Finding Serenity in Shabbat
- aswrittenmagazine
- Nov 22, 2020
- 3 min read
By Sydney Hilbush
While the year 2020 has been overwhelming in its unpredictability, it has been a year that has similarly reconnected me to grounding aspects of my life that I had never previously considered pivotal to my well-being. During this time of grave uncertainty, I massively overlooked the importance of traditions, both new and old, in keeping me connected to my religion, my friends and family, and even myself. Amidst the chaos of the pandemic and the turbulence of 2020 as a whole, I have found a certain type of internal peace through my newfound relationship with Judaism and the weekly traditions I have begun to embrace.
As a reform Jew, while I always celebrate Jewish holidays with my family, Judaism has never been something that has easily translated into my friendships. I grew up attending predominantly white, Christian schools where people were only excited to celebrate Judaism during bar and bat mitzvahs. My teachers were confused by my absences during the high holidays, and my attempt to explain certain Jewish traditions to my classmates were often met with furrowed brows. I developed the need to keep my Judaism hidden away during school hours to avoid questions I couldn’t answer and comments I felt embarrassed by. Judaism quickly became something I only embraced in the comfort of my home and in the presence of my family.
When arriving at UC Berkeley, I was initially overwhelmed by the size and pride of the Jewish community on campus. I had never been surrounded by a group of peers who felt so emboldened by their religion, and it took me some time to take part in their embrace. After joining Greek life, an organization notorious for its white, Christian hegemony, I was surprised to find that the majority of girls I was meeting were Jewish. We immediately bonded over certain aspects of Judaism that I had never shared with my high school classmates, and for the first time in my life, I felt comfortable both embracing my religion and asking questions about it.
Before college, Jewish traditions were something I celebrated almost exclusively with my family. As a reform Jewish household, we rarely observed Shabbat and only ate Jewish foods during the holidays. However, surrounding myself with a friend group of mostly Jews at Berkeley allowed me to create new weekly traditions that revolved around our shared religion and collective appreciation for Jewish delicacies. During the second semester of my freshman year, my friends introduced me to Hillel and walked with me to Friday night Shabbats and Wednesday night Barbeques when I was afraid to go alone. When the pandemic struck and we could no longer congregate inside, we began bringing our Shabbat dinners to Memorial Glade to continue the Jewish celebratory feast in a safe, socially-distanced manner.
Through weekly Shabbat dinners with my friends, even in times of fraught unpredictability, Judaism itself has become a weekly tradition for me. I feel grounded by my religion and empowered by my friends, and among the turbulence of a pandemic, midterms, and an election cycle, I have found stillness and harmony with my new Jewish traditions. Regardless of the chaos happening around me, knowing that I can walk to Hillel every Friday night to pick up a Shabbat dinner fills me with gratitude and a paramount sense of certainty in a gravely uncertain world.
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