How to Run a Traditional Jewish Household Read online

  Preparing paper in advance seems so remote from holy time. The objective outsider might say: “This is pure legalism and highly ridiculous besides; there’s no work involved in tearing a piece of perforated toilet paper on the Sabbath.” To which an insider might respond, “Look how clever the Rabbis were: even in as mundane a place as a bathroom, one is reminded of the uniqueness of the day.”

  THE TELEPHONE

  People will generally know not to call an Orthodox Jew’s home on Shabbat. Our phone rings every ten minutes on a normal evening, but rarely ever does it ring on Shabbat. However, even an occasional jangling can interrupt the mood. Rather than take it off the hook altogether, before Shabbat we put the ringer on low and stick the phone into a drawer so it is barely audible.

  Some people think the lack of use of phone is constricting and inconvenient. It surely sometimes is, as when you’re expecting company and you don’t know whether or not they’ll come in this driving rain, or how your mother is fighting the flu bug that attacked her yesterday.

  But as one who does a lot of business—social, managerial, and professional—on the telephone, to be released from it on Shabbat is worth the entire effort. On Shabbat, I am freed from the ringing of the telephone. I am simply not available to whoever might want the immediate access a telephone brings. I have the freedom to savor the peace and privacy of my family and my home.

  Emergencies notwithstanding, my mother doesn’t expect or want me or anyone else to call her on this day; and our friends will know that we will wait half an hour for them and then conclude that they’ve decided not to weather the storm.

  However, in case of medical emergency, the Sabbath not only may be violated, it must be violated. Lifesaving comes above everything else, and there’s a good deal of leeway in interpreting what lifesaving means. Once, when J.J. was fifteen he began fighting with his sister over who would cut the cake. He grabbed the knife and sliced a deep cut through his finger. It bled heavily for about twenty minutes. We called the doctor (a friend who is Orthodox), he came immediately, and said the finger must be stitched. We asked if it could wait five hours until Shabbat was over. “No,” was the answer, there was a measure of risk. He called the surgeon, who said come right over. J.J. and his father walked; if it hadn’t been close by, J.J. would have taken a cab. Despite what the New Testament says about Jewish legalism, this is just how our ancestors, the Pharisees, would have done it.

  Having said all that, modern Jews have gone a step further. The same ingenious scientists and scholars who invented the Shabbos lamp have invented a Shabbos telephone. These are members of the Institute for Science and Halacha in Jerusalem, whose basic principle is that there is nothing that needs to be done that cannot be done according to halacha. Inventing something called a “grama switch,” they are able to activate electricity in a manner that is consonant with halacha. The grama switch turns on an electrical device without violating the Sabbath. How? It works like this: an electric capacitor stores voltage from a constant power source. From somewhere nearby, an electric eye beams light rays at the capacitor, dissipating the voltage. To activate the switch, a Sabbath observer slides a piece of plastic between the two devices, blocking the light rays from reaching the capacitor. The voltage then builds up unhindered, until it reaches the necessary level to start whatever is hooked up to it.

  What makes this a Shabbos telephone? It does not directly generate electricity; instead, it acts by preventing it—the pieces of plastic inhibit rather than activate. This, the modern rabbis have determined, is permissible. They base their contemporary interpretation on a Talmudic precedent: one may close a window on the Sabbath in order to stop a breeze that might blow out a candle, even though closing the window makes the candle burn more brightly.

  However, even a Shabbos telephone must conform to another principle of Jewish law—the spirit of Shabbat. So while it may be used for medical and other urgencies, its use is checked in order to preserve the sanctity of the holy day.

  Some of what we have learned from Shabbat carries over to the weekday, and the telephone is a good example. Why not preserve an island of family time each day? we asked ourselves. With five teenagers the phones are always ringing. First we told our children to ask their friends not to call at dinnertime, and then we lower the ringer and just ignore the thing until we’re all through with our meal. Four of them accept it nicely. The fifth gives us a song and dance every night about the possible emergencies we are missing by not answering—but I’ve noticed his litany is becoming less dramatic.

  FOOD PREPARATION—SHOPPING

  All the shopping must be done before sundown. If you’ve forgotten a jar of mayonnaise, you cannot run out on Saturday morning to buy one, nor call the deli downstairs and have it sent up. And if you don’t have an eruv (see p. 47) in your community, you can’t even borrow it from a kosher neighbor.

  If there is some special food newly available, buy it for Shabbat. Your first avocado of the season should be saved for Shabbat. The first watermelon of the season is cause for Shabbat afternoon rejoicing in our backyard. Halibut and salmon are expensive, but we prepare these for our vegetarians for Shabbat.

  COOKING

  All cooking for Shabbat must be completed before sundown. This means more work on Thursday and Friday, but the bonus is “paid” on Shabbat.

  BUY OR BAKE CHALLOT, THE SPECIAL SABBATH LOAVES

  You’ll need two challot for Friday night, two for Shabbat lunch; add two more if you’ll be serving shaleshudos, the third meal, at home; however, if one of the Friday-night challot is unsliced, it can do double duty for Shabbat lunch or shaleshudos. Where there is no one to eat all that challah, either rolls or whole squares of matzah can be used as substitute for one or both of the challot.

  CHILL THE WINE

  It is proper to use red wine, sweet or dry, on Friday night. For Shabbat lunch, there’s a little more flexibility, and many Jews use white wine or schnapps.

  SETTING UP THE BLECH (THE STOVE-TOP COVERING)

  If all the food is cooked beforehand, and one cannot ignite the fire, does that mean one must serve cold food? Not at all. In fact, the Pharisees and the Sadducees fought over the issue of maintaining light and heat during Shabbat. The Pharisees were the prolight and proheat faction, and, happily, their interpretation of the law prevailed. The same debate came up eight centuries later, between the Karaites and the Rabbinites. The Karaites, like the Sadducees, held the strict and literal view of Exodus 35:3, “You shall not burn any fire in all your dwellings on the Sabbath day”; they interpreted this to mean there could be no fires, and, therefore, no hot food. The Pharisees, on the other hand, and their descendants the Rabbinites, interpreted Scripture to mean that, “you shall not burn (that is, ignite or regulate) a fire” and not that “no fire shall burn.” Thus, any heat source lit before Shabbat may be maintained as long as one does not have to reignite it on Shabbat. An oven or top-of-the-stove flame that is turned on before candlelighting and kept burning throughout fits this category. So does a boiler that is controlled by thermostat, or electric lights that are set with a timer. The difference, then, between a rabbinic Shabbat and a Sadducean one is a warm, well-lit family experience versus a cold, dark, forbidding taboo day.

  In addition to the proscription against lighting fire, there is another ban of Shabbat: food may not be cooked on Shabbat, but it may be heated. In order to avoid the possibility of actual cooking, the flame is kept low and a blech (the ech pronounced gutturally as in Mad magazine’s yecch) is placed over it. A blech is simply a solid tin or copper sheet that covers a burner, or several burners. Most people have it cut to fit right across the entire top of the stove so that it diffuses heat to several pots, and one can rotate these to its hottest spot as the need arises. A tinsmith will cut a blech, or it can be ordered from a hardware store in a Jewish neighborhood.

  FOODS

  There are many traditional foods associated with Shabbat. Among them are:

  Chicken soup


  Roast chicken

  Chopped liver

  Gefilte fish

  Tsholent

  Potato kugel

  Noodle kugel

  (See Recipes, p. 481.)

  It is traditional to serve poultry or other meat for the two main Shabbat meals: Friday-night dinner and Saturday lunch. However, this is not a hard-and-fast rule: there are plenty of Jewish vegetarians who still qualify for a place in the world to come.

  Some foods like tsholent have a special association with the light-heat issue mentioned above. Tsholent is a bean/meat/potato stew that is cooked before Shabbat and sits warming on the blech or in a low oven all night long, until Shabbat lunch. One source has it that when you eat tsholent you score a political point for the Pharisees, who made hot food on Shabbat day a litmus test of Pharisaic loyalty. The authoritative medieval code of Jewish law informs us that “One who disbelieves the words of the Sages, and forbids hot food to be eaten on Shabbat, is suspected of being an apikores [renegade Jew]” (SHULCHAN ARUCH, ORACH HAYYIM 257.8). The word “tsholent” perhaps derives from the Hebrew sheh-lon—that which rested on the heat source all night long. *

  Another tradition about tsholent is that it symbolizes the unquenchable optimism of the Jewish people. You eat all that heavy tsholent for lunch, and then you lie down for your Shabbat afternoon nap, and you think you’re going to get up again.... †

  One of my fondest memories as a child is coming home from school on a wintry Friday afternoon into a house full of delicious smells of Shabbat food—and sitting right down to a piece of potato kugel. My mother would always prepare an extra large one so that we could all enjoy a pre-Shabbat snack. We weren’t permitted to nosh the other foods prepared for Shabbat; the custom is to eat lightly on Friday, to savor the special Shabbat meals all the more. But kugel—that was our erev Shabbat (Friday-afternoon) treat.

  There is no partaking of food from the time candles are lit until Kiddush is recited at dinner, so if you are having weekend guests who come from a distance, prepare a light snack for them before Shabbat begins.

  BOILED WATER

  A kettle of water that will be used for tea or coffee throughout Shabbat must be boiled in advance of candlelighting. Some people use electric coffee urns which they keep on all of Shabbat. You cannot boil water during Shabbat itself, nor add to the kettle, so put up as much as you’ll need for the entire Shabbat. In Israel, wonderful large Shabbat kettles are made that hold three or four gallons of water, yet sit compactly on the blech. They have a neat spigot from which to fill a teapot or teacup, and they come with flat covers so that you can place another pot on top to also keep warm. These are sold in hardware stores in Jewish neighborhoods.

  TEA ESSENCE

  There is a difference of opinion as to whether making tea is cooking. Most people prepare tea essence beforehand, others use instant tea or steep teabags on Shabbat. Whichever form one chooses, during Shabbat the boiled water is poured first into the cup, and then the tea is added; not the reverse. Pouring the hot water into a secondary utensil (a tea cup) sufficiently reduces the heat so as not to constitute “cooking tea.” In the case of teabags, however, some authorities require the boiled water to be poured into a tertiary utensil. Which is why, if you like your tea hot, it is best to prepare strong essence before Shabbat.

  FRESH SALADS AND FRUITS

  Preparation of fruits and vegetables which don’t require cooking can be done during Shabbat. So as not to have to clean up afterward, however, many people prepare salads or fruit dishes in advance.

  PREPARING ONESELF

  There are two ways to prepare oneself—spiritually and physically—and the two are intertwined. Nevertheless, I shall attempt to distinguish between them.

  PHYSICAL PREPARATION

  Shower, shampoo, blow dry, shave, haircut: these are all common Friday-afternoon preparations in an observant Jew’s life. Each of us carries special associations with the day, associations that have nothing to do with creation and freedom, and yet have everything to do with Shabbat. For me, a mother of five teenagers, one of my strongest associations with Friday afternoon is of shining, sweet-smelling hair.

  Prepare your nice clothes for Shabbat. If you bought something new that’s appropriate for this special day, wear it first on Shabbat. Do whatever laundry is necessary, pick up the suit from the dry cleaner, sew on the button, put up the hem, cut off the tags from new clothes, polish the shoes. My father used to get us to polish his shoes on Friday afternoon by calling out to my sisters and me, “Girls, which one of you wants a mitzvah?” (of honoring parents).

  Mail off the letter you’ve written, call up that friend you’ve been meaning to call all week; otherwise, it’ll have to wait until Saturday night.

  Put your wallet in a drawer, take your favorite lipstick out of your handbag, for a handbag is muktzeh on Shabbat. Empty your pockets of money and other items, and remember to check your coat pockets too. Orthodox Jews do not handle money on Shabbat, nor do they carry things out of doors on Shabbat, unless there is an eruv.

  THE ERUV

  A few words about the eruv are in order here. Jewish law forbids the carrying of objects into the public domain on Shabbat; it doesn’t matter if the object is as light as a handkerchief or house key or as heavy as a book of Talmud. Nor can one push a baby carriage or stroller, or even carry a baby who cannot walk by himself or herself.

  This law can definitely clip one’s wings! Particularly with babies, one can feel “locked in” on a Shabbat. But Jews have found a way to resolve it; or, rather, several ways. One way is by having objects that one needs outside of the home available at the other end of the line. For example: having prayer books and Bibles at a synagogue for everyone who comes is a solution to a Jew’s not being permitted to carry his/her own siddur (prayer book) through the streets.

  When I was a teenager, I would periodically apply my talents toward finding a good safe hiding spot for my comb and lipstick in the small ladies’ room of my shul. I couldn’t carry these items with me, and yet there was no way on earth I would walk into shul without recombing after the ten-minute walk there. So I had to provide for these things properly. Best friends were those girls to whom you would tell where your “Shabbos comb and lipstick” were hidden. When I married, and moved away, I left my comb and lipstick in place. It was like leaving a small part of me behind in the shul of my youth. I wonder if it’s still in place. I know no one is looking anymore, because an eruv has since been put up in that neighborhood.

  A second solution is to have craftsmen create things like Shabbos keys. A key, nicely gilded, is affixed to a belt buckle or tie clip or pin back; thus, it becomes part of a person’s clothing or jewelry on which there is no restriction of carrying. One would also tie a handkerchief around the wrist rather than carry it in a pocket. Some of this seems ludicrous to an outsider, but it is all part of the total commitment of an Orthodox Jew.

  Still, neither of those solutions addresses the larger problem of taking babies out of doors on Shabbat. But an eruv does. An eruv is a symbolic act by means of which the legal fiction of community or continuity is established. An eruv symbolically transforms a public domain into a large private one; this allows a Jew to carry outside the house items that would normally be permissible to carry from place to place inside the house. In other words, where there’s an eruv enclosure, one may carry on Shabbat, within reason, any item which is not muktzeh. An eruv encircles a town, and makes it all private property, even though we all know it isn’t private property. An eruv is sometimes nothing more than a wire connected at appropriate points to existing telephone wires, in order to completely close the perimeter. There are eruv checkers and eruv hot lines—to see if the eruv is in order.

  In recent years, many communities have constructed eruvin (plural), putting Shabbos keymakers and Shabbos baby-sitters out of business, but, in general, making life much less complicated and more pleasant for traditional Jews.

  For most of my early married and child
raising years, I lived in a community that had no eruv; and therefore, if I didn’t plan ahead for a baby-sitter to mind the babies at home or take them out in the carriage, there was no way that I could go to shul or take an afternoon walk with Yitz and the bigger children. For the most part, I took it with great equanimity. When I look back on those times, I can only wonder in amazement why it didn’t bother me more and why I didn’t organize a huge rally of all Orthodox mothers of young children. Although no eruv has come out of a women’s protest group, I think the increase in eruvin has something to do with the new perception women have of themselves, their needs, and their place in community life.

  In Riverdale, New York, where we live, it took five years to get that eruv up. There were people who resisted the idea, fearing it would lead to transgression of Shabbat—that is, the domino theory of sinning. Also, the law is very complicated, and there are very few eruv experts around. And, like all things, it costs money. But, finally, it was accomplished. I was very pleased to see it go up, even though it came too late for me to benefit personally. However, in a way I, too, reap its benefits every week. It’s very satisfying on Shabbat morning to see all those baby carriages and strollers parked outside of shul, and to see all the beautiful new young life inside.