Shabbat Shalom

Friday evening we were invited by our neighbors (Sherman's) to their house for Shabbat dinner. You know us... we said yes of course :-) We arrived at 7:30 and they were just finishing their preparations. I chatted with their daughter (Mayan,9) and learned a few words in Hebrew for eyes, mouth, teeth, and ears. Her grandparents arrived and we all sat down at the table. All the men had headcoverings while they said the blessing and broke the bread into large piece. The father put salt on the bread which reminds them of the difficulties they had as slaves in Egypt. They also poured wine for each of us and passed the bread around. I thought it was interesting that we were sort of having "communion" but they were looking back to the Israelites time in captivity, not to the freedom found at the cross. Then they sang a song of blessing and their 13 yr old boy read a short blessing. After the "ceremony" was over they put lots of food on the table and the feast began. It seemed like they made enough for an army. I commented on all the food and the wife said that this food would last for today and tomorrow since they don't cook (work) on Shabbat. We had 3 types of salads, rice, stuffed peppers, potatoes, fish, quiche and my favorite lasagna (I have to get the recipe for this!). It was quite the spread and very tasty. Safta and Saba (Grandma & Grandpa) were very nice and spoke with us in English a little bit. They said we must come to their house sometime for a visit. After dinner we sat around the computer and enjoyed pictures and a video of their oldest son's graduation from "leadership camp" earlier that week. For dessert they brought out ice cream, a plate of fruit, cheesecake and cookies. I was stuffed! The started to play board games but it was getting late so we only stayed for the first game. What an interesting experience.