Could there be a more perfect Jewish comfort food? Bite into a piece of fresh challah, and you are tasting far more than flour and eggs and yeast. It is a golden loaf steeped in thousands of years of tradition. From the baking to the braiding to the eating, there are many beautiful lessons and stories associated with challah.
For someone struggling with a six-strand braid, Chana Weisberg supplies a lovely explanation. “The six days of the week are the paradigm of diversity. They are like the six directions in our three-dimensional world – north, south, west, east, up and down. During these days we are in a search outward, full of action and initiative, trying to master our environment. Shabbat, on the other hand, represents the inner point… Perhaps the braiding of the challah, which is eaten at the Shabbat table, also represents this idea of unity: how we tie everything together, bringing all the diversity in our lives together for a peaceful harmony and unity that only the Shabbat can achieve.”
Don’t try to lay that “unity” message at the Naumburg household. They find themselves embroiled in that age-old challah debate: slicing vs. ripping.
Josh (oh so pragmatic): slicing creates less surface area and the challah stays fresh longer; and “it’s easier to maintain appropriate portion control with neatly cut slices.”
Carla (not): “I don’t claim to have any such fancy-pants reasons for why I prefer tearing the challah. There’s just something so visceral and delicious about sinking my hands into a warm piece of bread.” (No word on where the Naumburgs stand on other challah controversies like egg vs. water and raisin vs. non.)
Actually, the word “challah” refers to the small piece of dough that is separated from the batch before kneading. Thousands of years ago, it was set aside for the priests. Nowadays, the mitzvah of taking challah is considered one of three fundamental mitzvot associated with Jewish women. (The others are Niddah, the observance of the Torah’s guidelines for maintaining the ritual purity of marital life and the lighting of candles to welcome the Shabbat and festivals into our homes.)
However special challah may taste these days, it is hard to imagine what it was like a few generations ago. Abraham Joshua Heschel tried to paint a picture: “In the shtetls of eastern Europe, our ancestors six days a week would eat the coarse, dry, black bread of the peasants, but on Shabbat they would eat challah, a bread of such richness and sublime delicacy, that by comparison, it was more like cake than bread, much like the contrast between the six days of the profane week and the holy day of Shabbat.”
Daniel Barash has discovered another mitzvah that can be performed through challahs – chesed (kindness). In the summer of 2014, Barash began baking challahs with his three-year-old daughter. That first afternoon, they were invited to a neighbour’s for Shabbat and he decided to bring one of his challahs. And then it struck him – “It felt so good to first make fresh challah and then give some away that I decided to challenge myself to ‘Challah-it-Forward’ for a year, baking with my daughter and then sharing part of our Sabbath bread.” A lovely blog on his site challahitforward.com details his weekly adventures and recipients.
Finally, two stories about very different uses for challahs. Jeff Rosenberg had hot tickets for a Bob Dylan concert that was being held on the Saturday night between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Rosenberg, a huge Dylan fan, came up with an idea to capture the attention of the bard. After Dylan’s encore, Rosenberg tossed a round raisin challah onto the stage. The challah bounced around and finally found itself resting near the superstar’s feet.
“His eyes met mine, as if asking, ‘Was that you who threw that?’ I spread my arms out and mouthed the words ‘Shana Tova.’ At which point, the man’s expression turned from one of amusement, slowly, to something more like humility. And he mouthed the words to me, ‘Thank you.’”
Jeffrey Rosen, had a very different goal when he shared some homemade challah with his girlfriend one special Shabbat.
“As she cut into the challah, the knife stopped cutting when it touched something inside the challah. Earlier in the day, I discreetly removed a small piece from the bottom of the challah, placed a small, gray jewelry box in the centre of the challah, and reattached the piece of challah. She screamed and said a rat was in the challah. She looked inside the challah again and took out the gray jewelry box. She opened up the box and took out the ring. I asked her to marry me and she said yes. She kept the jewelry box, which has a knife mark on the top – a sign to remember our engagement.”
All I can say is… challah-lujah!