In daily living, everything is different after a spouse dies. Since the death of my husband Noam z’l in March 2005, Shabbat is one of the greatest challenges I must face.
Throughout our nearly 50 years of married life, Shabbat was the heart of our family and the focus of our week because we all loved “our” Shabbat so much. When our children were growing up, they did not like to leave our Shabbat table to be with their friends. Instead, they would prefer to stay at home and invite their friends to share Shabbat with us.
Our family Shabbat table was patterned very much after the Shabbat table in my own childhood home, following my father’s zemirot – and many of his traditions. Of course, we also developed our own unique Shabbat table traditions with much singing of both zemirot and Israeli songs.
My husband, who spent his life as a Jewish educator and served as the administrator of the Ramaz School for more than 40 years, had a unique style of teaching at the table. His divrei Torah were never the conventional text study that the children had experienced in school that week. He always drew from a wide range of sources including Bialik, Ben Gurion, Israel Eldad, and many others.
How was I to deal with a “different” Shabbat once he was gone? It took a very long time before I felt able, once again, to invite guests to my Shabbat table. At first, I asked only close friends with whom I felt very comfortable and who, I knew, would not feel awkward at a table with Noam missing. I found that the most painful thing to confront was the “empty chair” at the table. I asked other widows how they dealt with this and listened to their suggestions. I decided to move to the chair myself. This was the most bearable and least painful of all the options. Occasionally, my daughter, Leora sits in her father’s chair when she comes for lunch or dinner.
I also found myself in the position of having to direct the rituals at the table, of having to decide whether to make kiddush myself or ask a guest. In addition to being the hostess I had always been, I now had to make sure that the conversation flowed and that zemirot were sung. Noam had always directed the organization of the table and meal and now it was left to me.
Once I overcame these hurdles and began to invite more friends over for Shabbat meals, I still had to learn how to go by myself to other people’s homes and then return alone to my empty house. While I appreciate every invitation, the invitations always underscore what I have lost – because as lovely as it is to be with friends, it is not the same as “our” Shabbat table.
The invitations after my husband died were many and most welcome. But as his death receded into the background, the invitations became less frequent because – as is natural – everyone became used to this new reality—everyone except me.
For me, now, how to make and observe Shabbat always looms at the beginning of the every week and serves to highlight my loss. The question never goes away: how to face another Shabbat?