No longer the Shabbes police

LAUREN KRAMER

As a young woman, I couldn’t bear the thought of Shabbat. My frum boyfriend would prepare for a weekend of synagogue visits, long lunches and blissful naps in the afternoon. For me, though, it meant an endless series of restrictions on my life and I resented the intrusion.

No surprise, our relationship didn’t last long before it bit the dust. I moved on, and later married a man on the same secular path I was following. Together, we blessed challah and wine on most Friday nights and trooped off to synagogue on the High Holy Days. And that was the sum total of our religious experience.

Until we had kids, that is.

As the kids moved from babies to toddlers to children, I changed, too. I started wanting Shabbat to be a time of peacefulness and quality family time. No more shopping, spending money, rushing here and there. I started making new rules for our family, and trying my best to implement them. There was to be no drawing on Shabbat, no television or games on the iPod and no computer time. “Why?” the kids asked me. “It’s Shabbat,” I said.

I didn’t consider myself a frummie, but I felt like we all needed a break from the constraints of the week, from filling the refrigerator with food, responding to the onslaught of daily e-mails and gazing at one electronic screen after another in a semi-catatonic state. Shabbat was the reprieve we all needed to communicate and enjoy each other again. Or so I thought.

My husband looked at me aghast. “I didn’t marry a rabbi!” he exclaimed. “Why do I have to obey these rules?”

Thus began a lengthy source of contention between us. I couldn’t understand his inability to let go of the TV, iPod and cellphone for even 24 hours. “You’re not the president!” I argued. “You don’t have to respond to e-mails all the time because they’re not urgent. Can’t you try to spend a Shabbat without electronics?”

The truth is, he didn’t want to try. At any opportunity, I found him sequestered in the study, huddled furtively over the computer in the hope he wouldn’t be discovered. The iPod went into the bathroom with him for long toilet breaks behind a locked door and Shabbat kept ending earlier and earlier as his willingness to obey my rules disintegrated.

The kids watched as their parents battled over the rules of Shabbat. I dug my heels in, insisting that my way was the right way, and that we both needed to model “good Shabbes behavior” for the children. He flatly refused. “I never agreed to these rules, and this isn’t how I want to live my life,” he declared. Soon, the kids were huddled furtively over the computer, too, when they thought I wasn’t looking. The iPod kept disappearing, as they stole away to play the games they enjoyed. I transitioned from loving mother to Shabbes policewoman, inflicting retribution on those who disobeyed “The Rules.”

It took a couple years before I realized that Shabbat in my family just wasn’t working. The family’s reluctance to cooperate was making me frustrated and unhappy. My husband and I spent the whole weekend arguing about what the Shabbat boundaries should be, never meeting a middle ground. I didn’t realize it, but I was killing the Shabbat experience for everyone, delivering blow after blow with each month that passed. Something had to give.

I called my rabbi and requested an urgent meeting. “I want Shabbat to be different in my home, but I don’t know how to change everyone,” I complained. Over a tall Starbucks coffee, the rabbi patiently explained that baby steps were needed here. “Start with the challah,” he suggested. “Play games with the kids after Friday night dinner. Make Shabbat a time of intimacy between you and your husband.”

If I continued on the path of self-appointed Shabbes policewoman, the kids would only remember Shabbat as a time of controversy. “They’ll remember the fighting, and they won’t want to repeat that in their own homes one day,” the rabbi warned.

So, I’ve rid myself of the police uniform and am trying to be more laid back about Shabbat rules in the house. As long as I can remember, we’ve had a good Friday night dinner, with home-baked challah, prayers around the table and a mutual commitment to a wonderful family meal. My son delivers a flawless Kiddush and my two-year-old says a hearty “Amen!” before she downs her grape juice. The kids eagerly anticipate playing with the children of our guests and indulging in a rich dessert after their mostly challah-based dinner. With the disappearance of the police uniform, the fighting over Shabbes rules has stopped.

I have decided to content myself with the blessings I already have and, lately, family life on Shabbat has become much more peaceful.

Lauren Kramer is an award-winning writer in Richmond. Read her work at laurenblogshere.com.

^TOP