The Compleat And Actual Adventures of Marcella White Campbell

I knit a kippah.

Jews (some) wear kippot (skullcaps) at varying times (if they wear them at all). Some wear them all the time. Some wear them only to pray, or only at Passover, or only in synagogue. I don’t usually wear one at all — I feel self-conscious because most women don’t. I am going to wear this one, though, because I made it myself, for me.

I knit most of my kippah on the Sabbath. We’ve recently begun trying to keep the Sabbath more — well, not more, but better.

The Sabbath, the seventh day of the Jewish week, begins at sundown on Friday and lasts until sundown on Saturday. It is a day of rest in honor of the seventh day of creation, when, according to Genesis, God rested. During that time, an exhaustive list of activities are forbidden, including work, turning on light switches, and cooking. One attends both evening and morning services at the synagogue, and eats a festive Friday night meal and a cold lunch on Saturday.

As the lady of the house, the way I have traditionally kept the sabbath is to race home on Friday with a challah under one arm, either prepare a multi-course meal or order something, sweatily throw food on the table, and then…light the Shabbat evening candles, setting the stage for a few moments of peace.

We bless the kids, bless the wine, bless the bread, and have even gotten to the point where everyone will sit reasonably still during Birkat Hamazon, the blessing after the meal. Then, after possibly singing a Shabbat-related song, we start running around again, trying to get people to brush their teeth and put on their pajamas and stop using Google Maps Street View to pretend to be a 31 Balboa going inbound.

The moment of peace is lost, and I’m hyperventilating again. As far as I was concerned, the Sabbath was about me working like mad to make a day of rest for everyone else.

I just finished a very interesting book by one of the founders of Jewish Renewal, Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi. He suggests that, instead of discarding “old-fashioned” rules and rituals, Jews find ways to breathe new life into them, trying to see the restrictions as fluid boundaries that we may or may not choose to transgress, and incorporating new traditions. (He has no opinion on run-on sentences.) I liked this idea, so I went for it.

Friday night two weeks ago, I took the youngest around the house before bed and we lit candles in every room, welcoming the Sabbath with as much light as possible. That night, the kids fell asleep by candlelight. In the morning, we put STOP signs on the TV and the computer, but we did not forbid the little one to go to his soccer game. (We didn’t drive there, however, but took the bus.) We did listen to music or play musical instruments if we felt like it. We used the coffee grinder and the bathroom light.

I decided, if I was going to knit, to knit something on a Jewish theme, so I knit a kippah. At one point, the kids were playing a board game on the floor while the adults dozed on the couch, and I thought, groggily, “Shabbat is awesome.”

I am normally a very frantic person, but I felt pretty calm on Shabbat, to the point of napping, something I can generally only do when ten months pregnant. I can honestly say we spent quality time together as a family, just hanging out and chatting and snoring. (Alarmingly, Facebook got along just fine without me.)

In short, Shabbat A+++++++. Would observe again.

(Pattern: A Kippah To Knit by Donna Druchunas, knit in Koigu KPPM. A very lovely and straightforward pattern with excellent results. I wanted to knit it on two circs, but I did not have enough circs.)