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Shabbat Doesn’t Need a Spectacle — It Needs a Table

The Western Wall and Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

This fall, a group of organizers in New York are planning to break a world record: 3,000 guests gathered at the Javits Center for what they hope will be the largest Shabbat dinner ever held.

The event, dubbed The Big Shabbat, promises grandeur — a reproduction of Jerusalem’s Western Wall for participants to place written prayers, clergy-led blessings from partner synagogues, a raffle for a free trip to Israel (where the raffle winner will deliver the notes), and a lineup of unnamed “celebrities” and “wow moments.”

The goal, organizers say, is to send a message of unity, joy, and Jewish pride in a time of fear and uncertainty. With antisemitism on the rise and Jewish identity under pressure, it makes sense to want to create something big, bold, and inspiring.

But there’s something deeply gauche about trying to put New York’s Jewish community into the Guinness Book of World Records in the name of Shabbat.

Shabbat isn’t a marketing stunt. It’s a spiritual inheritance — one of Judaism’s oldest, most intimate, and most consistent rituals. Shabbat doesn’t need to be performed. It needs to be practiced.

“With every passing week, it is more and more important that Jewish people feel they have common spaces to come together over the aspects of our culture that unify us,” said food writer Sara Sussman, one of the voices supporting the event. “Shabbat dinner for the initiated is a huge source of comfort and succor and joy.” She’s absolutely right — and that is precisely why we must treat Shabbat not as spectacle, but as sacred.

Shabbat’s power is not found in “wow moments” or celebrity appearances. It doesn’t need a stage or a spotlight. What it needs is a table — a place to pause, to reconnect, and to belong. For millennia, Shabbat dinner has been the bedrock of Jewish continuity. The candles, the challah, the singing, the blessings — these weren’t one-off extravaganzas. They were weekly rituals, lovingly repeated across generations and geography. They formed a rhythm. They created memory.

Even the more well-meaning elements of The Big Shabbat risk missing the mark. The organizers plan to distribute a “Shabbat Box” to guests — a curated kit to help them recreate the evening at home. The intention is good. But it’s easy to imagine how quickly this could feel more like promotional swag than a spiritual tool. Boxes don’t build tradition. People do — around shared meals, in quiet rituals, week after week.

If we truly care about Jewish continuity, let’s invest not in one-time performances, but in helping Jews across the country build lasting habits. Support families who want to host Shabbat but don’t know how. Help synagogues create regular community dinners, especially for the unaffiliated or disconnected. Offer Jewish students the resources to invite friends into Friday night rituals. Train lay leaders to be Shabbat hosts in their neighborhoods and campuses. These efforts may not go viral — but they go deep. That’s what endures, and that is what we as a Jewish community should be championing.

To be fair, public Jewish events can play a role — especially in times of fear, where simply showing up as a Jew in a shared space carries weight. A well-executed event may spark curiosity or make someone feel less alone. But we confuse visibility with vitality at our peril. A convention center packed with Jews isn’t a sign of religious health if it’s detached from actual, weekly Jewish living.

Israel offers a compelling contrast. There, Shabbat dinner isn’t an event. It’s a norm. It’s woven into the rhythms of life across secular and religious lines alike. You don’t need to be observant to participate — you just need to show up. There’s no celebrity necessary. The invitation is enough. The expectation is cultural. That’s the model we should be following: a culture of inclusion, not illusion.

There’s another concern, too. When we reproduce the sacred — such as a replica of the Western Wall — and pair it with a raffle and a prize trip, we risk turning a place of personal prayer into something gimmicky. The Kotel is sacred because generations have wept and whispered there. Because people arrive on their own terms, in search of something larger than themselves. Sacredness can’t be manufactured. Awe doesn’t come with a promotional hashtag.

The deeper risk is that efforts like this condition younger Jews to associate Jewish life with one-off “experiences,” rather than embedded practices. The future of Jewish identity won’t be secured by intermittent inspiration. It will be sustained by reliable community — by rituals that are passed on, taken up, and made one’s own.

Let’s imagine a different kind of investment. What if the dollars and energy being poured into a one-night dinner went instead toward seeding thousands of Shabbat tables across New York — and beyond? Tables in homes, in synagogues, in Hillels and Moishe Houses, in college apartments and empty-nester kitchens. Tables where children learn the blessings, where friends sing together off-key, where newcomers feel welcome, and where candles are lit not for the camera, but for memory.

As groups like One Table already know, Shabbat doesn’t need to be made spectacular. It already is — in its simplicity, its beauty, its weekly return. What it needs now is not more wow. It needs more why. It needs more who. And it needs more homes, families, and communities committed to doing the work of continuity — not as a one-night statement, but as a lifelong rhythm.

Our task is not to break records; it’s to break bread.

Samuel J. Abrams is a professor of politics at Sarah Lawrence College, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and a scholar with the Sutherland Institute. 

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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War

Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa

Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.

Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.

“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”

GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’

Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.

“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.

“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.

“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.

After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”

RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL

Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”

Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.

“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.

She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”

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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests

A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco

Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.

People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.

“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”

Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.

On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.

Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.

On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.

“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.

Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.

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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan

Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas

Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.

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