Keeping the Rosh Hashanah Table Full When Life Changes

Rosh Hashanah has a funny way of reminding us that the calendar keeps moving, even when we sometimes wish we could pause it.

This year, our children were both away, and my parents are gone (and that never really gets easier). Our dear friends Carol and Abe normally celebrate with us—but this year, Abe has recently undergone a kidney transplant and needs to be especially careful about infection and stay home.

So, for a moment, the prospect of Rosh Hashanah felt a little…quiet.

And then we came up with an idea: a food swap.

It turns out that sharing a holiday meal doesn't necessarily require everyone to sit around the same table.

Carol prepared her famous brisket, along with all the trimmings. I made a cucumber and pomegranate salad, asparagus, chicken with olives and apricots and a cauliflower kugel. The kugel is partly because Abe and I still need to watch what we eat to take care of our kidneys—and partly because I am a self-admitted bad cook who apparently enjoys taking on culinary challenges at precisely the moments when there are expectations involved.

I do, however, love to read recipes. Specifically, I love to read recipes in The New York Times, where everything sounds completely delicious and where the comments section may be the greatest crowdsourced cookbook ever created. I routinely read the recipe, then read 147 comments from people who have made it and improved it, substituted ingredients, changed the cooking time, or added a tip from their grandmother.

So I feel reasonably confident that I am not actually cooking alone. I'm cooking with the collective wisdom of the internet.

And then there were the challahs.

We each bought a round Rosh Hashanah challah from our favorite bakery so we could conduct a very serious and completely unscientific challah taste test. Because if you're going to swap holiday meals, you might as well introduce a little competition.

The best part is that this little exchange covered us for both Erev Rosh Hashanah and the first-day meal. One friend cooked one meal, another cooked another, and suddenly we have two holiday dinners to look forward to instead of wondering how to make a holiday feel festive when so many of the people who usually fill it aren't here.

And I decided that this year's table deserves my parents' china.

My mother loved her china. She just rarely used it. I’m not sure my dad ever ate from it.

This was not because they didn't appreciate it. Quite the opposite. They had multiple beautiful, hand-painted sets from France and loved them all. The problem was that my mother never entertained on a small scale. When she had people over, she invited dozens. And when you are feeding dozens of people, the thought of washing all those hand-painted plates, glasses and serving pieces afterward can take some of the shine off the whole experience.

In retrospect, I know she would have hired help.

She also had dozens of sets of cloth napkins, many of which had never seen a table.

I eventually managed to convert her. Toward the end of her life, I convinced her that perhaps the good china and the cloth napkins were not waiting for some mythical special occasion that was going to arrive someday. We started using them.

Now I use their china for Rosh Hashanah and any other holiday or dinner party, which makes the meal feel a little more connected to the people who aren't here to celebrate with us.

My parents’ absence is felt most keenly around holidays, when the rhythms of family life seem to echo a little louder. And our holiday community has always been a little eclectic.

We live in Washington, DC, in the shadow of the National Cathedral and within walking distance of two synagogues. We belong to neither.

We feel less connected to our synagogue community in Potomac where we raised our kids, after moving into the city years ago. But, thanks to COVID, we've discovered another option. We stream the service.

It isn't the same as being in synagogue, of course. There is something meaningful about being surrounded by a congregation, hearing the familiar prayers together and knowing that everyone is moving through the same rituals at the same time.

But streaming has its advantages.

We can stay in our pajamas. We can drink coffee. We don't have to arrive ridiculously early to get our preferred seats. And we don't have to take the shuttle bus from the nearby elementary school because our synagogue's parking lot is approximately the size of a generous driveway and has never been designed for the number of cars that Rosh Hashanah produces.

Some traditions are sacred. Some are negotiable. I am perfectly happy to not negotiate the parking lot.

In some ways, this food swap reminds me of the early days of COVID, when we were all trying to figure out how to remain connected while physically apart. We left meals on doorsteps. We shared recipes. We dropped off soup and cookies and whatever else seemed capable of carrying a little affection from one household to another.

Those meals were sometimes bittersweet. We were learning how to create community when we couldn't gather.

This feels different. We're not isolated. We're simply in a different season of life.

And maybe that's one of the things I love most about holidays: they give us a reason to keep showing up for each other, even when "showing up" looks different than it used to.

There was still brisket. There was still chicken and kugel. There was still round challah, because we are nothing if not committed to symbolism—and carbohydrates. There wiere apples and honey and wishes for a sweet new year.

And there was a little less noise than there once was.

But there was also generosity. Friendship. A meal made with someone else in mind. A text asking, "Did you try the challah yet?" And the knowledge that even when we can't all be together, we can still make sure that no one is celebrating alone.

Maybe that's the real food swap.

We aren't just exchanging dishes. We're reminding each other that the table can stretch. That traditions can change without disappearing. That an empty chair doesn't mean an empty heart. That honoring the people who aren't here doesn't mean we have to spend the holiday being sad about their absence.

And that community isn't always about being in the same room.

Sometimes it's a container of brisket sitting on your kitchen counter, waiting to be delivered.

Sometimes it's a cauliflower kugel made by someone who would like the record to show that she is trying.

Sometimes it's two round challahs and a highly subjective judging panel.

Sometimes it's a stack of your parents’ beautiful French china finally getting the use it was always meant to have.

Sometimes it's sitting on the couch in your pajamas, watching a Rosh Hashanah service on your television with a cup of coffee in hand, grateful that technology can bring a little bit of the synagogue into your home—and even more grateful that you don't have to fight for a parking space.

Our families may look different than they once did. Our traditions may look different, too.

But we're still cooking for one another.

We're still setting the table.

We're still making room.

And perhaps that's what a new year asks of us: not to recreate the holidays exactly as they were, but to notice what remains—and to be willing to make something meaningful with what we have now.

Shanah tovah. May the year ahead be sweet, healthy, adaptable, and full of people who continue to feed us in all the ways that matter.