Last week, I read an article by Azriela Jaffe, reprinted on JewishMom.com.  I went to have a look at Azriela’s website to see what else she does, and found a link to “Making Chatzos”.  Intrigued by the idea as I often find preparing for Shabbos unstimulating, which is why I make different food (OK, not that different, but not exactly the same each week) and postpone doing it.

Making chatzos means having everything ready for Shabbos by halachic midday, which, last week, was 12:11 in London, about 3 hours before Shabbos actually came in. Ideally one should have the table laid, urn, hot plate and slow cooker set up and possibly even have showered.  Having the house clean was no problem as our cleaning lady comes on Friday and although she wouldn’t have finished by 12:11, she would be on the last stages.

I planned out a menu, shopped on Wednesday rather than Thursday and started baking on Wednesday afternoon. The rest of the family were completely underwhelmed! On Thursday I spent quite a lot of time cooking, leaving myself only the amount of cooking that I knew would fit into the morning for Friday. 

The idea  of being ready by chatzos is to have a calm and pleasant entry into Shabbos,  and to bring Shabbos into the rest of the week.  The chatzos website suggests that one tries it gradually, so although I thought it would be nice to lay the table, I concentrated on getting the food ready first.

I discovered several interesting facts:

1.    I had suspected for some time that if you spread out your Shabbos preparations over a longer time, you won’t actually end up doing the other things you would have done instead, had you just made Shabbos on Friday. I have now discovered, that at least in my case, it’s true.
2.      Our children need an adrenalin rush! When they came home and I was almost ready for Shabbos, they said, “What shall we do? This is really boring!”  They created their own adrenalin rush by postponing showering till the last minute...
3.      Whilst I am not a very physically brave person, I also need an adrenaline rush...
4.      I am a very last minute person – I thrive on deadlines, which is why I enjoy working for a newspaper.  Chatzos was an artificial deadline, not like Shabbos, so I found myself at a loose end on Friday afternoon and decided to cook another couple of things anyway – one of the main pitfalls the Chatzos website warns against.
5.      It might have been better to try this in the summer, when there was actually an afternoon to enjoy rather than just a couple of hours. 

My husband is not a last minute person and I know that he finds my attitude a bit stressful sometimes.  I had thought that he would appreciate a calmer Friday, but when I told him what I was doing, he asked, “Why would you want to do that?”

 In fact the only person who actually appreciated my efforts was our Shabbos guest, who is herself a Chatzos lady. Having said that, I think I will try it again, although I’m not sure I want to commit to doing it every week. Aiming for 12:13 this week...

Time for some menus:

Bas Mitzvah seudah (rather late!)

We had an orange theme – so black tablecloths with black and orange paperware and serviettes – looked very effective.

Starter: Humus, tuna dip, Moroccan olives, cucumber salad ( yes, I know that’s not orange!)

“Orange soup” – sweet potatoes, carrots, potatoes, onions etc and baked beans put it just before it’s blended

Paprika chicken with potatoes, sweet and sour red cabbage, green beans with garlic and lemon

Chocolate brownie with chocolate sauce, peanut butter icecream, mango icecream

Tonight we are hosting an Italian Friday night for women who attend my husband’s shiur at the JLE. This is what we’re eating:

Garlic bread

Salmon with green sauce, spicy potato salad

Pasta and bean soup

Chicken cacciatore, potatoes with rosemary and garlic, caponata (like ratatouille with aubergines and olives), roast onions, broad bean stew

Oranges in syrup, chocolate cream cake

All recipes from Claudia Roden, either Book of Jewish Food or Italian Cooking

I seem to have gone from trying to post at least once a week to being lucky if I post once a month!  Still plenty to say, but not such a lot of time to say it! In the last month we celebrated our third daughter’s becoming a bas mitzvah.  Now that all the celebrations have concluded, with the return of my husband and our daughter from a trip to Israel, (I can’t quite work out why when he works full-time and I work part-time, it’s easier for him to get away...), I’ve been able to put some thoughts together.

When our children began to reach halachic adulthood, we were very conscious of the fact that our third and fourth children are boy/girl twins and that we did not want our daughter to feel that she was undervalued in comparison to her brother.  A friend of ours, who grew up in a very chareidi community, told us that when she became bas mitzvah, she had a few friends round for tea, but when her brother became bar mitzvah a year later, he had a whole weekend of celebrations.  Given that this was still bothering her several years later, we did not want the same thing to happen in our family.  So, we have made a similar celebration for each of our daughters so far to that which we hope to make for our sons, beginning next year, iy”H.

Our shul has very kindly marked the girls’ bas mitzvahs with a communal seudah shelishis – see here for a report of the most recent one.  We have made a seudas mitzvah, on their birthday or as close as possible to it, for our family and friends and the children have been treated to a trip to Israel, with as much touring and sightseeing as possible.  See here for my husband’s article about the reason for this.

While I appreciate that in some circles, a bas mitzvah is marked with little display, we feel that our daughters are as entitled to their “moment in the sun” as our sons.  Some people would say that this happens for a girl when she gets married, but these days, who knows when (or even, if) this will happen.  Also reaching adulthood is just as significant for a girl as for a boy – she now has an obligation to do mitzvos, just as he does – so why not welcome her to the adult world with some fanfare?  In circles, such as ours, where women have a serious religious and secular education, and have the potential to pursue fulfilling and satisfying careers in whatever field they chose (and I’m including homemaking and bringing up children in that) to distinguish between the level of celebration for boys and girls seems archaic and unnecessary.

Our daughters have all spent some time during the year preceeding their bas mitzvah learning with my husband, following which they have prepared a dvar Torah to present at the seudas mitzvah/seuda shelishis.  In order to convince our oldest daughter that she really did have to speak, I had to offer to speak as well, at both events, which I have continued to do for our other daughters.  I’m hoping not to do this at the bar mitzvahs!  But I think it is important for the girls to see that both men and women can speak in public and share Torah ideas.  It’s also an opportunity to focus on each child’s positive characteristics and give them a tailor-made bracha for the future. I hope that our daughters were able to take away something meaningful from the speeches at the seudos, and if not, mine are saved on my computer!