Sara's Tent

"Yitzchok brought her into the tent of his mother, Sara,

He married Rivka…and he loved her." (Bereishis 24;87)

"As long as Sara was alive, a candle burned from Friday to Friday, a blessing was constantly in the dough, and a cloud hung over the tent. And when she died these things ceased, and when Rivka arrived they returned."(Rashi Genesis, 24:67)

She helped her family survive Bubby's kitchen smelled delicious. Home made kreplach, kneidlach and knishes were her specialty. But it wasn't always that way. During the lean years of World War II, in the ghetto, there was little to eat. When the family escaped to Siberia, Bubby was a young woman. With her cunning and determination she helped her family survive cold, disease and hunger. Each day she prayed to G‑d "Please, please save us from starvation. If I survive I will make sure that no one will go hungry."

True to her word, when Bubby came to Canada there was always delicious kosher food for anyone who visited her home. Despite long hours of toiling in a sweatshop, she always managed to turn flour, potatoes and other simple ingredients into delicacies.

Every week, on the day before Shabbat, Bubby's kitchen was filled with enticing sights and smells. The smell of her home-baked challahs and her trademark onion pletzlach wafted through her home. When she grew old her body was ravaged by painful arthritis. But she never stopped kneading challahs. She said it made her fingers feel better. I think it was more than her fingers—perhaps her soul.

Their shtetel was a distant memory It was cold in the small refugee camp. But Bubby, Zaidy and their young son were happy to have survived the war. It was time to resume a normal family life. Their shtetel was a distant memory. Its mikvah, along with so many other things, was long destroyed. Somehow Bubby managed to reach the waters of the icy lake.

The following year she gave birth to a son. She named him after her father. Many years later he became my husband.

On my table I have an elegant silver candelabra, but the most precious candlesticks I own are a pair of travel candles weighted down by clumps of sand...

Although things were different in the new country they settled in after the war, Bubby lit candles every Friday night. When she became too old and frail to live alone and moved to a nursing home, one of the regulations she had to get used to was: "No fire allowed in the rooms." How could she light her precious candles?

Her simple Shabbat candles glowed Fire was forbidden everywhere but downstairs in the main lobby. Bubby, traumatized by the war years, would never flaunt her religion. She had always lit candles in the privacy of her kitchen…but in a public lobby?

We brought her a simple set of traveling candles and weighted it down with sand so it wouldn't tip. Somehow the management agreed to let her light, if we would come supervise. Every Friday afternoon, my husband would stop by after work. Even on icy winter Fridays, her simple Shabbat candles glowed, as long as she was with us.

Now I an Rivka, standing at the door of Sara's tent.