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There is an old Talmudic story of Joseph who loves Shabbat (for the original and full story look up tractate Shabbat 119a). Joseph, in good Talmudic tradition, is a poor Jew. Yet his love for Shabbat means that whatever money he makes during the week he spends in preparing for Shabbat, making sure that every Shabbat is as beautiful as can be.

One week, just an hour before Shabbat, long after the market is closed and the cooking is done, and people have started readying themselves for the Shabbat ahead, a fisherman on the banks of the river pulls out a large and beautiful fish, but is distraught. This beautiful fish will go to waste, who would buy a fish this late in the day? With fish in hand, the fisherman is told to seek out Joseph who loves Shabbat; he would buy the fish and prepare it straight away to make his Shabbat even more beautiful.

And Joseph who loves Shabbat, and the fisherman, both end up happy. The fisherman walks away with a tidy sum in his pocket, and Joseph, with the very last of the money he will have for the week ahead, has purchased a beautiful fish, only thinking about Shabbat. With just minutes to go before Shabbat, Joseph starts to prepare the fish for cooking, and as he guts the fish, inside he finds a beautiful, large, and expensive jewel. Joseph’s reward for his love of Shabbat — and in fact, his love of God — as Shabbat is God’s creation.

I too love Shabbat and actually kosher. I am yet to be rewarded with a fish whose gut is filled with jewels, but in fact, I do feel that the privilege of Shabbat and kashrut are not a burden but a reward.

This wasn’t always the case, but maturity and life have in fact brought into clarity how blessed I am by the two most significant mitzvot and prohibitions of Judaism. When I lived in Rio de Janeiro as a child, my parents sent us to the local Jewish school. Of the 38 other children in my class, only one other girl kept kosher. Every birthday party was in McDonald’s, and I remember attending and not eating. I wasn’t in any way jealous; I just remember being hungry, all the time. A hunger that just wouldn’t abate, no matter how many snacks I would eat from the kosher bag my mom provided for the party.

Years later, when I wanted to attend culinary school, I never even broached the subject because I had no idea how I would make keeping kosher and culinary school in New York work together. It wasn’t even a dramatic choice, I understood that for me, kosher was the primary value, and culinary school wasn’t even in the top five of things that would make me the person I wanted to be.

Fast forward to today, I still prioritise kosher and Shabbat, but I have come to understand, at the very least for myself, the intelligence in the design of Judaism. Judaism is trying to teach us refinement. Do not get me wrong — there are plenty of people who do not in any way keep Shabbat or kosher or have even ever heard of these restrictions who are refinement personified. And sadly, there are people who are stringent in their observance who are in no way refined and whose behaviour is disgusting. I speak of the people in between who adhere to both in practice and sensibility: Shabbat and kashrut together can be a pathway to a better person.

Shabbat teaches us a limitation on time and our control over it, that truly the control is in God’s mighty hands. Shabbat is an opportunity to stop, to tune into what truly matters in a life that demands we push forward all the time, achieve through our own two hands. Shabbat insists that we stop, that we are grateful for what we have (may it be for you, my dear friend, health, family, friends, and success) but that we recognise that these blessings are from God.

On the reverse side, let us say that we aren’t blessed. I wonder, does Shabbat help us recognise that what we see as a curse is a blessing as well? Or rather to appreciate what we do have? How many of us are actually a modern-day Job? Shabbat is the divine pause button on the treadmill of life. It can be an oasis of calm in a deranged world. At the very least, it means you can turn off the news for twenty-five hours every week.

And what of kosher laws? In fact, many of them are chukim — laws that don’t have a reason stated in the Torah. Though throughout the last three millennia our sages have tried to ascribe meaning to our laws around kashrut. So rather than tell you what I think the meaning and the benefit of kashrut laws may be (though a review of all the reasoning would be fascinating) I will tell you what kosher means to me.

I love food. I can and would taste anything (as long as there are no chillies in it — allergies are a pain!). And then I would indulge. What kosher laws have taught me is restraint; something I need desperately when it comes to food. I can see that clearly as we have been living in Jerusalem for the past month. With so many kosher options, my restraint is at an all-time low! I want to try everything. A month in, though, and I have called on the practice of a lifetime, holding back because it’s good for body and soul to practise some moderation!

Shabbat is there to rebalance. Keep to the laws of Shabbat, and perhaps balance can be found. Food is a bit harder — especially as Shabbat, like Joseph who loves Shabbat knows, is made more beautiful by food. Where do I find the balance? For me, it is the work of this website. I celebrate the Shabbat foods I love. Almost every recipe on this website is a Shabbat recipe, to the point that almost all my cooking is geared towards Shabbat. The food is there to make Shabbat special. Imagine Shabbat without its special foods? Imagine a Shabbat of abiding transgressions but not celebrating the joy of taking a day off, spending it with family, friends, and God, that is not Shabbat. That is what our world calls a digital detox. Shabbat isn’t just about disconnecting; it’s about reconnecting, with the things that matter in the long run, what David Brooks calls eulogy traits.

But holding back, refraining from eating foods that the Torah forbids, teaching ourselves and our families that we cannot have it all, all the time, there is value in that. Combined with teaching them the foods they can eat, that is a powerful lesson and a powerful reminder. Not just that God is in control of our world, but that we are His partners in creating the world we want to live in, with its boundaries and its limitations, that allow us to fly because we will always have a home to come back to.

My wish for you this coming Shabbat, love Shabbat the way Joseph who loves Shabbat does, and may you be blessed with a fish whose guts are filled with jewels!

Two new recipes on the Wine & Challah website! 

Jerusalem is just getting a bit colder — not full-on autumn, but enough that you may want to put on a sweater. One of my challenges once we get to Melbourne will be adjusting my seasonal clock, but for now it’s autumn where I am, so I’m going to lean into it. Here are two of my coziest autumnal recipes. Stay tuned for apple pie next week!

The Chicken Pot-Pie is a recipe I developed years ago, wanting the same indulgent look — though I have never tasted the real deal of pot pies made with béchamel sauce, I recreated the sauce using olive oil or schmaltz and chicken soup. The result is magical. Is it as good as the real deal? I don’t know, but what I do know is that this recipe has remained in my repertoire unchanged for the last twenty years, and it’s a hit. So set aside a couple of hours and make this amazing pie.

A far quicker yet just as comforting dish is this minestrone soup adapted from Silvia Nacamulli’s Jewish Flavours of Italy. Silvia is such a lovely person, and her cookbook reflects that. Hearty Minestrone Soup is just one of those recipes that is great to have in your back pocket while staring into the fridge and asking the age-old question, “What am I having for dinner?” While looking at some forlorn vegetables, the answer — Minestrone!