Shabbat with Friends Blog

Six Stories from my Sabbath Table   Shared by Rabbi Dov Gartenberg   2025 End of Year Campaign in Support of Shabbat with Friends NM   A Sixth Story from My Sabbath Table   Wednesday, December 31, 2025   When I first arrived in Juneau, Alaska in 2011, I offered a Hebrew class at the small local synagogue, Sukkat Shalom. Twenty people signed up—almost all of them members of the shul, except for one. His name was  Richard Dauenhauer , and from the very first session it was clea

Six Stories from my Sabbath Table   Shared by Rabbi Dov Gartenberg   2025 End of Year Campaign in Support of Shabbat with Friends NM     A Fifth Story from my Sabbath Table.    Monday, December 29, 2025   *Lesser Known Usage: The rain roof of a Sukkah used in wet climates.   Rabbi Akiba Aiger (German 18 th  century) used to be very strict about the mitzvah of hospitality-(hachnasat orchim). Once on Shabbat one of the guests happened to spill a cup of wine. The clean white tab

Six Stories from my Sabbath Table   Shared by Rabbi Dov Gartenberg   2025 End of Year Campaign in Support of Shabbat with Friends NM     A Fourth Story from my Sabbath Table.   Tuesday, December 30, 2025     יְהִי בֵיתְךָ בֵית וַעַד לַחֲכָמִים, וֶהֱוֵי מִתְאַבֵּק בַּעֲפַר רַגְלֵיהֶם, וֶהֱוֵי שׁוֹתֶה בְצָמָא אֶת דִּבְרֵיהֶם:    Yose ben Yoezer used to say: let thy house be a house of meeting for the Sages and sit in the very dust of their feet, and drink in their words with th

Six Stories from my Sabbath Table   Shared by Rabbi Dov Gartenberg   2025 End of Year Campaign in Support of Shabbat with Friends NM     A Third Story from my Sabbath Table.   Motzei Shabbat-After Shabbat, Saturday Night, December 27, 2025  In the summer of 1977, after working as a camp counselor at Camp Ramah in Ojai, California, my friend and co-counselor, Jonathan Jacoby, invited me to his parents’ home for Shabbat lunch. I knew his parents were Holocaust survivors from Hu