Here’s me not feeling even remotely bitter that the Guinness World Record for the largest Shabbat dinner — the one my friends and I set in Tel Aviv in 2014 — has just been broken again.

Absolutely not bitter.

Totally fine over here.

No, truly, I’m not at all dwelling on the fact that this new record-setter organized by Temple Emanu-El’s Streicker Center and held in the New York City’s convention center came with a half-million-dollar check courtesy of the UJA-Federation of New York and a $54 ticket price to boot. Meanwhile, ours — run by a handful of exhausted volunteers at White City Shabbat — was free for anyone who tossed even a single dollar into our crowdfunding campaign. (Side note: Running that campaign remains one of the hardest things I’ve done — begging friends and family for money was totally out of my wheelhouse. Mad props to actual fundraisers everywhere.)

The tables set for a Guinness World Record-breaking Shabbat dinner, hosted by White City Shabbat in Tel Aviv, June 13, 2014. (Gideon Markowicz/Flash 90)

We bootstrapped everything. Zeev Isaac, owner of Hangar 11, Israel’s largest venue, gave us his space at cost. I personally folded napkins for what felt like 30 years. Golan Wineries, with whom we had a long-standing relationship from hosting our monthly 200-person Shabbat meals, catering mostly to Anglo immigrants to Israel, sponsored the wine. And even then we still couldn’t make the budget work, so Chabad swooped in at the 11th hour to plug the hole.

Apart from a pre-Shabbat musical Kabbalat Shabbat concert, we didn’t have a budget for entertainment during the meal. Unlike with Temple Emanu-El, there was no spare cash for trapeze-artist-cum-violinists playing “Fiddler On The Roof” hit “Tradition” while dangling from the rafters. Our entire event,........

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