Young Parents Face a Shabbat Issue
Now that I am well into the grandparent stage of Israeli life, I have gained new insight into Israeli culture. To be sure, the importance of grandparents in Israeli culture is readily apparent to anyone who lives here.
Grandparents will often dedicate one day each week to “help out” with their grandchildren. If you see someone wheeling a baby carriage late-afternoon in Israel, there’s a good chance that it will be a grandparent; it’s rare here to find daycare options extending beyond 4:30 p.m. And grandparents also play a crucial role for older children, who may be home as early as 1 p.m. when they are in primary school and as early as noon when they are in secondary school.
What I hadn’t realized until I became a grandparent is just how the rhythm of the entire week changes once you factor in nearby grandparents.
The rhythm of my week when I was parenting my five children was, as it is now, heavily geared to preparing the two big Shabbat meals. For young parents with both sets of grandparents relatively nearby, however, the week looks completely different.
Often the main issue is not what, when, and how to prepare the Shabbat meals, but for the couple to consider: “Where shall we go on Shabbat—your side or mine?” Thus, for your typical Israeli young parent, Friday morning is not the beginning of a mad dash of preparing/cooking/cleaning for Shabbat, but (once you see your children off to their daycare or school) it can be a brunch at a café or a romantic picnic in nature. Yes, you will have to pack up and get the kids ready for Shabbat, but that can wait until the afternoon.
Needless to say, what goes for Shabbat also goes for holidays. It may often be the case that a young Israeli couple may not be so young—may be well into their 40s–before they make their first Passover Seder at their own home. Sarah and I made our first Seder when we were living in Atlanta; it was shortly after the birth of Rebecca and we were 27 years old.
Things start to change for the younger couple as their children enter into the upper grades of primary school (this is less so if the couple drives on Shabbat, in which case they can drop in for a Shabbat meal and do not need to stay for the entire Shabbat). Israeli youth movements typically begin with fourth graders and typically have their big weekly activity on Shabbat, and your grandchildren may lobby for more “at home” Shabbats.
Lest you start feeling sorry for young couples who have to start making Shabbat all on their own, I can tell you that it is not unusual for them to receive a Shabbat care-package, especially if grandparents live nearby.
This is the case with my son Elie and his in-laws. My machataynista (i.e., my son Elie’s mother-in-law) Rivka Arfa is a tremendous balabusta and can often be relied upon for a delicious food package even when Elie and Hadar are doing Shabbat at home in the Gilo neighborhood of Jerusalem.
What remains the same, whether the couple has just an infant or several children, is that when they do come over to you for a Shabbat meal or for a whole Shabbat, it is understood that they are doing you a favor. And they are right.
Teddy Weinberger is a contributing writer to Jlife magazine. He made aliyah with his family in 1997 from Miami, where he was an assistant professor of religious studies. Teddy and his wife, Sarah Jane Ross, have five children.
