From Gefilte to Foreign Policy

Why the Shabbat Table May Be the Greatest State Dinner Ever Held

There was much to admire in the White House state dinner hosted by First Lady Melania Trump for King Charles and Queen Camilla. The menu read like poetry:

Garden vegetable velouté. Spring herbed ravioli. Dover sole meunière. Potato pavé. Honey and vanilla bean crémeux.

Elegant. Refined. Regal.

But as I looked at this royal spread, I had a mischievous thought.

The Jewish people have been hosting a weekly state dinner for over 3,000 years. It is called Shabbat.

And if you look closely, it may be doing something even more profound.

A Meal That Builds More Than Appetites

A state dinner uses food to build relationships, express dignity, and create civilization. That is precisely what a Shabbat meal does — except Shabbat does it every week.

At the White House, the soup arrives in porcelain bowls. At Shabbat, the chicken soup comes steaming to the table, often with a matzah ball that could qualify as its own sovereign territory.

Beneath the humor lies something deep. Soup is not only nourishment. It is memory. It is comfort. It is a mother’s care ladled into a bowl. It says: you belong here.

And that may be the........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)