My family works hard to make Shabbat a special time.  We almost always make a special meal on Friday night (or at least put our pizza on special plates!).  We very regularly invite friends and relatives over to make it feel special.  We go to synagogue several Shabbatot a month. We invest in slowing down and spending more time together.  It has become our tradition to only allow tv on Saturday afternoons (I know that feels funny to anyone who limits electricity and screens on Shabbat!).

This week we have the challenge and the opportunity to figure out how to make Shabbat a special, a holy, a set apart time, when so much of what we normally do to make Shabbat special isn’t an option – or doesn’t feel that special after a week of heavy screen and family time.

I’ve been thinking about what it means for the week to revolve around Shabbat and what it means to build anticipation.  We baked our challot today as a family and that is new for us.  Normally Abba does it on Tuesday night after the kids are in bed.  I made it round and very sweet because I’m looking for ways to find joy in the current situation and am choosing to see this as a new time (if not quite a new year).  We’ve decided to alter our Friday schedule to build in intentional Shabbat prep.  We’ll have our normal morning, but then we’ll do special cleaning and decorating projects.   Saturday our plan is to take a long walk and sing our favorite Shabbat songs along the way.

We’ll see how this goes?

What are your Shabbat challenges and opportunities?  What are you planning for this week?