Shabbat Bags and the Family Prayer

"More than the Jewish people have kept Shabbat, Shabbat has kept the Jews." 

-- Ahad Ha'am

Over the past few weeks, our friends have been busy making kiddush cups, candle sticks, challah covers, and/or tzedekah boxes to fill their very own Shabbat Bags. In the past, each class has shared a Shabbat Bag, with a different friend taking the bag home each week. Things are a little different this year. 

Today, every child will go home with the ritual items and a copy of the blessings needed to make Shabbat, and every week we'll send a friend home with a bottle of grape juice, candles, and baby challahs from our neighbors at Great Harvest. We hope you'll take a picture of your family celebrating (or getting ready to celebrate) Shabbat and send them to your child's teacher to share on the class blog. Whatever your family's faith tradition or level of observance, we hope you find this family dinner tradition as meaningful as we do. 

In thinking about what we hope each family will take away from this experience, I could only think of the 'family prayer' we say at my house every Friday night:

We thank You, God, for enabling us to welcome this Shabbat day together.

We are grateful for the happiness of our home and for our caring and loving family.

We are thankful for the blessings of the past week: for life and health, for laughter and friendship; for the opportunity to work, to learn, and to grow.

Where these have been lacking, may the coming week be better.

We pray that the peacefulness of Shabbat will refresh and inspire us so that the week ahead will be one of blessing and accomplishment for each of us. (Emphasis added at my house!)

(from Siddur Sim Shalom)

Shabbat Shalom!

a different version originally posted February 17, 2017