Mazal Tov! A New Book is (Almost) Born
For the first time in 17 years I am about to put out a new book! Blessings: A Shabbat Dinner Companion has been a long-standing dream of ours that became a joint labor of love this past year for me and my husband, Joshua.
Josh and I both discovered Shabbat when we were in our late teens (thank you Jeff Seidel!). And we both fell head over heels in love with Shabbat at first sight.
When I returned to Bowdoin College for my final semester after those transformational first 8 months in Israel, I was the only Jew keeping Shabbat within 25 miles. Being shomeret Shabbat at Bowdoin meant making kiddush, eating lukewarm wacky mac, and making havdalah all on my own. It also meant lighting my Shabbat candles in the shower stall (my otherwise lovely 88-year-old landlady, Mrs Wilson, strictly forbade lighting candles in rooms).
I know this sounds like it must have been awful, but it didn’t feel awful to me. I felt SO blessed to be able to bring the magic of Shabbat home with me all the way from Jerusalem to Brunswick, Maine. Even on my own at Bowdoin, on Shabbat I felt part of something greater than myself. I was with the entire Jewish people, with every Jew who’d ever lived. On Shabbat, I felt Hashem right there by my side.
A few months after graduation, I returned to Israel and met Josh. Since we married 28 years ago, we have been passionate about sharing the gift of Shabbat with people, like us, who didn’t grow up with it. Shabbat hosting has become our family mitzvah, hosting almost every Shabbat, often up to 35-40 guests from around the world.
Over the years we’ve had the privilege of repaying the gift we received countless times over, giving thousands of other Jews their first taste of Shabbat.
And for me, NOTHING I do in life is more deeply satisfying than that…
With Dr. Levy, a surgeon from Texas who joined us with his wife and 3 children, who told us, visibly moved, “I don’t want to ever leave this table, I just want stay and sing Jewish songs and say lchaims forever.”
With Palestinian-Muslim peace activist, Muna from San Diego, who during a chat with me in the kitchen one Friday night, discovered that since her mother’s grandmother was Jewish, she is too. And by the way, her Sufi-Buddhist husband, it turned out, was as well.
With IDF soldier, Sivan, who joined me in the blessing over handwashing before hamotzi, and repeated the blessing after me word by word, not even familiar with the standard “Baruch Atah Hashem…” Her first blessing on her first Shabbat. Goosebumps!
With tour guide, Shuki, member of an anti-religious kibbutz, who began to cry over his bowl of chicken soup, and then locked himself in the bathroom, embarrassed that his group members would see him in tears. On his way out, he told me: “That soup reminded me of my grandmother’s home, you have no idea what tasting it did to me, you killed me with this soup!” Since then, Shuki insists on bringing all the groups he guides to us.
When Blessings is ready, we will have an exquisite and meaningful gift for guests like Dr. Levy, Sivan, Muna, and Shuki. We’ll be able to say: you are Jewish, you loved your first Shabbat, take this book and connect more with being a Jew.
Blessings is all ready to go to the printers, except for one last thing…the dedication page is still blank.
Imagine the merit of giving a Jew his or her first Shabbat, and multiply that merit thousands of times over. This is the merit you can give your loved ones through enabling us to publish our dream come true.
Please be in touch by May 25th regarding a limited number of dedication opportunities.
With much love,
Chana Jenny
Crjorders@gmail.com
I was getting goosebumps reading this! kol hakavod, you are amazing!!!