The Shabbat Table - Shabbat 2.0 - July 23

welcome everybody to the final week of shabbat table it's exciting it's a little bit emotional also it's been a few months we've had a good time um everybody's enjoyed it in their own way and thank you everybody for participating we have with us somebody who um i would say has because of the shabbat table we've got to know them a lot better her name is helen um helen is going to share with us a little thought that she wants to share on this week's parasha the sixth part is divarim so we begin the book of deuteronomy and uh helen without further ado take it away and share a thought with us thanks so much rabbi avi i'm helen i'm from st louis missouri and i've been really enjoying these spot tables the last few months so thanks to everyone for um for making such a great great thursday evening tradition for the last few months so rabbi abby shared um his commentary on the partial which i thought was really powerful so i want to share that with you all before i dive into my own commentary so this is what he wrote this week begins safar devarim the book of deuteronomy this book is the five days of speeches that moses gave the jewish people right before his passing so he starts by giving a little review of their time in the desert and pointing out the mistakes that jewish people made there so that they remember the lessons that they learned and so they don't repeat those same mistakes again but he did this in a really interesting way instead of repeating the story he kind of hints to the story um by just mentioning the name of the place and the story happened and this the way in which she does this makes it more of a sugar-coated pill it's a little easier to swallow and it's more likely that they would take a hint than that they would accept a full-blown criticism and this is such a lesson for life it's a time and place for criticism if it's a time and place where criticism is called for we need to tell people things in a way that they can accept and not be too harsh or make it too bitter when we criticize people it's not for us it's for them and it's not so that we can get it off our chest but so that they can grow and we need to ask ourselves how can they hear this in a way that they can accept it constructive criticism is a kindness and we need to package it that way as kindness so while reading this really great commentary i thought about hints that i've received through my life that have been delivered as sugar-coated pills and these pills have been so fundamental in shaping who i am as a person the choices that i make um and they've helped me to question choices i make too and choose new paths in life and lately i've been thinking a lot about instances throughout my life where my black jewish friends or acquaintances um have mentioned that congregants at our synagogue said something that was maybe politely skeptical of their jewishness or their jewish identity or unintentionally unwelcoming to the synagogue in some way even those people have been congregants for many years um and i think sometimes it can be easy to ignore these sort of sugar-coated words or actions because they aren't full-blown obvious aggressions and they're packaged in a way that's seemingly harmless but that doesn't mean that those things weren't really hurtful to my friends and acquaintances and sometimes these sugar-coated pills and lessons are the most important signs that we receive from god and just because something is given in a way that's easy for me to swallow that doesn't make it less important these things that i hear about or see on tv might not feel catastrophic or um you know it might not feel like it's life-changing for me in that moment but that doesn't mean that it's not a really important sign from god that i need to take to heart and use to change the choices i make and the life path that i choose so thanks so much rabbi avi for for helping me with that and sharing that commentary on the partial with likes wow thank you for sharing those that was really nice wonderful words words of sensitivity and caring which is beautiful for us to hear always anytime and thank you for um sharing your feelings and thoughts on the parsha okay so this week our final week we have a very special guest speaker from st louis somebody who we know very well um she together with her husband runs the ace of st louis which inspires and and teaches torah to many many jews throughout saint louis and they do wonderful beautiful things which we see all the time around us without further ado let me uh introduce mrs david go ahead thank you avi this is so fun i feel like i missed out on i don't know how many weeks of thursday night fun it's my first time and i guess also my last time but this is it but i'm glad to be here um i'm mimi david and i have seven kids and i live in new city and i have a grandson which is so much fun um and i've been involved in jewish education for i don't know if i tell you how many years it's going to make me sound really old um i said i had a grandson that also made me sound really old i'm not so old but i've been involved in jewish education for like 25 years and i love it i love that my life and my work are all one and i get to be inspired all the time from what i do which is just really cool so abby asked me and johnny asked me to speak about shabbos so i wanted to share a question with you guys that i have asked probably a hundred students over the last i don't know 10 years or so okay there's a question that i ask i teach high school here a little bit and i every year i ask and okay these are girls and they're girls who have been keeping shabbos but still it's a good question okay um and i asked them what's so great about keeping shabbos like why would i want to do this what's you know what's so special about it and um and i get all kinds of answers um i get i actually have them write an essay and then they share their essay with the class and i get really good stuff always from the girls um and some of the answers you've probably heard they have like these catch phrases uh like you know on shabbos we disconnect in order to connect right we disconnect from technology we disconnect from our crazy lives and we connect instead to ourselves to our families to god so that's one of the things i get all the time um another answer would be there's a good catchphrase for this one too which is taken from alcoholics anonymous uh let go and let god right when we on shabbos we let go we let go of all the things we think we're controlling and all the things we think we're doing the whole week and we just say you know what god you actually are probably better at this than we are and you're actually the one running the show always um and we just let god run the show and it's really it's really important to have that time in our lives where we just kind of relinquish control um and another answer that i get all the time is also like a catchphrase kind of and that's the idea that we spend the whole week busy doing doing doing and creating and running and and everything that we do all week but we're really called human beings not human doings and on travis we get to be a human being where we just be and we just rest up and we just we just spend time with ourselves and with our friends and with our families and just to to be is a really special thing but there is an idea that i don't hear a lot as an answer from these girls that i think is also super cool and really important and that's the one i want to share with you today and that's an idea that's a little um it's a little more of scientific maybe but it's really powerful when you think about it and that's the idea that keeping chavis if you think about it keeping shabbos proves that god created the world how so right how does keeping shabbos prove that god created the world so let's pretend that tomorrow night is shabbos actually tomorrow night is shabbos so when it's time for shabbos how do we know that it's time for shabbos we know it's time for shabbos because it's been seven days since the shabbos before and how do we know that the shabbos last shabbos was time for shabbos because it was seven days the child is before that and those of you who are mathematical are figuring out where i'm going with this already and how did i know that that was that shabbos was time for shabbos well it was seven days from the shabbos before that and guess what if i keep going back in time i keep counting back the seven days because that's how we knew it was shabbos it was from the seven days before i'm going to eventually get all the way back to the first shabbos of the world which was the shabbos of creation and that's a crazy idea and it's super powerful when you think about that if not you know if my my uh idea here was really just made up and at some point somebody said you know what let's make up this idea called shabbos well somebody somewhere would have stood up and said what are you talking about like who said this should be the day and who said we should rest you know at some point somebody would have said this doesn't make sense this doesn't fit with what i know of the world where are you coming up with this but nobody ever said that and over 5000 years 5780 years i think of jewish of history of the world we never had someone say wait who said this should be shabbos which means there was always a continuous chain going back those seven days to the shabbos before and if you trace them back you can get all the way back to that first shabbos of creation and that's really cool so come with me for a minute let's actually do this okay let's imagine that we're going through the 5780 years of history of the world and we're tracing back from shabbos to shabbos keep counting those seven days back seven days seven days seven days until we get all the way back to that first shabbos of the world and there's a really cool message that the first shabbos of the world gives us that i think is particularly relevant to today and that's what i want to share with you okay that first shabbos of the world when did it happen well it was the seventh day after six days of creation uh the whole world was being formed matter time space you know god spent six days making the most incredible beautiful brilliant world that we live in and on shabbos he stopped but what happened right before shabbos right before the first shabbos of creation you know what happens adam and eve messed up they were created on friday they were created on the first friday of the world and they didn't make it an entire day in the garden of eden i don't know how long they were there i don't know how many hours minutes it could be an hour away of hours and minutes it was it was different than it is today but they weren't there for one full day they messed up immediately and then what happens we all know the story right they get their consequences and then they're kicked out of the garden they cannot remain in the garden of eden and then the next thing that happens is god goes into shabbos he stops everything and he rests and i want you to think about that for a second here he's building up from day one of creation until day six of creation building up to create this world for man for adam and eve and their descendants you and me and he spent days making the most beautiful perfect world for man and then man is created and what does man do in the next couple of minutes boom they mess up they mess up that whole plan right this whole world and the whole garden was there for adam and eve who blew it they blew the whole thing within i don't know just a little bit of time and that's crazy and they get their consequence but then god says okay you got your consequence which is important when we mess up we need consequences but they yeah you're right we wouldn't be here good good point nathan and i'm gonna talk about that in a second and then god says okay now it's shabbos it's all over we're just gonna rest we're going to relax we're going to spend time with ourselves and our families and our friends what god is telling us is that sometimes plan b is really a good plan too plan a was staying guard in the garden plan a was never messed up the perfect beings uh live eternally and all kinds of other stuff that adam and eve had originally started out with and then that plan didn't work out and they moved on to plan b and hashem gives them the consequence for for messing up plan a but he doesn't dwell there he moves on to shabbos because plan b is also a plan and i think all of us over the last few months have somehow faced some kind of plan b maybe multiple plan b's we've all seen things that we thought were going to be a certain way we thought we're going to play out a certain way our lives were going to go in a certain direction i actually was supposed to get back from israel this week i was supposed to take 20 women to israel for almost two weeks of touring and learning and come back this week from israel well guess what i'm here i didn't go to israel obviously right that's plan b and every one of us has a plan b maybe your schooling turned out different maybe your job turned out different maybe your family passover seder turned out different maybe whatever plans for your summer that you were going to do trips you were going to take a vacations you were going to go on didn't work out the way you had planned but hashem god is telling us plan b it's also good it's also good and we can embrace it and we can be okay with it and we can go into it like shabbos with a full heart this is okay plan b is also a plan so that's my message to all of you embrace your plan b's i'm sure they happen to all of you i know it happened to me and take them as a way of moving on and use shabbos use that feeling of shabbos from that first shabbos where we say it's all good it's okay plan b is the plan too and i'm gonna embrace it fully thank you all for for uh letting me join with you and have a wonderful shabbos wow thank you so much that was beautiful um actually this entire shabbat table is also plan b because it used to be that all of us in our respective cities would go to rabbi's house and try and do shabbat and the fact that we're all together here is plan b so thank you that's a beautiful and inspiring message a great way to approach shabbat one of the things we have been doing um past few weeks is to learn a little bit of the halakhas the technical laws of how best to keep shabbat to be able to practice it properly we've been going through how to properly i should say cook but not cook on shabbat and how to properly warm up food and have hot food and shabbat what's the proper way to do it rabbi wolf please make a finale with that thank you all right hey guys so just to quickly recap everything we've done the past few weeks and to add one more thing so we started off talking about there are 39 types of work that we're not supposed to do in shabbat work is a bad translation it's really about creating we create all week we're working on things developing things and we're so focused on that that we're not able to focus on the greater picture what we truly have in life and everything around us the world nature what god created for us and what we've created for ourselves shabbos is a day to step back stop creating be able to reflect and focus on everything else that we're constantly missing because we're too busy creating one of the 39 types of creation that we were talking about specifically is cooking and with cooking we said the biblical prohibition is only when you're taking something from a raw state and putting it into a cooked state changing the state of the item will be considered creating and that's the prohibition of cooking so taking raw chicken and cooking it would be a problem taking raw chicken soup and making it would be a problem then we talked about how is it possible to to actually go about warming things up on shabbat because reheating would be fine we said that chicken as long as it's cooked any solid foods as long as they're cooked you're not actually changing the state you're only changing the temperature on a biblical level there would be no prohibition of cooking you're not creating anything we discussed that for liquids there is a debate amongst safari and ashkenazi authorities as to whether once you cook the liquid and now it cooled off can you go and reheat it again do we say that now that it cooled off it's considered its raw state again as liquids are really defined by their temperature and ashkenazi authorities would say that you are not able to reheat that on shabbat however smarty authorities would say you could now getting to the once things are cooked and assuming there's no biblical prohibition of cooking we talked about different scenarios that you may come to reheat things on shabbat so the first thing we talked about was taking something from the refrigerator and wanting to put it on let's say shabbat morning you want to put it onto a flame how can you do that so we all right looks like we had a little freeze in the zoom connection let's give it one minute and see if you can get back let's just give it one more minute to test everyone who's paying attention in the previous weeks okay all right you know what let's let's see if we can go on to the next part of our program and then maybe when he's able to log back on we can all uh get back on there um rabbi israeli are you with us yes i am i am i am okay we have a guest let me introduce you for a second and you'll do your little thing and then i probably will fall back we'll have them come back on afterwards all right so he's passed um we started the shabbat table the first phase of it everyone was doing different things but um we were giving out shabbat packages and you should know that all the rabbis were sending pictures of the food in their packages um and every time we saw his food we're all like oh man i wish i live in vegas as you can see on his screen he's las vegas jewish experience his food was always the best and made the best meats and he was kind enough to give up some of his time and share with us today how to make london broils so uh your undivided attention if you want to know how to make a good loan the broil for shabbat go for it okay um so the way i find is best and easiest to make one in broil is uh invest in a speed um there i think the prices have dropped over tester years but probably under 100 bucks maybe even 60 or 70 depending on sales um thunderbird needs a good marinade um and because it's a it's a little bit tougher but done well it can be very tasty so we still needed it um we screen share let me then we flip this around um i did it on the sous-vide for about an hour and a half at 29 129 and it's ready to go on the grill i already have the grill on because we did chicken for our people this week i tell them to put you down okay um if you don't have a grill grill pans work you put there for a few minutes um basically the way if you're doing with a sous vide it's going to be you want to cook it internally and then you want to give it a nice color that's what it grows for or grill pan and um and uh well and that'll make it and then you can let it set and then slice it uh london broil i find is good it's it's not a it's not a very expensive piece of meat it um you get a lot for your for your money and uh when my wife and i have done it we've done it with like salad this is good steak salad it's delicious um if you don't have a grill pan or a sous-vide they do make kosher grill pans they're pre-seasoned you know this is a regular one but they're on amazon you can get from i think lakewood they have uh ones that are kosher they're pre-seasoned and koshers and um it's a very true it's very good to have in your kitchen especially if you have an apartment um you apartment uh other alternatively you can put it in on a broiler for about eight to ten minutes per side um just make sure you don't overdo it because it'll get stuff but but but uh as the broil works it it it is a good piece of meat broiled beef broke um but one thing i would highlight is good spices um so the spices that i've been using um this is an example um i'm i'm not paid by them uh the spice house if anyone from chicago would recognize him uh or any other leading milwaukee i guess we're also recognize the name they are um a spice store they have quality fresh spices um the prices they're they're i think they're well priced and you can order from them and say you want from milwaukee which is only kosher and i find that good good spices allow for better better food so let's look at our own broil it's on smoking so that's not because it's not going to get the greatest color right now but um but when um when you're making for shabbat just remember you know you always want to make something that that you can be excited about so the way we do it is we're making one we make some certain types of meats we're making chicken we're making it a unique way or something that's unique for shabbat and special and ultimately it's every person's taste is going to play a role in a factor in this you know not everyone's going to like me not everyone likes chicken um a lot of vegetarians in the world who can find wonderful recipes to make ultimately you know we uh we we we try our best in respecting the shabbat with with delicious meals um other than that i don't know what else is there anything i miss avi can you at some point before we sign off post the recipe you used um all the ingredients in the in the chat box at some point yeah yes awesome thank you and and and in general any marinade you like you can find plenty of recipes uh for for lunch marlboro marinade um some of them are more soybean soy sauce based some of them are oil oil-based there's a beer one uh but uh yeah okay awesome thank you so much may we all make it to vegas someday soon and have a good jewish experience the las vegas jewish experience thank you that is really your huge experience of brisket huge experience brisket london broiled too that's that's that's a very jewish experience all right um i think we have our wolf back with us so maybe he can quickly finish off his presentation before we have everybody introduce themselves to each other thank you rubber israeli one more time hey guys sorry about that um so we were just finishing up so so the last thing we talked about last week was returning something to a flame so meaning let's say you have a challenge cooking on shabbat and you want to take it off to take a little bit friday night and put it back onto the flame you need five conditions in order to be able to do so we said it has to be fully cooked already when you take it off if you discover it's not fully cooked there's no way you can put that back on you would be violating a biblical provision you have to have intent to put it back on when you're taking it off you have to hold on to it with your hand you have to have a grip on it the entire time the food has to still be warm when you put it back on and and there has to be a metal um or a tin foil lining covering the crock pot so that it's recognizable that it's not a regular cooking if you have those five conditions you would be able to put it back on even though it's not really an unconventional method it's sort of conventional method of cooking but being that already it's fully cooked and you have these five conditions you're returning it to the plane you would be allowed to do that that's all the last few weeks just to add in one new thing is what about if i want to put something on the flame before shabbat and leave it on over shabbat can i do that so according to on a biblical level obviously there's no prohibition you're not actually creating anything on shabbat you did the action before shabbat and it's continuing on shabbat however the rabbis instituted that you need certain conditions out of concern that you may adjust the flame you put something on your stovetop and then you see it's not cooking fast enough and friday night you really want to eat it you may come to make the flame higher that would be kindling that would be creating fire and that would be a biblical prohibition so the rabbi said you can only leave something on from before shabbat in certain ways and that is you either need to have a covering over the fire which traditionally we use like a metal plate what we call a bluff something covering over the fire or like a crock pot would have a tin foil lining or something like that in an oven this would be pretty complicated it's pretty tough to put something in an oven and leave the oven on even though you're doing it before shabbat would have to be in some sort of metal box which is something that totally usually is not used and that would sort of cover over the fire so to speak um these are generally what you need to do in order to leave something on the fire even though you're putting it on before shabbat however there are a few ways that you'd be able to do it with all these things just to put it directly on the stove top or put it directly in a crock pot without any any tin foil you would be able to leave it on from before shabbat provided that if it's a solid food the food is at least half cooked before shabbat this way it is already fully edible and therefore there's no concern that you're going to come to kindle it up and and stir it stir it and come to really adjust the flame to make it cook quicker because it's already edible and therefore even if you're in a rush to eat it soon you'll be fine with that and it won't tempt you enough to come and kindle a flame on shabbat or if it's a liquid it would have to be above the temperature of yazoo let us bow which is a temperature where literally your finger when it touched it would jump back from it which we say is it's unclear exactly what the temperature is but you want to be clear that it's at least 160 degrees fahrenheit in order to be able to put that on the flame directly before shabbat and leave it there and the third exception is a piece of raw meat if you put in a raw piece of meat or something that takes a long time to cook even if you adjust the flame there's no way it's going to be ready in time for your friday night meal then you would be able to put it directly on a stove or something like that before shabbat however this doesn't apply to our stovetops and things like that because nowadays things cook very fast so even raw meat if you turn up the flame it will cook in a half hour even less and therefore this only really applies to something like a crock pot a slow cooker that even if you turn up the flame to high that piece of raw meat is not cooking in 20 minutes it's going to take a while therefore if you put in a piece of raw meat if you put the food in right before shabbat or even if you have a challenge that's somewhat cooked already but you just throw in one raw piece of meat that's enough that you're not going to come to kindle the flame and therefore again assuming that you want to put something on before shabbat and leave it over shabbat there's no biblical prohibition you're not doing an actual action you just need to take certain precautions to make sure you're not going to come to readjust the flame on shabbat and that is either if it's raw or if it's already half cooked or a liquid 160 degrees fahrenheit or with something that doesn't apply to those things it would have to have some sort of covering over the fire awesome thank you okay now i'm sure not everyone's gonna remember all of those laws but at least now you know what's the question and what's not a question so you should know these are questions ask your rabbi and good that we learned that about shabbat so this is the last week this is uh the last people standing um i want to give everybody a chance to introduce themselves um to each other so i'm going to go through a gallery view over here um when i call and you say your name where you're from and because it's the last week of the shabbat table you could say either what you gained what you learned what your experience was if you enjoyed it just something about that alright the first person i see is angela please hi everyone i'm angela bellen and i'm from columbus ohio um i have made almost all of these i think i might have missed one or two um and i've looked for i know i love this i've looked forward to this every week i just feel so blessed by everyone's wisdom and the different perspectives the women the voice of the women that has been represented throughout these has just been so beautiful um i'm very very grateful to have shared this experience with everybody um so thanks from columbus ohio i'm sure gonna miss you guys awesome thank you we miss you too charlie yeah kelly schloss denver colorado i guess remind me of being a kid and practicing shabbat as a kid awesome glad we brought you back there that's so sweet i see you next rose go ahead hi i'm rose i'm from st louis and i've really enjoyed getting to learn with people from all over the country and hear different speakers than i've usually been able to hear in st louis and it's been really fun getting to honor shabbat with you all awesome thank you michelle i see you next hi i'm michelle i'm also in columbus ohio and i think i've also made all of them except for the first two i i unfortunately didn't really know about the first two until my brother told me about them so i would have made all of them but sorry um i've really enjoyed this um before i started coming to this i i wasn't really knowledgeable in shabbat i i had celebrated as a child but i hadn't really done much since then um and i am extremely blessed like angela said to have learned so much and to have you know been around such great young jewish professionals from all across the country and and since then i have been you know trying to keep shabbat as much as possible um you know i it started with little things and i did the shabbat challenge and and so i'm really thankful that you guys have had this because it's really brought back that that quest for knowledge and learning and really diving into my my judaism so i appreciate it i'm gonna miss awesome thank you nathan i see you next okay hey uh i'm nathan i'm originally from uh rio general brazil but now i live in houston uh with my wife who's just around over there and um yeah so favorite parts of shabbat table all the basketball references that every week people threw out i'm just kidding for us but uh mostly uh uh the rabbis being uh entertaining uh entertaining my questions and trying the best to answer so i really appreciate that thank you awesome thank you ryan you're next go ahead uh good evening everybody my name is ryan i'm from henderson nevada rabbi israeli is my brother he did a great job with the london broil and my favorite experience good as it looks what's that is the food as good as it looks it's amazing it makes shabbat just that much better and uh my favorite part about the shabbat table was learning torah with like-minded young professionals who are willing to grow on their yiddish kite awesome mimi i see you're next go ahead okay so i'm mimi uh i'm also uh in henderson nevada uh and i agree with brian that uh robert israelis anything romantic really makes is amazing um what i've appreciated most about the shabbat table is hearing so many different perspectives and growing in my knowledge and re just hearing different things i've never really thought of before and also thought provoking shirim that really have you know sort of made me dig into okay wanting to even learn more than i already do so yeah it's been amazing thank you so much guys thank you all right i see becca seagolf i'm pronouncing that correctly seagull like the bird um i'm becca that's erin uh we're in columbus hi angela um so i'm trying to think what i was just oh so my favorite part is has been meeting everybody especially katie if she's there somewhere i don't know if i think nathan okay good meeting a fellow jewish nerd is always great so i appreciate the the conduit which this has provided that friendship too awesome great all right i see ben ben mayor go for it uh hi my name is ben uh coming to you from denver uh along with uh charlie and um i think i've made it to uh almost every one of uh these weeks uh all but one i just missed one but uh every other one i think i was able to get to um and uh my favorite part has just been uh all the amazing speakers over the weeks all these speakers who um would somehow find a new uh layer a new point of view um to to tell us about shabbos so um yeah all the speakers uh charlie harrari uh at the beginning and uh just been you know really fascinating and uplifting awesome that's great zach i see you're next um zach rosenblatt i'm out of st louis as well um i think my favorite part was actually in shabbos table one with the breakout set from one on especially really deep and covered it was nice to just have a conversation so about an interesting topic okay awesome who do i see net hannah i see you next girlfriend hannah green if you're with us i'm here hold on i'm turning on camera okay here we go okay um i would say i'm from st louis and i've been to almost every one of them and i just really enjoyed and loved meeting everyone and all the young professionals especially in this time where it's hard to meet new people and so it's kind of refreshing to uh meet everyone and um also i just really enjoyed the speakers and i've gained so much jewish knowledge and learning and uh from it all awesome thank you i see ellen the man who's made it every week i think every week um i think every week don't worry i'm not gonna check i don't remember missing one so i'm not gonna count it um i'm in houston uh shout out to nathan shout out to rabbi rabbi uzan i don't think's with us but um yeah he got me into this program and i really enjoyed um overall just for sure meeting everyone and having a great time and like many of us have said you know socializing you know when we can socialize and meeting people at least talking and seeing people which is great um and then on at the same time like just kind of each of us coming to shabbat with a different perspective and different backgrounds and i think growing together is was very inspirational for me so i i really did enjoy the program a lot so thank you to all the rabbis and thank you for setting this up and and running it very well i appreciate it okay i think we covered anyone um but the screen does shift on me so if i miss somebody shout yourself out and say hello um okay thank you everyone for uh joining us and uh shabbat shalom everybody and um i don't know we'll see you next but hopefully we're gonna do a when everything's over we'll do a shove it tone you know for the shabbat table but obviously details of that to come so shabbat shalom everybody see you all