This coming Shabbat is sometimes called Shlissel or Key Shabbat. The first Shabbat after Passover there is a custom to bake the Challah into the shape of a key, or, some wrap a key in silver foil and bake it in the Challah (it’s fun to find, but be careful not to bite into it!). Some sprinkle poppy seeds on the loaves to remind us of the manna that began to fall in the desert after the Jewish nation left Egypt. The manna began falling in the Hebrew month of Iyar which is the Hebrew month which comes after Passover.

This custom reminds us that our sustenance is unlocked, so to speak, by a Divine source and although we have to work to earn our bread nowadays we still recognize the Divine spiritual connection. (For those who want to make Challah for this Shabbat and don’t have the time to make it from scratch here is a Challah hack. You can buy frozen dinner rolls, purchase a round disposable pan, take the rolls and put one in the middle and surround it with other rolls and let defrost. Wrap a key and place it under one the rolls. Egg wash and the sprinkle with poppy seeds. Bake and enjoy)!

While we think about celebrating Shabbat again with fresh delicious readily available Challah, we are also somberly observing Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day. If you are interested in inspiration please look to JRoots.org who have once again gathered powerful testimonies from survivors.

I was especially moved by a short piece entitled Timeless Wisdom. In that clip Pearl Benisch, author of To Vanquish the Dragon and survivor of many horrors, shares a poignant vignette. She was with a group of women who were suffering terribly from typhus with high fever and chills. One of the girls cried out that she was dying and begged for a little water.

Pearl Benisch saw another young woman, who was also suffering from the same illness and who had managed to save a bit of water for herself, come out from under her blanket and give her little bit of precious water to her sister in suffering.

Pearl Benisch almost keans the words as she says in her singsong lilt - she gave away the water that she needed for herself to help her sister in need.
Giving is living.
By doing this superhuman act of sharing her life giving water, this heroine reaffirmed to herself that she was alive as she could still help someone else.
I always wonder what I would have done in her place. Could I have been such a heroic nurturer and giver?

Norbert Friedman, precious denizen of Atlanta and Holocaust survivor often spoke of the untold story of women in the Holocaust. He explained that women had a completely different experience. And he wrote a manuscript about his findings.

The recently published book The Light of Days: the untold story of women resistance fighters in Hitlers ghettos by Judy Batalion also seeks to publicize the previously unknown heroism of women in these dark times.

One of the women Judy Batalion writes about is Tosia Altman, a fashionable, well educated, Jewish woman from Poland who risked her life numerous times in death defying operations to help her fellow Jews. She was ultimately caught and tortured to death by the Nazis.
In her attempt to paint the picture of who Tosia was and how she came from perfectly regular beginnings, Judy Batalion mentions a small detail. Tosia was scared of dogs. I am sure many of you know that I have an irrational, deep seated fear of dogs. Tosia was scared of them too. You might say we had so much in common. Yet she was able to overcome her fears and exhibit the most transcendent heroism.
If I was there, could I have done it too? Could I have risen above my fears and been the ultimate nurturer and giver?

I am sure we all ask ourselves those existential questions. How would we rise to such challenges and may we never be tested as they were.
But what Pearl Benisch and Judy Batalion are teaching us is that indeed heroism manifests in many ways and as long as we continue to give and nurture and do our best in the situations presented to us we can also transcend and be heroic.

A dear friend shared with me that at her family Passover Seder she was able to hold herself back from sharing a nasty comment in response to a family member’s jibe. She recognized this person is suffering and therefore her comments are coming from a place of pain. By not expressing her own opinions at the moment (which she acknowledged wouldn’t affect any change) my dear friend transcended herself and created peace. That’s heroism.

I wonder if I could have been such a nurturer and giver?

So back to our special Challah shaped like a key. When you knead your dough, take the opportunity to focus mindfully and with a heart full of prayer towards someone in your orbit who “kneads” some help. We have no idea how our thoughts and prayers coupled with even small actions can make all the difference. That too is nurturing.

There is a story told of a poor woman who had the opportunity to feed a meal to a prominent Chassidic Rabbi. She barely had anything in her home so she mixed together some water and flour and created a pancake. The Rabbi went into raptures over the extraordinary taste of the pancake and was fulsome in his thanks. A few weeks later the woman received a letter from the Rabbi’s wife who requested the recipe for the pancake. She said her husband was quite an ascete and never cared about food. There must have been a special ingredient in this recipe, could she share the secret? The woman replied and said, I didn’t have much, just a little flour and water, then I prayed that the flavor of Paradise would be spiritually infused into the concoction. Perhaps that was the taste your husband experienced?We must recognize that all our efforts, big and small, can influence our family and ourselves towards growth and improvement. These efforts are the secret ingredient.
Sometimes the giving may be physical, we nurture by feeding and giving water and bread. Sometimes we nurture by giving of ourselves with love wisdom and encouragement. And sometimes, in the darkest periods of history, Jewish heroines give the ultimate gift of their very lives.

We are all sisters in these endeavors and each of us will find our unique path to meaningful giving.
For to give...is to live.

May their memories be an eternal inspiration to us in the journey of our lives.
Shabbat Shalom with much love!