Parshas Chayei Sarah: Real Men Bake Lechem
When Sarah passed away, the miracles of her tent left with her, the Shabbos candles that stayed lit from week to week, the challah that never went stale, and the cloud of Hashem’s presence that hovered above.
Later in the parsha, when Rivka enters the tent, those blessings return.
Bread, light, and presence come alive again.
Later in the parsha, when Rivka enters the tent, those blessings return.
Bread, light, and presence come alive again.
Those miracles weren’t random. They were the life that rose from within her, steady and warm and generous, shaping the home in ways only presence can. That is the spirit of Chayei Sarah, life that keeps living.
Her name change itself tells the story. Sarai ended with a Yud, small and self-contained. Sarah ends with a Hey, open and expansive, a blessing meant to flow outward, her reach stretching far beyond her own time and space.
Every Jewish woman, in her own quiet way, carries that spark forward, creating warmth, presence, and light in the spaces around her. Whether she is consciously trying or not, her influence lingers.
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My own baking story began early.
I see it in my wife.
Not only in the candles she lights each Friday, but in the way she reads the room, senses what is missing, and fills it softly.
Her light often guides me back to my own.-----
My own baking story began early.
Growing up surrounded by a bunch of sisters and a mother who was always baking meant I spent plenty of time in the kitchen too. Cakes and cookies were within my comfort zone. The challah though, that was all them.
Sourdough came much later. Like half the world, I started during Covid.
By the third week she had quietly stepped back, and I was the one back in the kitchen, hands deep in dough, inviting her in only to make the Bracha of Hafrashas Challah.
Looking back, I realize she saw something I didn’t. She noticed I needed a grounding rhythm, something alive that would bring me back to center.
Working with flour and water and salt became a kind of spiritual avodah, a reminder that patience and presence can bring life out of stillness, the way roots grow in the dark before any greenery breaks the surface.
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And just like that, the rhythms we tend become the rhythms we pass on.
Most weeks I bake alone. Some weeks my boys join me in the kitchen and help with a few of the steps.
We talk, we sing, we breathe.
That, to me, is what real tradition looks like.
Not only strict recipes or inherited chumros, but living practices that stay alive from one generation to the next, the smells, the textures, the memories.
The small things that turn a house into a home and keep its blessings from going stale.
Real men learn from Sarah, not just from Avraham.
Real men tend to their inner light.
Real men nourish what needs to grow.
Real men create safety and space.
Real men guard the blessing of the home.
Wishing you a Shabbos of warm kitchens, glowing candles, and bread that is always delicious.
Good Shabbos,
Berke 🩵
Sourdough came much later. Like half the world, I started during Covid.
It became a quiet ritual, feeding and folding and waiting, but eventually life picked up again and I stopped.
Last year my wife asked me to start baking again.
Last year my wife asked me to start baking again.
I told her I didn’t have the time or patience. She smiled and said, “Fine, then you teach me.” (and what man can resist the chance to mansplain?).
By the third week she had quietly stepped back, and I was the one back in the kitchen, hands deep in dough, inviting her in only to make the Bracha of Hafrashas Challah.
Looking back, I realize she saw something I didn’t. She noticed I needed a grounding rhythm, something alive that would bring me back to center.
Working with flour and water and salt became a kind of spiritual avodah, a reminder that patience and presence can bring life out of stillness, the way roots grow in the dark before any greenery breaks the surface.
-----
That same rhythm spilled into another corner of life.
It’s been six months since my last dentist visit.
This morning I went for a cleaning and got to thank the hygienist who unknowingly set a quiet chain of blessings in my life.
Blessings still show up quietly, the same way they did in Sarah’s tent, not with thunder or fire, but in the ordinary moments that stay warm and alive.
Tomorrow marks day 148 of wrapping Tefillin, not counting Shabbos and Yom Tov.
148 = קמח (flour).
אם אין קמח אין תורה, אם אין תורה אין קמח.
A person needs both, nourishment for the body, nourishment for the soul.
Bread is heart. Torah is life.-----
And just like that, the rhythms we tend become the rhythms we pass on.
Most weeks I bake alone. Some weeks my boys join me in the kitchen and help with a few of the steps.
We talk, we sing, we breathe.
That, to me, is what real tradition looks like.
Not only strict recipes or inherited chumros, but living practices that stay alive from one generation to the next, the smells, the textures, the memories.
The small things that turn a house into a home and keep its blessings from going stale.
Real men learn from Sarah, not just from Avraham.
Real men tend to their inner light.
Real men nourish what needs to grow.
Real men create safety and space.
Real men guard the blessing of the home.
Wishing you a Shabbos of warm kitchens, glowing candles, and bread that is always delicious.
Good Shabbos,
Berke 🩵
