The homemaker leans forward over the large sturdy kitchen table. Her arms
rise and descend in circular motions; her hands and fingers squeeze and press,
pull and squeeze a glutinous, resilient mass. Into this mass are compressed:
Grain, grown and harvested by her family's toil;
Water, pumped out of her ground and measured with her cup;
Yeast, salt and condiments concocted in her kitchen or purchased with her money;
These she kneads into an amalgamated dough, from which to prepare bread for
herself and her family.
But first she breaks off a piece. Before she bakes her toil, talent and
thaler into food and feed, she scans the expanse of dough for a choice bit to
raises up as "challah"--a portion of dough consecrated as a gift to G-d.
Behind a row of glass doors are arrayed the family's "beautiful things":
crystal vases, porcelain serving dishes, knickknacks and conversation pieces of
varying sizes and substances. But the most beautiful--and expensive--item on
display is the silver kiddush cup the family uses each week on Shabbat to
proclaim the sanctity of the divine day of rest and their commitment of their
lives to their Creator's purpose.
In 1940, a chassidic rebbe is rescued from nazi-occupied Warsaw and brought
to the safety of the American continent. His first priority is to rebuild in the
New World the Jewish life destroyed in the Old Country. He dispatches his
disciples to cities and towns across America to establish schools for Jewish
children.
In these "day schools," as they are called (as distinguished with "Hebrew
schools" that operate after school hours), the children are taught the Torah and
the Talmud, the prayers and the rituals, the history and the philosophy of the
Jewish people. There is also a full-fledged secular curriculum--English, math,
science, etc.--to provide the technical tools and skills of life.
One of the guidelines the rebbe established for these schools is that the
morning hours should be devoted to the children's Jewish education, with the
secular subjects taught in the afternoon. These schools all operated on
shoestring budgets and with limited manpower; it would have been so much easier,
cheaper and more "practical" to stagger the classes, so as to extract more out
of their meager resources. But the rebbe insisted that this be the way it is
done. In the morning hours, he explained, the child's mind is fresher, his
desire to learn more eager, his faculties sharper; these prime hours should be
devoted to matters of primal importance--our identity and our mission in life.
A day in the life of a human being is a world unto itself: continents and
islands of wakefulness separated by oceans of sleep and repose; furrowed fields
of industry, mountain ranges of spirituality, deserts of boredom, cities of
social interaction, highways of communication...
Which is the choicest moment of the day? The moment of waking. Where the sea
of the subconscious breaks on the shore of awareness in a crack of potential.
What you do at this moment has greater impact on your day, and life, than any
other action at any other moment.
So what do you do the moment you wake?
And G-d spoke to Moses saying:
When you eat from the bread of the Land, you shall raise up a gift for G-d.
The first portion of your dough, you shall separate as challah... in all your
generations (Numbers 15:17-20)
