Keeping Shabbat

It's a simple word, and each week it's been spoken with relief by Jews the world over, since the first utterings of Genesis: Sabbath.

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Listen to soulful Sabbath music

Exhaled like a sigh at the end of the day, it comes from the Hebrew root

, and it means what it sounds like: to cease, to end, to rest.

That is where the word and I part ways.

At my house, the word is liable to be spoken in haste by one of our 8-year-old twins: "I want to light the Shabbat candles! I want to light the Shabbat candles!" as the other one protests, "No, it's my turn, it's my turn!" Meanwhile my 6-year-old leans her head in her hand and says, "Do we

to say the blessings?" If we aren't having our standard meal of grocery-store rotisserie chicken and salad, we'll be blessing the pizza and beer. With no tablecloth. And don't even ask if we're kosher.

It wasn't always so slapdash at my house. And it may not be at yours (in which case, why are you reading this? Slumming? Send me some pointers instead!)

I remember observing Shabbat with my first husband, Gil. We were newlyweds running our own business from a cramped apartment on 16th Street in Washington, D.C., but on Friday afternoons we knocked off at three p.m. and gave ourselves time to prepare to sit down to a nice dinner for two. Some weeks I even started early, making challah from the recipe our rabbi had given us as a wedding gift.

"When we have kids," I said once, hopefully. "Let's start a tradition where we each bring something of beauty to the table on Sabbath."

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