Welcoming Sabbath with a Shabbat Meal

Most likely when you started looking up resources about observing Sabbath, you came across this term “shabbat meal” and the items used during that meal such as challah bread. This meal is traditionally used by the Jews to welcome in a 24-hour period of rest.

The liturgy, food, blessings, and items used during the shabbat meal are not found in scripture, but they are beautiful, symbolic, and meaningful traditions passed down from one generation to the next.

As I contemplated what our weekly practice of Sabbath would look like, I knew I wanted the richness of the shabbat meal to be part of it. The shabbat meal focuses on community coming together to celebrate the goodness of their Creator as they welcomed His gift of rest. I believed that incorporating such an intentional beginning to our Sabbath would mark it as something different from every other day of the week.

But, I didn’t want to simply copy the traditions of the Jewish culture, especially since their celebration of Sabbath doesn’t include recognition that Jesus is our Sabbath rest.

So, I took which components I appreciated and wrote a liturgy for us to follow to help us make this time intentional for our family. A liturgy is simply a script or a structure around a specific practice. 

There were a few components I wanted to incorporate into our shabbat meal:

1. A time of remembrance 
2. A time of reflection
3. A time of rejoicing
4. A time of blessing

We utilize candles as they are great visual reminders and some other items but overall the “formal” parts of our shabbat meal are kept simple and intentional.

If you would like to incorporate a family meal to kick off your Sabbath, I would suggest simply starting with the liturgy that I created. Once you get into the hang of it, you can adjust which components you want to include within your shabbat meal.