Posted in Biblical Celebrations
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We are not a Jewish family, but we have incorporated a number of Jewish traditions into our family life over the last few years. We celebrate some of the Old Testament holidays, including Purim (story of Esther), Passover, and Shabbat. I love these traditions because they are Biblical, comng straight out of the Old Testament and so often a wonderful picture of God's truths. These is especially true of Passover. Last night we celebrated Shabbat, something we try to do every Saturday evening that we are home. The Jews celebrate Friday evening, but since our Sabbath is Sunday we celebrate Saturday evening. I try to set a nicer table than usual, although last night I didn't do much, because of the sickness around here. We always add grape juice and bread, challah bread if possible, to the menu. And I sometimes make a nicer dinner, but sometimes we just dress up the soup, like last night. Then we do a blessing over the candles, the juice, and the bread. It is a very simple blessing, something like " Blessed are you, King of the Universe, who brings light to the world, or fruit of the vine, or bread from the earth," Then while we eat we try to share things we are grateful for from the past week with one another. And between dinner and desert (usually I have a real desert this night in contrast to just fruit other times) I read a story to everyone. Right now we are reading WISE WORDS by Peter Leithart, a collection of family stories written like fairy tales that bring the proverbs to life. It is an excellent book. Over Advent we did our advent reading from Barthlomew's Passage. And when we finish the Leithart book I think we might go on to Bill Gothard's Character Sketches from Nature. I have been inspired to this by a friend Cecelia Toth who I lived with 20 years ago as single woman in Philadelphia. She is part Jewish and is a Messianic believer and first introduced me to incorporating Jewish traditions into my life. I also have recently read some articles by Nancy Wilson, wife of Douglas Wilson of Credenda magazine and Canon Press, about how there family observes the Sabbath meal on Saturday even as an extended family. Her thoughts encouraged to start this tradition by regularly with my own family. As the other holidays come up I will be sharing how we celebrate those. But for anyone who reads this and wants some resources to help in adding this to your own family traditions let me know. I will be glad to share. |
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