witty. To their surprise, this time Reb Shmuel began describing a
process that sounded quite esoteric and confusing to them.
Reb Shmuel began:“There was a scattering of particles that
merged with the source of life, pure water, to create a great circle
of being. This great circle of being was then drawn down into in-
dividual strands of energy, allowing themselves to be formed and
finally to be drawn through a refinement of fire, wherein the par-
ticles were finally fit to be absorbed.”
A great silence filled the room. “That’s it?!” The chasidim, having
hoped for some lighthearted wisdom, turned in confusion to the
Rebbe, who, with a twinkle in his eye, revealed the punchline. “Reb
Shmuel,” the Rebbe said with a smile, “has just given us his wife’s
challah recipe.”
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S E T T I N G T H E S T A G E
As the great Chasidic masters understood, the cosmic story of the
creation of all life is, in fact, just like making a batch of challah.
The recipe for bread is quite simple. The most basic bread rec-
ipe requires only two primary ingredients: flour and water. And
these two simple ingredients come together to create something
much grander than the sum of their parts. There is nothing ex-
tra or unnecessary here. Each ingredient is a crucial part of the
whole and each one relies on the other to create a living, breath-
ing dough that will rise.
As challah baking became part of my weekly routine, it
seemed to merge with all other aspects of my life. Birth, babies,
marriage and work-life balance, all of life’s hard earned lessons,
it seemed, could be gleaned from this ball of dough rising before
me. My very prayers, in fact, were influenced and enhanced by
this weekly practice of creating challah. Now, on Friday eve, as
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R I S I N G
the sun begins to set and I create a private space between my
hands and my eyes, I light the Shabbat candles and pray that my
children will rise.
It is a deceptively simple prayer, one that holds within it a
world of meaning. My most heartfelt prayer is that my children
be deeply rooted in an environment of trust and sweetness, and
that this become their foundation of confidence so they can then
be passionate about their lives and their connection to G-d, live
comfortably and joyously with their spiritual and material reali-
ties hand in hand, and strive to constantly expand and rise.
This is my prayer. These are my psalms. Please, G-d, let them
rise.
There is so much that we can’t control in this life. The further
along in life we are, the more power we cede to a Higher Source.
Yet, with all that we can’t control, there is an area in which we
have been granted immense power, namely, in our role as nur-
turers. We have been given an almost G-dly faculty to infuse oth-
ers with a joy for life and a confidence in the knowledge that
they are perfect and whole and capable of rising.
The recipe for challah appeared to me as the perfect role mod-
el toward creating an environment for rising as I strove to cre-
ate such a context for myself and my family. Somewhere in this
simple recipe for bread, that would rise and become a challah, I
would find the recipe for rising in life. I would elevate my exis-
tence beyond the everyday, shaping a life lived to its fullest.
As we merge the ingredients to create our challah, we med-
itate on each addition, opening ourselves to fresh outlook and
insight into our nourishing and nurturing.
I will share with you the insights that came to me over years
of challah baking and child raising; incredibly, somewhere be-
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S E T T I N G T H E S T A G E
tween diaper changes and homework, these can actually hap-
pen! I suspect, however, that as you begin your own tradition of
challah, you will find yourself with plenty of your own epipha-
nies and “aha” moments. Relish these moments of inspiration in
a full and busy life; it is a blessing to stumble upon these sparks
of insight, and a particular blessing when these occur in your
very own kitchen, somewhere deep within your challah bowl.
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R I S I N G
“If there is no f our,
there is no Torah.”
—Avot 3:17
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S E T T I N G T H E S T A G E : F L O U R
Flour
: scattered particles
To create a challah, we begin with flour, the most substantial in-
gredient of physical sustenance. After all, bread is the staff of life.
The sages of the Mishnah write, “[I]m ein kemach, ein Torah/
[W]ithout flour, there is no Torah” (Avot 3:17). The physical needs
of the body must be taken care of in order to realize its higher
functions.
Flour represents the physical body of a person, as well as the
body of humanity as a whole. In this tangible, material world
we experience reality as separation, much like the individuated
particles of flour. We feel ourselves to be separate from others,
we experience physical objects as unrelated to each other; each
thing seems to exist separately and individually. Our five senses
inform us that this thing is red and that thing is blue. This thing
smells great and this other thing, not so much. It is this essential
brokenness that we strive to heal throughout our lives, reconcil-
ing the scattered particles of ourselves and our perceptions into
a greater unity.
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R I S I N G
When we think of our own health and survival, it is very much
about ourselves against the world. It is about “I need to survive,
at any cost.”
In the spiritual nurturing of ourselves and our loved ones,
while we focus on our well-being, health, and material satisfac-
tion, we know deeply all the while that, in a fully realized life,
this is but one piece of a much larger picture.
Flour without water will forever remain a mere collection of
individual particles—dry, separate and unable to rise. They will
remain unelevated sparks, waiting to merge with the great One-
ness, the Source of all life.
Though our Sages say, “[I]m ein kemach ein Torah/[W]ithout
flour there is no Torah,” they continue by saying, “im ein Torah,
ein kemach/ without Torah, there is no flour.” Herein lies a sym-
biotic relationship; one does not exist without the other.
Interestingly, chitah, the Hebrew word for wheat, the origin
of flour, has the numeric value of 22. The number 22 represents
the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet, which combine to create
the Torah and are through which the world was created and is
sustained. This demonstrates that kemach/flour, which is made
of wheat, is an essential building block in creation.
When there is no flour, there is no Torah. When we are in sur-
vival mode, struggling to simply exist, and do not have the ke-
mach to sustain our bodies, there is no room in our minds for
mea
ning and higher purpose. In order to live a life of expanded
awareness, we must take care to nurture the body and cultivate
our material existence. The body and the soul, the flour and wa-
ter, must coexist, each supporting the needs of the other.
The concept of separateness returning to a state of wholeness
is a recurring theme throughout Judaism and particularly so
in the deeper mystical wisdom. We find many traditions of ac-
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S E T T I N G T H E S T A G E : F L O U R
knowledging the brokenness—even, and particularly—during
our most ecstatic moments of joy. In seeking to create whole-
ness, we must first be aware of the separations and, from that
place, strive to create completion.
At the height of our most joyful moment, the culmination
of the chuppah and the joining of two souls to create a perfect
union, we shatter a glass, acknowledging that this union will be
another attempt to bring healing to the fragmentation that is in-
herent in the physical aspects of life. We wish the couple mazal
tov immediately afterward, wishing them good mazal/luck, in
achieving this lofty goal together.
Adam and Eve existed in an idyllic state, a paradise in which
all was clearly connected to the Tree of Life, a reality of perfect
unity. When they ate from the forbidden tree, the Tree of Knowl-
edge (of good and evil) they were exposed to and internalized
the reality of separation and duality, a world in which there is
good and evil, life and death.
There are sages who interpret the fruit of the Tree of Knowl-
edge as the wheat stalk. While many sages differ as to the exact
nature of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, all agree that the
shattering of the Garden of Eden’s perfect unity when the forbid-
den fruit was eaten, took place mere moments before the first
Shabbat began.
In this interpretation, wheat, the basis of our challah dough,
is the very “fruit” that brought about the original separation,
changing the state of the world from a “Tree of Life” state of
perfect unity to a “Tree of Knowledge” world of separation. As
such, the baking of challah, done as a preparation for Shabbat,
becomes the tikkun, the healing, for the original brokenness and
separation. an undoing of the eating from the Tree of Knowledge
and a re-entering into the Tree of Life.
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R I S I N G
“My teaching
shall drip
like rain;
My word will
f ow like dew;
. .and like
raindrops
on grass.”
—Devarim 32:2
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S E T T I N G T H E S T A G E : W A T E R
Water
:the great merging
“Ein mayim ela Torah/Water refers to Torah”
— Bava Kamma 17a
raindrops
on grass.”
How do we cohere all that separateness?
With water.
“The world was void and nothingness . . . and the spirit of Elokim
hovers on the face of the water” (Bereishit 1:2).
It is the first mention of water in the Torah, yet no reference
to its creation precedes this pronouncement. The first creation
that is spoken into being, “Let there be light,” occurs after the
presence—and, therefore, creation—of water has already been
established.
Water is primordial; it is the fount of all creation and continu-
ously gives life to all of existence. All life begins with water and
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R I S I N G
all life is supported by water. We enter the waters of the mikvah
(ritual bath) before creating new life; new life emerges from the
waters of the womb. We greet each new day of our lives with
purifying waters and, on our very last day, we are immersed into
water one final time before being laid to rest.
We can understand why water is compared to Torah and the
life of the soul. In its continuous flow and unbrokenness since
the beginning of time, water gives us a glimpse into immortality.
It is a place of endless hope and eternal life. All water that exists
today has existed since the beginning of time and will continue
its life cycle of evaporation, condensation and life-giving precip-
itation.
When the Torah speaks of purity and impurity, it is simply
speaking of that which is connected to life and that which is not.
Life, or purity, represents all that is growing, hopeful, and eter-
nal. The opposite of life, which is impurity, represents a state of
separation, stagnation, and despair.
In Jewish practice, water is continually used for purification,
i.e., to bring something from a state of separation back into a
state of unified oneness. Water represents an ultimate life force
that has the capacity of unifying the scattered and broken.
In all the great transitions of life, historically and in our ev-
eryday existence, we have used, and continue to use, water to
connect endings and beginnings, beginnings and endings. Wa-
ter eases the transition and creates a merging of the two ends,
bringing wholeness.
In the days of Noah and the Great Flood, a melding of higher
and lower waters brought a purification to the world, chang-
ing the face of the earth and bringing healing. The Hebrews
crossed the waters of the Red Sea to leave slavery and enter a
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S E T T I N G T H E S T A G E : W A T E R
state of freedom. The waters of the Jordan needed to be crossed
before coming into our nationhood in our own land. In all the
to Shabbat, mayim chayim, the living waters of the mikvah—ei-
ther gathered into a man-made pool, or expressed in nature as
oceans or lakes—can bring us from a state of separation back
into our original state of wholeness.
When Flour and Water Combine
Flour is the body, the material, which without water is simply
scattered particles, not nourishing, and wholly indigestible. Wa-
ter is the soul, the spiritual, which without flour cannot express
itself and is not able to nourish properly. The flour mixed with
the water creates something that is alive and can feed us. The
body, which contains a soul, has the capacity to express itself
and live. Each needs the other to create a perfect circle of whole-
ness.
When we combine water and flour, we unite all the scattered
pieces of existence and create something whole and alive.
Remember those strands mentioned by Reb Shmuel Munkes
in his challah recipe of creation—the strands of living energy
created from the water merging with the scattered particles?
When flour and water merge, something magical begins to hap-
pen: gluten swells to form a continuous network of fine strands
and the flour and water begin to rise. The physical and spiritual
reality, living hand in hand, side by side, merge to become the
embodiment of the Igul haGadol/the Great Circle of Being that
contains within it the potential of all life and reality.
All it takes is flour, water, and time, and rising happens.
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R I S I N G
WATER
FLOUR
OIL
SALT
SUGAR
EGGS
YEAST
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WATER
Chapter V
The Ingredients
:a Recipe for Rising
YEAST
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R I S I N G
The very first woman, Chava (Eve), is called “em kol chai/the
mother of all living things,” before she ever gives birth.
Each woman is born with all the eggs she will have throughout
her life. That is to say that all our mothering potential is input
into our very beings before we ever mother and regardless of
whether we indeed end up “mothering” in the traditional sense
of the word. As women, we are the nurturers of creation, we
bring forth life in countless ways, and the ways we nurture are
as vast and varied as the ways through which we bring forth life.
There are the basics that we are given at birth: a body and a
soul, our “flour and water” as it were. And then, there are the
gifts we acquire along the way that create a life that is uniquely
ours and unmistakably individual. These are the gifts we bring
to the table when we nurture others. And while the recipe for
nurturing, much like a challah recipe, always looks the same
when spelled out, in practice, each person will nurture with his
or her unique qualities. If fully and joyfully expressed, this will
be the greatest gift he or she can ever give.
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I N T R O D U C T I O N
While parenting, we have, for many years, been drowning out
our inner voices with the voices of others. We read Dr. Spock
and put our babies to sleep on their stomachs, only to quickly
flip them onto their backs when the newest studies indicated
that this is the safest way. With the advent of the Google “gods,”
we are more inundated than ever with “expert” parenting ad-
vice. At last count, Amazon’s parenting and relationship sections
boasted 717,073 selections, not including the many millions of
web pages devoted to this ever confusing and evolving topic.
“Parenting by Google” is now a thing, according to some of my
new-parent friends who are actually doing this.
Baby is spitting up a weird color? Quick! Google it! My toddler