That's Life

Issue of August 15, 2008

Dear That's Life:

To all those who do not believe in the power of challah, read this:

A cousin of mine in Yerushalayim, making my challah recipe for the first time, called a bunch of times for consultation and advice, although she had made challah on numerous other occasions. She and I spoke often on that Friday morning.

While my challah recipe was not completely different from hers, what was really throwing her off was the requirement to be 'mafrish challah.'

The mitzvah to remember the portion that was set aside for the priests in the Beit Hamikdash is observed by separating a piece of dough from the batch while saying the required bracha, then burning that piece. My cousin does not usually make enough dough — a full five-pound bag of flour — to trigger the mitzvah, but with this recipe she would. Between the new recipe, the pressure to make it well and the need to 'take challah,' she had completely psyched herself out.

We thought things were going smoothly — and they seemed to be. The dough had risen properly, she took challah with a bracha and the loaves she had braided looked great. They baked evenly and browned beautifully and it seemed everything was a success. But looks can be deceiving.

Complete panic is the only way to describe the next phone call I received. It seemed that my cousin had inadvertently taken the piece of dough that she had separated with a bracha and, somehow, reincorporated it within the rest of the batch and baked it. There was no way to tell where that piece had ended up. If one forgets to be mafrish challah before baking, it can be done after, but separating a particular piece and then losing it was a whole different story. A rabbi had to be consulted.

"I have to go before a beit din!" she screamed in the next call. All joking aside, the challot could not be eaten without hafrashat challah having taken place, and since the piece she had set aside was MIA, her neder — literally, an oath — had to be decreed 'null and void.' This can only be properly done in front of a court of three men and so off she went to find a beit din.

Luckily, it's Yerushalayim, and even on an erev Shabbat, a crazy woman can find three men in 'Shteiblach' who will sit as a beit din, hear her story, yell "Mutar, mutar, mutar!" and send her on her way home to again take challah, this time from anywhere in her now baked loafs — which is exactly what happened.

I had insisted that she call me as soon as she was home from the beit din and so I was excited to see her number pop up on my caller ID.

"Can you now be buried with the rest of the tribe?" I asked her as I answered the phone. We both laughed hard and agreed that it was a completely crazy story, and I told her that had she had stayed calm from the beginning, there was no way this would have happened.

Sharing this story later with a friend, she remarked that she was convinced that this was not how G-d had intended this religion to be lived.

Au contraire, I thought. The last time I forgot to say "ya'aleh v'yavo" on Rosh Chodesh, or forgot to make an eruv tavshilin before a Chag — two innocent mistakes people make all the time out of haste or simple forgetfulness — I did not have to stand before a beit din. In fact, if I had poured myself that glass of red wine last week and had finished the entire bottle before realizing it was the Nine Days (which I did remember before I even popped the cork), I still would not have had to stand before a beit din.

This mitzvah, however, was completely different.

Besides the seriousness with which Chazal weigh the promise made by a Jew or giving one's word, this just shows how powerful, important and simply amazing the mitzvah of challah really is — it's taken very, very seriously, as it should be.

But that's nothing new to us, I added. The mitzvah of challah and all of its power is something Jewish women have known for generations.

MLW