Drive.
Tear toilet paper.
Cook.
Shop.
Check email. Talk on our phones. Listen to music. Watch TV. Oh yeah. We don’t have a TV.
But do we sit around in a cold, dark, silent house all day in a state of hunger? On my no.
Here are some of our favorite Shabbat activities, and why we look forward to this day all week.
1. SCHMOOZE
It’s the one day of the week when no one’s rushing anywhere. So we have time to catch up on all our leisurely conversations, fill each other in on stuff we experienced that week, share feelings and impressions, and just shoot the breeze with the kids in an unhurried, companionable atmosphere. For people that love to chat (me) this is awesome.
2. SNOOZE
We go to sleep early Friday night. We sleep in Shabbat morning. We take a nap Shabbat afternoon. Need I elaborate?
3. PRAY
OK, if you’re not into God and stuff, just skip this one. But for us, this is a special time to reconnect with our Creator. We talk to Him, whether at synagogue or at home. We have more time to focus on spirituality, and all the other distractions are stripped away. At services, there’s lots of special tunes and songs that say, in a very deep way, Shabbat is here again.
4. PLAY
We play games! Our family favorites: currently we are obsessed with bananagrams. Okay, I am. And I make everyone else play. We also like Secret Seven, card tricks, Backgammon, and Perpetual Commotion. The kids like Risk, Monopoly, Life, and Othello. Oldies but goodies.
5. EAT
We have three leisurely meals. Sorry I keep using that word but it’s so annoyingly accurate. We enjoy Friday night dinner – it usually lasts two hours. Remember: no sports. No phones. No texting. No Facebook. It’s multi-course and wonderful. Less famous is Shabbat lunch. Also usually two hours. This has the added advantage of involving cholent. I may just need to devote an entire post to cholent. Extremely un-famous: the Third Meal, aka dinner. Also goes by its Hebrew name “Seudah Shlishit” (si-oo-DAH shlee-SHEET. Translation: the Third Meal) and in the corrupted vernacular, “Shalushudis” (sha-li-SHU-dis). That’s a lot of food.
6. TREAT
No, this is not exactly the same as EAT. We save most of our junk food indulgences for Shabbat. Like Oreos. Fruity Pebbles. Doughnuts (my husband’s personal fave) from Unger’s or Lax. Soft drinks. Yeah, that’s fun, once a week. If we did it every day, it would be gross, unhealthy, expensive, and not appreciated. Once a week, it’s our special Shabbat indulgence.
7. READ
This is the time of the week we sit around on the couch and read. What do we read? We get some Jewish periodicals that we save just for Shabbat. Or re-read old favorites. We might do some Jewish texts that we don’t get a chance to check out during the week, when most of (my) reading takes place on my droid or PC. I read books to the kids. It’s a whole culture of reading, and we love it. We read after I light the candles and again after dinner, and again in the afternoon. We work around the sleeping (see #2).
8. VISIT
I run across the street or next door to visit my neighbors for a spontaneous chat. How quaint is THAT?? Or we sit out on someone’s lawn. Or we might walk over as a family to pop in on a friend. No one expects you to call first; it’s Shabbat. So this is normal. The kids run over to friends or their friends hang out here. All unplanned, unscheduled and mutual. Love it.
9. SING
OK. I know for some people this is weirdness, man. But Shabbat is like spiritual Woodstock for us (oxymoron?), every week. We hang around during or after meals to… sing. We hum wordless Chassidic tunes, sing Hebrew ditties from thousands of years ago, and do the Birkat Hamazon (also called “bentching” – this is Yiddish for blessing) which takes us like five full minutes and has tunes for every part of it. We do slow songs with harmonies, fast songs with table-pounding, and everything in between. Sometimes the kids learn a new song at school and teach it to us. Disclosure: when we have guests that are unfamiliar or weirded out by this, we curtail the singing. Wanna make everyone comfy.
10. STROLL
We take walks almost every Shabbat, no matter what the weather. It might be just my husband and me, after dinner, or the whole family in the afternoon. It might be to visit, or just to walk. It might be five minutes, or two hours (see: weather). We usually don’t have a predetermined destination so the whole stop-to-smell-the-roses thing is just built in.
And the most important thing to do on Shabbat is just… to be. As a very wise man once said, “The whole week we are human doings. On Shabbat, we are human beings.”
What are some ways your family makes Shabbat special?
I will add a new game to your repertoire that my girls played all summer at Camp Wise – Anomia. You can find it at Playmatters and probably other places. A really fun word game…a bit addictive, but hey, you have all shabbos to play!
Our Shabbatot sound an awful lot like yours. We play alot of Euchre, Read till our eyes fall out and spend lots of time with family and friends. We also eat in a very relaxed way and that goes whether it is a fancy meal or one that is made up of pb and j if we don't have time. Actually, if we don't have time, we do 'make your own sushi hand rolls' because all we need to cook is a pot of rice…
anyways, our community is a little like a kibbutz and we all visit and hang out and do a lot of potlucking. your pb and j with my sushi makes a meal fit for the children of a king!
Wow – the games and singing sounds awesome! Our kids are young so we are limited to Go Fish! Old Maid, and Memory.
Also, I want to pop in and speak for the newly observant or newly married or sans kiddos crowd. When I first starting keeping shabbat I was single. I had friends over Friday night, but was often left alone all of shabbat day and found it to be a verrry looonnng day…likewise when I first moved here and didn't know anyone, but then, at least I was able to spend time getting to know my husband better as we were newly married. I've since gained many friends and love spending time with them on Shabbat. I enjoy watching my daughter playing with her friends and those long leisurely meals with friends who I often do not get to see at all during the week. All that to say — if you really want to experience a great Shabbat you should find people to spend it with who also enjoy and value the Shabbat experience. As for the rest of us, we have to keep our eyes open for people looking for a friend to spend Shabbat with…what difference a friend makes! Cheers!
Ruchi and all the readers,
You have given me an idea to print this article on Shabbat for my neighbor who when speaking to her yesterday (on Shabbos) said that while she respected what the orthodox do, she is not interested in changing her life. I think that if she can see it from the perspective that you have pointed out, perhaps she might find a way to get past her block. My husband and I also enjoy our Shabbos immensely even though we have no children or family in Cleveland. You have put it in such a way that it may just change a few minds, possibly my neighbor's.
Busyme, you make an excellent point. When I had like four little kids, shabbos was sometimes hard… but now that the kids are a bit older, it's awesome … shabbos was not meant to be observed in isolation bit rather with community, regardless of what your family structure is like. Thanks, all!
I second what Jessica said – I spent last weekend playing it with her and her daughters and OMG I am now totally addicted and have bought the game!
I LOVE this post. Just tweeted it. 🙂
These are all things that make Shabbos so enjoyable for me. Also, it's the one day a week I get to really spend with my husband, who works a lot. So we like that part, too.
Thanks Rivki!
Thanks for this Ruchi! It both answers a question that I've had for a while, (trying to come up with ideas of what to do in my own home as I move toward shomer Shabbos) and reinforces the importance of celebrating within a community- Shabbos isn't best experienced in the house by yourself.
Coming here from Skyler's blog and posting the same comment here as there:
Our big deal was something we wanted hosts to know. As prospective BTs, we really want to show up early and help with Shabbat prep. Yes, you get pride in showing off a beautiful Shabbat table and all your lovely children and everything perfect, but if we want to be able to do this ourselves we need to see exactly what's involved in creating the beautiful set up.
Larry, welcome to OOTOB! Interesting… very. Because the last thing IN THE WORLD I would want is for my guests to see me and my house in a state of chaos! But I can totally see where this might be important! Definitely something to think about.
One example from real life. As we were become observant, we would have 'traditional shabbats' )on which we followed O halacha as we understood it) and 'non-traditional shabbats (on which we approximately followed most of the positive mitzvot and very few of the negative ones),
One of the tasks we most disliked for traditional shabbats was tearing toilet paper. One of us would take a roll and unroll it a few squares, tear it, put it in a pile, and then repeat the process. Really boring and it took a really long time.
Then we wound up staying with a total stranger for Shabbat in Sharon, MA. A friend of ours was leaving the community and we wanted to attend his farewell Shabbat. We explained our status to the woman and asked if we could arrive early to help out. She was one of the very few people to say yes to this.
So there we were, about 3 hours before Shabbat, and this woman realizes they needed more torn toilet paper. I offered to do it, but she declined, commenting that it really didn't take long. Then she took a pair of scissors and cut the roll into quarters. It took her about 30 seconds. My wife and I went into the guest bedroom and quietly had hysterics. If no one had ever been willing to take us early for Shabbat I suspect I'd still be tearing toilet paper 4 sheets at at tine to this day,
Good point about Shabbat being experienced best as part of a community. Just want to put in a plug for a great website/organization: Shabbat.com. It is a list of people all over the world who are happy to host strangers for a Shabbat meal, or all of Shabbat. Whether you are traveling, new in a community, giving Shabbat a trial run, or just want to meet new people, it can be a great way to get matched up with Shabbat hosts. Or list yourself as a host and open your door to newcomers!
I personally enjoy an occasional Shabbat all to myself (see Ruchie's agenda: read, eat, sleep, repeat) – and I even sing zmirot on my own, with no one complaining about me being off-key.
Do you know Lenny, with all the hype about tearing toilet paper, I have never, ever torn toilet paper before Shabbos in my life? And none of my bazillion relatives who have all been keeping Shabbos their whole lives, ever do either.
We use tissues.
No, they don't stuff up the toilet.
Just sayin'.
Not sure if people tear it for economical reasons or what… but IMHO it's a waste of time.
OH, and Miriam – a Shabbos all my myself sounds absolutely luxurious… but that's because I'm blessed with a large family and busy community. So not complaining!
Ruchi
I remember visiting someone's house for Shabbat and seeing a poem posted over the toilet:
Our plumbing is weak
Our plumbing is old
So please only toilet paper
Down the commode.
Also, I had a friend who claimed that no one worried about tearing toilet paper on Shabbat. He didn't realize that the absence of torn toilet paper was because many people do as you do and use tissues, so he just assumed they used regular toilet paper the same as during the week.
This gives me more appreciation for the Talmudic story where the student's final line is 'But rabbi, it is the law and I must learn!'
Does tearing toilet paper really count as tearing paper though, as it is already perforated and you're essentially pulling apart a few threads?