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Home
and Family
Back to chometz. And back to challa baking. It
is brought in seforim that baking challos on
Shabbos Mevorchim of Iyar, the first Shabbos after Pesach, is
a segula for parnossa, as well as for three
other things. Tradition (see Sefer Hatodaa) has it
that challos are baked with sesame seed sprinkled in
the shape of a key, actually in a key shape or with a real
key on its crown to symbolize the four basic components of
life which directly are in the hands of Hashem: `MaFTeaCH' -
M for mottor, rain; P for parnossa, sustenance
(food); T for techiyas hameisim and Ch for
chayo, or children.
In the following piece, we see how interconnected these
really are.
Friday Morning Challos
English rendition: Sheindel Weinbach
I make challa on Friday. Sometimes it's the only
creative thing I do all week. But it hasn't always been this
way.
It all started shortly after my wedding. My husband came home
one day with a big bowl, some whole wheat flour and other
assorted items. I stared at him as he unloaded his gear, but
I really was eager to please. My cookbook had a few whole
wheat recipes, but they all called for five pounds of flour.
[This takes place in New York.] "Might as well start off on
the right foot," I thought. I mixed and measured, kneaded and
punched, and took challa with a brocho. The end
results were dubious but the die had been cast.
I kept it up week after week, sometimes Monday, sometimes
Wednesday, the challos lumpy and bulging and not too
edible. Often I would forget to remove them from the freezer
in time to defrost (if you bake on Friday this is never a
problem). Slicing thin and chewing mightily, my husband
continued to praise my efforts, and so I continued trying (as
opposed to succeeding).
In time I was blessed with a baby but he was very ill. He lay
quietly in a tiny crib in the hospital for a long time.
One day, Mrs. Zilberstein, whom I knew only because she had
thoughtfully provided me with a dechtichel [thick lace
headcovering for under the chupa] for my wedding,
appeared in the hospital lobby and announced, "You are going
to be staying with me weekends until we know what's what
here!"
As familiar as we are with her now, that's how unprepared we
were when we showed up on her doorstep the following Erev
Shabbos. If you could imagine somebody really being in three
rooms at once, you'd have an idea of what was going on there.
She greeted us warmly and sat us down immediately for some
coffee and fresh-from-the-oven kokosh yeast cake.
"I'm going right now to make your room up," she said. "I'm
giving you a big shluffy pillow so you'll feel
gut."
The speaker phone was going full blast with one side of a
potential shidduch on one end. Mrs. Zilberstein, a
well-known matchmaker, in full pursuit, at the other. "I
don't understand these people today. When I was young I had
such sheinkeit, I hated it. One day I cut all my hair
off. And now they want only gorgeous girls," - as she
simultaneously rolled out lukshen on the kitchen
counter and made up the bedroom for us. In the twenty minutes
since we had arrived, four people had come and gone already,
to pick up kugels, challos and cakes. A few grandchildren
freely roamed the rambling house, and while it wasn't
actually noisy, it seemed so because of all the activity. (I
asked her one time where she got her energy from. She first
thanked the Aibishter profusely and then took a
chocolate bar out of the refrigerator.)
Somehow, in the midst of it all, she found time to sit down
with me and ask me what was doing. I felt like I had been
transported to another world, another planet. This, to me,
was Torah and chessed in action. They never told you
what it actually looked like. Hectic, for sure, but
marvelous, really marvelous. Even my husband, the straight-
faced gibbor, was taken in and nurtured in this
atmosphere. Weary and distraught after three days of holding
my baby and receiving no response except for screaming nurses
and beeping, screeching monitors, I felt frightened to be
there, not really worthy of it, but reassured, somehow. If
all of this chessed was going on somewhere in the
world, then I knew Hashem would do chessed with me,
too.
For four months, almost every Thursday, Shabbos, Motzoei
Shabbos and Sunday night, I sat in a corner of the darkened
library next to the kitchen, wrapped in a big blanket,
watching and waiting. I couldn't sleep for wondering what
would be with my baby, my family, my life, none of which I
felt would ever be remotely the same again. I had never seen
anyone like Mrs. Zilberstein before and was awestruck. Hashem
had prepared the balm before the blow, I was sure, because I
knew my healing was somehow going to be connected to whatever
was going on in that kitchen.
One Friday morning at 5 a.m. at the end of another sleepless
night, I heard Mrs. Zilberstein davening in the
kitchen. Shema Yisroel... A few moments of silence and
then some strange swishing noises. What was Mrs. Zilberstein
doing? I went into the kitchen and saw her starting to make
her challos. The strange noises had been the flour
rolling around the sifter, a task I had never taken too
seriously before. She had her siddur placed right next
to the mixing bowl, and it did not have a speck of flour on
it.
"What are you doing? You make your challos on
Friday?"
She looked up from her siddur, slightly surprised to
find someone up earlier than she. I guess she was used to
having the early morning run of the place.
"Everything fresh for my Shabbos!" Mrs. Zilberstein exclaimed
emphatically.
"B-but how? With everything else to do?"
"I didn't always make challos on Friday," she said,
"but it's really the best way."
I watched as she effortlessly sifted the flour into a large
metal bowl, davened, mixed, davened, kneaded.
"Mimi, what can I tell you; I'm a davener. My mother
is also a davener." I sat quietly in a corner, totally
fascinated. How marvelous are the ways of Hashem that I, Mimi
Luxemberg, became for a brief time privy to the early morning
kitchen activities of a Chassidishe baalebusta of the highest
caliber (- a woman who scrubbed her kitchen floor on her
knees with a brush and shmatte)! Despite my suffering, it was
a dream come true. I asked her a million questions on every
subject I could think of, and she answered me with her
typical straightforward honesty. I occasionally spoke about
the situation I was in and not only did she totally
understand my emotional state, but she would predict what I
would be feeling next.
The phone would ring at 6:00 a.m. sharp (same person every
day), and the quiet spell that Mrs. Zilberstein had woven
would begin to fade away. But before it disappeared
completely, I would catch some of it and place it on my
heart. I didn't even know what it was, but I knew I would be
needing it soon.
The months passed and the baby passed away as quietly as he
had come. It was, of course, Mrs. Zilberstein we called at 5
a.m., who had just come home from helping at a birthing! She
instructed us to call the Chevra Kadisha and tore my shirt
for me at the funeral. For a long time, the memory of those
early morning hours in Mrs. Zilberstein's kitchen were often
all there was to hold on to.
*
One Friday, not long ago, I was in my kitchen sifting flour.
My challos and I had undergone many changes since
those cold winter mornings in Mrs. Zilberstein's kitchen. I
finally understood a little bit of what she knew so well,
that Hashem gives us the strength to do whatever we need
to do. We only need ask. Making challa on Erev
Shabbos connected me to what I had felt and experienced
there. Watching Mrs. Zilberstein had inspired me profoundly.
She had taught me many lessons sifted in one.
I had by now, thank G-d, a few small challa-makers of
my own, for whom this activity was a regular Friday morning
schedule. I had learned a few tips and techniques along the
way that had perked things up a bit. My prayers had been
heard and answered in abundance, beyond my greatest
expectations.
But now, on this Friday not so long ago, I sighed.
"I really don't like sifting flour." It was true. I didn't.
Sometimes it took all the energy I had. Although I loved
living in Eretz Yisroel, no one had prepared me for the Bnei
Brak sifter.
At the time of saying this, I had been absently-mindedly
staring into my daughter's eyes. Never do this. A six-year-
old's eyes are serious business.
"But Mommy," she said in her frank way, "every single speck
of flour you sift is a mitzva! Look how many
mitzvos you're getting!"
I was stunned at her reply. How did she know this? "You know,
you're right!" I said. I was suddenly reminded of a story
about the Baal Shem Tov, a runaway wagon, saved lives, and
lots and lots of mud. "You know, Penina, in the next world
there's a big, big scale, where all of our mitzvos get
weighed up. Do you know about that scale?"
"The scale from Rosh Hoshona, right?"
"Yes, that one. You just made me think of that scale. Do you
think if I sift flour and make challa every week that
the angels would throw all the flour on my mitzva side
if things weren't going so well for me?"
"Of course they would, Mommy!" she cried.
"So I guess every grain of flour really is a mitzva. I
didn't even realize it till you told me. Thank you so
much!"
*
Whenever Hashem gives us a potsch, there is always a
Hand drawing us close at the same time. Instead of thinking
about how much the blow hurt, try to grab at the Hand. See
the good. It will stay with you for the rest of your life,
while the pain will surely fade in time.
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