Shabbat is supposed to be a day of rest. For my family, that idea holds steadfast; for others, it often doesn’t. Shabbat is often only a day of rest for some. It is a day of rest for men, not women: women cook Shabbat dinner, women bake the challah, women set the table, women take care of the kids. A woman’s Saturday may be restful, but welcoming Shabbat is certainly not. A lot of work goes into making a Shabbat dinner happen, and the process starts long before everyone is gathered around the table and singing Shalom Aleichem.  

Shabbat dinner in the LaCouture-Petrulis family starts on Sunday afternoon the week prior. My mom is a huge fan of planning. Her idea of a good time is mapping out an itinerary for a family vacation on Google Sheets (I probably have about eight such itineraries sitting in my Drive). She is no different when it comes to Shabbat dinner. On Sunday afternoon, she chooses what we will have on Friday night. Usually, she asks for suggestions—my father says one thing, I say another, and we default to me. 

One Shabbat this summer, we decided that the meal of the week would be brisket. Since starting boarding school, I have been on a mission to improve my cooking skills, so we decided that this was the perfect time for me to learn how to make it. On Thursday afternoon, I poured a mixture of Coca-Cola, cornstarch, garlic powder, salt, pepper, and some other herbs and spices into the slow cooker. It gloop-gloop-glooped onto the cut of brisket below, and I remember doubting if the end result would even be edible. While I pondered if there would even be a Shabbat dinner to have, my father was starting the next step of our Shabbat process. Every week, on Wednesday morning, he takes out his sourdough starter (that I sometimes think he may love more than me) to feed it. 

On the summer day that I made brisket, I woke up to the somehow sweet and savory smell wafting into my room. There are salads to prepare, vegetables to roast, hummus to make from scratch, parve brownies to bake, and, on top of it all, my mother usually has a couple of papers to grade before she goes off grid for Shabbat. 

All of this is to say that there is so much work behind the scenes before we even get to the real Shabbat-iness of it all. Every step before Shabbat makes me feel connected: to my family, and to my Jewish community. We start the process of our Shabbat dinner when I light candles with my mother. We used to do the blessing for children right after this (albeit a version edited to make it more egalitarian). Since my Bat Mitzvah, we have changed this ritual, and my parents now tell me something they are proud of me for over the past week.  

When we begin singing to welcome in Shabbat, we only sing Shalom Aleichem. We opt out of singing Eshet Chayil (a song about the ideal Jewish woman), despite the fact that my mother has done so much work to help prepare for Shabbat. An Eshet Chayil is a “Woman of Valor” but only in the domestic sphere. It fails to encompass the true value of women in the family, and makes the domestic aspects of Shabbat seem like purely a woman’s domain. My family opts out of this song because it is in conflict with our feminist values. We acknowledge how much work my mother put in by complementing the meal she planned or appreciating the outfit she changed into after a long afternoon of grading. But it is not only my mother who makes our family Shabbat happen; my father bakes the bread, a task traditionally for women. When we get to kiddush, the blessing over wine, I, not my father, say the prayer. Then, we say hamotzi over the sourdough my father baked.  

Many of my issues with Shabbat stem from the fact that most of the onus falls on women to get all of the work done behind the scenes. Women have their special mitzvot; they make the challah, and they light the candles. They also make the food, set the table, and clean up afterwards. In my family, we disrupt this. Our Shabbat is a collaborative effort. It starts on Sunday, with all three of us. Then, over the course of my week, both of my parents put in the effort to make Shabbat happen. My father doesn’t light candles, but this is mostly just due to his pyrophobia. 

Every aspect of our Shabbat is inherently feminist in a way that we didn’t even intend it to be. In fact, I didn’t even realize just how feminist the LaCouture-Petrulis Shabbat dinner is until I sat down to write this piece. This has also made me realize that Shabbat is something that makes me deeply uncomfortable when I’m not working to counteract the patriarchy that is built in. 

While I’m at home, this work is subconscious—it’s a group project. My parents share the workload and subvert the gender expectations of this holiday. The difference between my version of Shabbat and a “normal Shabbat” has become even starker to me since going to boarding school. I have seen how other families celebrate the end of the week. I have grown accustomed to husbands telling me how their wives (who are also actively working full-time) spent all day preparing dinner. Then, this same man will go on to make kiddush and steer the flow of the dinner. Leaving home helped me realize that feminism is a continuous effort, and that it only feels like second nature when you have made the commitment to put in that effort every time. 

This realization made me feel isolated and alone. It made me realize that the way I do Shabbat isn’t “normal” and thus the way that I personally connect with Shabbat isn’t either. 

The centrality of Shabbat to my family has been something that made my transition to boarding school last year so difficult. Shabbat is meant to be a night of community and family gathering. At boarding school, Shabbat is now an uncomfortable time for me. It makes me realize how important connecting to my Jewish community is, and how I had taken this connection for granted. In the past, I would even resent Shabbat dinners when they would prevent me from hanging out with friends. 

One of the most isolating aspects of losing Shabbat was losing Shabbat dinners. Being Jewish and growing up in Asia means that I always eat family style. When I learned to cook, I learned to cook for a room of ten people, not one 17-year-old eating alone at a University Loft Co. desk.

Since I started boarding school, I have discovered the true essence of Shabbat. Shabbat is about collaboration and community. Shabbat is about your mom waking up early to start cooking, but it is also about your father staying up late to finish washing the dishes. It is about sitting around a table with people you love. Shabbat can be more than the gender norms prescribed to it. Shabbat can be egalitarian, and Shabbat can look different for everyone. Shabbat is the true expression of how I connect to Judaism; it gives me a community. Even though my Shabbat in the dorm looks different from home, I can build a new sense of community and togetherness. My dorm-room Shabbat is making pasta with my friends and watching a movie in the common room. My Shabbat is, and will always be, about connection.