Shabbat dinner together. 
“It was really prioritized and 
tended to,” she says. “Friday 
night would have a different 
tone and cadence, and I really 
appreciated that.”
Having Shabbat dinner 
together meant having 
relatives and friends over and, 
as she got older, it also meant 

navigating the expectations 
around secular life and Jewish 
life when it came to being 
home for dinner versus out 
with friends, she says.
These days, her family takes 
part in a monthly Shabbat 
potluck that rotates among 
the homes of a handful of 
other families. 
“It’s people who have 
known and loved each other 
a long time and become 
parents together,” she says. 
“It’s a group of families 
that wanted this regular 
connection and chavurah 
to look forward to being 
with. We’re all connected 
to different synagogues or 
institutions, but this was 
something supplementary 

or complementary; this was 
wanting our kids to feel 
excited about what Shabbat is 
and what Shabbat can be.”
They grab challah or 
something challah-like, 
Weitzer explains, and, in the 
spirit of Shabbat, they make 
a more traditional blessing, 
or sometimes say a poem 
about food and where the 
food comes from. They light 
candles and bless them, or 
sing a song that makes the 
blessing more accessible, she 
says. “There’s a real feeling 
of connecting and honoring 
of ritual, and sometimes 
it’s expressed differently 
depending on the gathering 
and who’s leading.” 
Their meals are vegetable-

forward, she says, and the 
evening is informal, with 
people sitting on the floor and 
kids running around. 
“Ritually, we sing songs, 
not always the same ones; 
we have songs that map onto 
the different blessings,” she 
says. “So, there’s some similar 
ritual each time we gather, 
even if the songs are a little 
bit different; there’s a real 
playfulness, and I think the 
key thing is the expectation 
of this being a monthly 
gathering we can all look 
forward to.” 
She and her friends have 
tried to model the weekend 
as a time to reset and be 
together, she says, similar 
to what she saw growing 

Shabbat is special for chavurah.

KAREN SCHWARTZ CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Sharing the Spirit
of Shabbat
Friends gathered around a board 
game on a Shabbat morning: 
Let to right: Jen Rusciano, Noam 
Kimelman, Oren Brandvain, Raviv 
Weitzer-Major and Evan Major.

CELEBRATING SHABBAT