50 Shabbat Dinners

I am a member of the Social Action Committee at the temple, and about a year ago we were tasked, like all the committees, with coming up with some way to celebrate/mark the 50 year anniversary of NVHC.  The idea of having 50 Shabbat dinners appealed to me, and I said we should do it.  I even said I would help to chair the project.  Luckily, even though I said that, no one really believed me.  There are two other women on the committee who are natural do-ers, and they did all the work. I have been relegated to the role of generating ideas and opinions (not hard for me), so they keep me in the loop and I go to the meetings, but they let me just be a full time farmer while they made it happen.

Last night there were 50 simultaneous Shabbat dinners  hosted around the NVHC world, kicking off the Jubilee year.  Everyone I know from temple was either a guest or a host and, by all reports, it was a major success.  The idea was that people would host a table full of people they did not know. It could be a potluck or they could cook the whole meal, whatever they wanted.  There were no services on Friday night.  Over 500 people sat down together, meeting each other for the first time, often.

Jon and I volunteered to host, of course, and we used the Common House.  In the end, we were paired with some more hosts (not enough guests for all the hosts who volunteered) -- the President and his wife, one of the do-ers who made it all come true.  She made the melt-in-your-mouth brisket and baked the challah and Jon cooked all the side dishes. 

Since it was Friday, of course, I left the house at 6:15 in the dark and never came back until it was time to take a shower for dinner.  Zoomed up the hill at 5:30 and arrived at the Common House at 5:45.  Unfortunately I didn't even think to bring flowers for the table, even though I had been bunching flowers just minutes before.  We hadn't done any thinking about decorating -- there was just a big empty table (or six tables pushed together, really) leftover from a recent Blueberry Hill meeting.

Our group was four families with toddlers, essentially.  None of them knew each other, not one.  They gathered at the tot lot and played for a while, waiting for people to arrive.  Jon was bustling around the kitchen, Julie and I worked on setting the table (if it had been at her house, the table would have been set in the morning, with matching dishes).  I was pondering what a lot of work it would be to walk all the way to the farm with those little kids (to see the chickens, etc.) and it suddenly occurred to me that we should have a quick hayride while Jon finished making dinner.

So Jon went to the farm and got the tractor and wagon and we had a hayride.  First stop was the stand so we could gather up some gourds and pumpkins for the table. Then to the pigs and chickens, then back for dinner.  It was definitely a hit.

As it happened, all the mothers were Jewish and none of the dads were.  One of the fathers had never been to a Shabbat dinner before.  Goodness.  We sang the blessings and we had dinner.  People just talked and talked. I had assumed it would end early with all these little kids, but no one seemed to be in a hurry to go home.  It was all very comfortable and good, and the kids ended the evening by jumping on the couch, and using the pillows as a road across the floor. I sent everyone home with gourds and pumpkins (partly so I wouldn't have to take them all back down to the stand, partly because it is fun to have a present).

We definitely feel lucky to have the Common House -- it allows us to host an event with almost no forethought other than cooking.  Clean up is straightforward afterwards. We don't have to fight our way through our own clutter.

We didn't have any of the conversations that the Social Action Committee contemplated, but this particular group wasn't really suited for that.  Besides, there were no long, awkward silences to fill.  And now the Social Action Committee can sit back and enjoy the rest of the Jubilee events, whatever they may be.