Chabad Challah Workshop Brings Back Childhood Memories

MONROE TOWNSHIP, NJ [CHI] — In what was both a blast from the past and a new beginning, the Chabad Jewish Center of Monroe took members of the active adult community back to the smells of their childhood kitchens with a challah-baking workshop July 14.

About 30 women made challah for the first time and learned about the specifics of the mitzvah from Chanie Zaklikovsky, Chabad co-director. Many of the women reminisced about the challah of their mothers and grandmothers during their formative years in New York, and said that the challah Zaklikovsky serves at Chabad dinners inspired them to make their own.

“They were sweet and tasted like cake, and they were nice in the way I was used to as a kid,” Helene Reisman said of Zaklikovsky’s challah rolls.

Reisman moved to Monroe eight months ago from Queens, and said that with a bigger kitchen at home and more time than ever on her hands, now was the perfect time to start baking. Doris Bacall said she is a lifelong baker, making everything from cookies to cake to cream puffs, but that she was never taught the art of challah.

Goldie Engel, who has lived in Monroe for 14 years, recalled that when her grandmother made challah in Brooklyn, “the neighbors would smell it in the hall and come knocking on the door.” Norma Cooper of Concordia, who also grew up in Brooklyn, was reminded of the times when her family observed Shabbat every week until her father’s death at age 100 in 1999.

“If we came home late on Friday night, we sat in the dark,” Cooper recalled.
Zaklikovsky used her mother’s challah recipe as a template for the lesson. As her mother was allergic to eggs, Zaklikovsky explained that she has never baked challah with eggs and realized it is simply easier to make the bread without them. As the group waited for their bowls of dough to rise before they could knead, Zaklikovsky went through the history of challah and the meaning of the ritual.

“Some of you might know this, some of you might not, but you are stuck with me for 25 minutes now,” Zaklikovsky joked.

The biblical commandment connected with challah dates back to the Tabernacle and the Temple, Zaklikovsky said, when Jewish families baked bread and were commanded to donate a portion of their dough to the priests. Therefore, challah is not the name for the entire bread we eat, but rather the fistful of dough we separate from the rest of the portion and let burn in the oven.

“Sometimes we have to give away what we work hard on,” Zaklikovsky said to explain the meaning behind the mitzvah.

Challah is also one of three mitzvot specific to women, she said, in addition to family purity and lighting Shabbat candles. Since women have the capacity to bring life, these mitzvot are special for women because they involve the transformation of a physical act into a spiritual act, Zaklikovsky said.

After the women raised their fistfuls of dough in the air and said the blessing for the challah ritual, they braided the dough, placed their loaves in the oven, and listened to Zaklikovsky perform “The Challah Lady,” a tune she sang and played on the guitar.

Rabbi Eliezer Zaklikovsky, Chabad co-director, said that challah baking is an important activity for active adults in Monroe because it allows them to re-connect with their past and bring an exciting facet of Jewish practice into their current homes.

“It’s a mitzvah that has a lot of emotion and tradition attached to it,” he said. “This is an opportunity to come back and to once again connect yourself [with Judaism] in an exciting, non-judgmental, and accepting way.”