The Shabbat table: Overflowing with prayer, gratitude and Israeli cuisine
MANILA, Philippines — As the sun sets every Friday, devout Jews throughout the world take a break. They don’t cook, drive, take photos, or write. Computers and phones are shut down. Only necessary house lights stay on. As Yahweh did in the Book of Genesis, so do Jews today: there is to be no creation of any form on Shabbat (or Sabbath) because it is a day of rest. Daily activities resume after sundown on Saturday.
The Shabbat dinner every Friday night ushers in this weekly pause. And, oh, what a meal it is.
A tradition of sharing
One Friday in March, the Israeli Ambassador to the Philippines, Ilan Fluss, and his spouse Gila, invited a few foodies and writers to their charming residence to share a traditional Shabbat dinner. It was a cozy meal that showcased delicious Israeli flavors. But more than that, it taught their non-Jew guests that Shabbat is a day of love and gratitude expressed through prayer and rest.
After sanctifying the wine and bread with sung prayers, it was time to eat.
Because cooking is prohibited throughout Shabbat, devout Jews cook enough food for two days before sunset on Fridays. They just reheat their meals in a hotplate until Saturday night. Ambassador Fluss and Mme. Gila, however, seemed to have cooked enough food to last the group three days. They served four courses: appetizers, soup, main course, and dessert.
While some Jews in the Mediterranean area serve as many as 22 appetizers, the Flusses served just nine (still eight too many at Filipino dinners). There were five kinds of salad — both Asian and Israeli — and four dips, including tahini and hummus, topped with za’atar, a Middle Eastern herb.
A sweet, slightly sour Iraqi soup followed. As a nod to the refugee Iraqi Jews in Israel, the soup had a beetroot base and semolina balls stuffed with ground beef.
After the soup came seven entrées. The dishes were a mix of beef, chicken, vegetables and turmeric rice. The kabab, brought frozen from the Flusses’s butcher in Israel, was generously drizzled with tahini, which is the best way to enjoy a kabab.
For dessert, the crowd favorite was a kind of coconut pudding — coconut milk mixed with rose water— served in Turkish tea glasses. Each one was topped with a raspberry jam (made by Mme. Gila) and sprinkled with crushed pistachios.
God in the small things
To wrap up the dinner, Ambassador Ilan led another prayer, in song again, that gave tribute to his wife, as well as all the mothers in the Jewish family. It is this habit of daily gratitude, he said, that helps Jews praise their Yahweh.
“Worshiping God is not only about big, exciting events,” he said. “It’s also in all the small things you do over and over every day — washing your hands, cooking meals, being grateful to the people who take care of you. In everything, you remember the presence of God.”
