Thanks for the chicken soup

Letters

Editor: I must confess that I don't know anything about the cost or time commitment involved in planning a Shabbat meal. I have never had to rearrange or choose a career so that my challah has time to rise. (Challah needs time to rise, no?) With a smidgen of guilt, I admit that my Shabbat experiences are on the receiving end: Fork to plate and then to mouth, some singing, listening to stories, catching up with friends and then more eating.

This weekly ritual has followed me from Montreal to Tzefat, from Calgary to Vancouver. Regardless of climate or the political situation around the world, whether NASDAQ has blown through the roof or slumped to the floor, I know there will be one, sometimes two or three, invitations from local rabbis for a Shabbat meal. Perhaps Vancouver, more than any other place in Canada, can appreciate the saying, "More than the Jews have kept Shabbat, Shabbat has kept the Jews."

Most of the B.C. tribe are from somewhere else. We were bred in and spread to Cote St. Luc, Manhattan, Calgary, Tel-Aviv, Winnipeg and North York. Our Friday night soirées provide all of us a chance to forget our homesickness and recognize that our families go beyond the city limits where we grew up. Although I'm many miles from Montreal, it is comforting to hear the same liturgical melodies - with a few West Coast twists - and to be uplifted by timeless insights that transcend borders. And perhaps the displacement shared by my B.C. friends makes these moments that much sweeter.

So, to the Feigelstocks and the Singers, to the Yeshayahus, Kohens and Greenes, to the Baumols and Acocas, to all the rebbetizins and rabbis who spend their week shlepping, baking, cooking, cleaning, broiling and preparing so that the drifters and seekers of Vancouver have a weekly place of refuge from a kooky world, I thank you for ensuring that there will be a warm meal, a nugget of wisdom, an inviting smile, once a week on a Friday night.

Avrum Nadigel
Vancouver

^TOP