Spotlight

What's Cooking? Sheltering with Shabbat

Julia Reinhard Lupton, Professor of English, shares how her family celebrates Shabbat.

For many years, our family has observed the beginning of the Jewish Sabbath every Friday night....

Art work: Shabbat in Providence, oil on canvas. Hannah Lupton Reinhard, 2020

We bless candles, children, wine, and bread, and then enjoy a festive meal on special dishes that mark the beauty of the evening. We love this home-based observance, with its emphasis on the beauty of the table and the twin stories of Genesis and Exodus, retold through the ritual objects that help create the special drama of the evening.

When she enrolled in the painting program at the Rhode Island School of Design, our daughter Hannah took Shabbat with her and recreated it on her own terms: as a weekly party for Jews and non-Jews, with lots of wine, or vodka, or whatever else was available, plus quirky art-school goblets, candle sticks, and figurines. These wild evenings became the subject of her paintings.

At home, we almost never miss a Shabbat. Even when I was in the hospital for three weeks this February, Ken and the kids brought bread and grape juice and the hospital provided little LED “candles.”  Now, Shabbat is more important than ever. Our four children are all finishing their college course work at home. With one day melting into another, marking the end of the week with special food, drink, china, and prayers invites gratitude and spurs hope. The dancing candles are lights in the darkness. My husband Ken has been making beautiful challah loaves every week, and the smell of the bread permeates the house for hours, even sometimes into the next day. Several friends zoom in each week to share the blessings with us, and we rejoice that we can be together even when we are apart.

Shabbat shalom from the Reinhard family!

Video of Cooking with the Professor:  Sabbath Menu with Julia Lupton