For the past two years, my daughter and I have been taking Mommy and Me classes at the local JCC. We took art, music, and gardening. We loved all of it. We had fun and we made friends. It was fantastic.
Every week, I heard other moms talking about taking their kids to Shabbat service on Friday mornings. Not growing up with any religious practice, just the word Shabbat has always felt a little uncomfortable to me, so for the longest time I didn’t go. We made other plans on Friday mornings. But one day, at the beginning of the school year, a friend asked me to meet her there. I reluctantly agreed to go, assuming I’d feel uncomfortable and fake.
We spent 30 minutes singing “Bim Bam” and other adorable preschool Shabbat songs with the school. My daughter Billie LOVED it. I didn’t feel intimidated. This was a program for toddlers, after all. Sure, there was some Hebrew, but it was lovely. After the service, we went with a few other parents and kiddos to the family programming. It included story time, snack (challah of course), play time, and music time. None of this material was religious in nature. At the end of the 90 minutes of fun, we said the prayer, lit pretend candles, blessed the challah, and went home for a nap. It was fantastic! I promised Billie we’d go back the next week.
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I wasn’t raised with any religion in my house. My parents are both Jewish, but we didn’t go to synagogue. I didn’t have a bat mitzvah. I’ve been happy my entire life being (what we referred to in my family growing up as) a culinary Jew. We grew up eating latkes and matzah ball soup. We ordered Chinese food on Christmas. Once in a while on Hanukkah, we lit a menorah. My dad exposed us to the great Jewish comedians—we traveled to whatever distant movie theater in central Florida was showing the latest Woody Allen movie. That was a cultural experience for us.
When I went to college, I was selected to attend the Birthright trip. It was really a fantastic experience. I knew almost nothing about Israel at the time. For the first time I felt a real connection with my people. As we were exposed to Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, and learned about Israel’s history, I slowly felt prouder of my heritage. On Friday nights, we did a small Shabbat service. The Hebrew parts of the service were a little intimidating, since I really hadn’t experienced anything like it before. The Shabbat elevators made no sense to me. I anxiously waited for Saturday night, so we could resume our regularly scheduled programming.
After graduation, I worked for Hillel at the University of Central Florida. I was the Program Director and it was my job to help students plan events for the year. I loved it. It was a great job. We planned holiday parties and social events. Part of that was planning Shabbat services. This was the one area where I felt uncomfortable. I felt like a fraud. I didn’t know the first thing about what was required or how to help the students. I leaned heavily on the student who volunteered for the job of coordinating services every Friday night. I followed her lead.
After my job with Hillel ended, I started a family. Since I married a non-Jew, we celebrate Hanukkah and Christmas. We have added latkes to the menu for Christmas dinner. Both families are happy with us. I think we are doing a pretty good job of blending our non-religious, cultural holidays together.
It’s been about eight months of regular Friday morning Shabbats, and now I’m getting ready to go back to work. As the weeks counted down, I got choked up every Friday morning. I loved hearing the kids sing and whisper. I loved the feeling of togetherness and love. I loved the sense of ending the week and starting new and fresh again.
I will miss lots of things about my time at home with my sweet girl. But the thing I will miss the most, without a doubt, is taking her to Shabbat every Friday morning. She’ll still be at the JCC and she’ll get to go. Once she’s used to school, and can tolerate me coming and going, there’s no doubt I’m coming to join her for the service. I’m thrilled that she won’t be as uncomfortable with Hebrew and Shabbat as I was growing up.
I might not unplug or go to synagogue every Saturday, and that’s OK. I don’t light candles or say a prayer. It doesn’t matter. I finally understand the meaning of Shabbat for me. It’s about taking the time to pause and reflect. It’s about joy and peace. It’s about connecting in some small way. It’s about love.
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