Longest Shabbat

It is 4:40pm on Friday afternoon and I am lounging around as if it is Tuesday. I have plenty of time! Just three days from the Summer Solstice, candle lighting in our neck of the woods is not until 8:30pm. But you would think I would know by now that there is NEVER enough time to get ready for Shabbat whether it is winter and candle lighting is closer to 3:30 in the afternoon or you live in the Arctic, as I once did , and in the summer it is closer to mid-night.

Truthfully I find the late Shabbats much harder than the earlier ones. Sure I complain vociferously in January when I have to cook starting no later than Wednesday and I am arriving home within 15 minutes of candle lightening even when I take the absolute earliest bus from the city. Despite the grousing, it is fun, we are all in it together. We are a little club with a common mission, trudging through the snow to get our last minute ingredients. And as soon as Shabbat starts, it is over as quickly. Havadalah and then there is time for a movie, and I am not talking a 10:15pm show! A reasonably time show - one where you can be home and in bed by 10:15pm.

So with my late Shabbat today, once my cooking is done (assuming I get off this couch), Yair and I plan to wander to the other side of the golf course and listen to the FREE Jazz in the Woods concert. We will be able to hear two hours of it before we need to come home to daven and light. There will be no Saturday night movie this week, but we will still have a good time. When we walk into the house we will be welcomed with a scrumptious meal of kebab and rice with African peanut sauce.

Next week, Shabbat is almost equally as late. I think a few hours of swimming in the Delaware River is in order! See you Up-Camp!