The Rise of The Challah Mom

There was a time shortly after the pandemic began that we experienced a yeast shortage. Everyone was at home, and everyone began to bake bread. It wasn’t just any bread though, it was the sourdough that took off to deal with the lack of yeast. People have been making sourdough breads for generations and generations, possibly our great grandmothers were making such breads in the old country. I too, attempted to make a sourdough starter, time and time again but completely failed.

It was then that I turned to the bread that I knew would sustain me, and not only would it sustain me….it would help define the rise of The Challah Mom.

I didn’t grow up in a traditional family, Challah was something we ate on high holidays, or it was our sandwich bread, but it wasn’t part of our Shabbat experience. In fact it wasn’t until I was married that I first attempted to make Challah. If my husband was here he would tell you that my first attempt at challah yielded a solid rock hard chunk of bread that would have broken a window if you threw it. I have come a long way.

A Journey of Baking and Self-Discovery

I began to make Challah bread as a way to regulate myself in a time of darkness, uncertainty and a moment in my life where I became very introspective. I began to look at the process of making challah with different eyes. This wasn’t just any bread, it was the culmination of what appeared to be random ingredients. With careful measurement, attention and some technique I was able to transform something ordinary and make it extraordinary.

Challah is the gateway to my social media platform. When I take simple ingredients, universal ingredients, I can also introduce universal topics, challenges and struggles.

Haven’t you ever yearned for something? Lost? Failed? Triumphed? Have you ever broken down in tears? Or cried from extreme gratitude? Have you ever dared to take a journey not knowing where it will take you, but you knew not taking it would shrink a part of your soul, and that shrinking would feel like a betrayal?

These were the universal messages I started to share on my platform all while making Challah. I found that I could talk about anything. Whether it was my love of Israel, Jewish Joy, body image, personal growth, or my most recent aliyah (move to Israel). I could do it while making Challah.

I understood that in life we are given some universal ingredients and we are tasked with bringing them together to make something of our lives. Our circumstances are different, no different than the environment of the bread we are baking. Sometimes we have to adjust to ensure we have the best chance of rising and reaching our full potential. For me, changing my environment by coming to Israel helped develop parts of myself that I never knew had more room for expansion. It was as if the little air pockets of my souls were now being infused with oxygen and I was able to go on an epic spiritual flight throughout Israel.

Challah: A Gateway to Connection

It was in the trials and tribulations, the epic failures, the challahs that were too dense, or overproofed, the challahs that took no shape or had little flavor that I started to use this simple, basic art of making bread to create the connection I so craved in my life.

I knew I couldn’t be the only one struggling. I knew I wasn’t the only person who dared to expand their consciousness and reach for a dream, reach for a life different than the one presented to them. I knew I wasn’t the only one trying, failing and trying again to make something of themselves. Challah let me express all of that.

It doesn’t escape me that breaking bread together, having people enjoy my challah at their tables create conversation and deep connection of community and bridging hearts and souls together. The gesture of passing the challah, is a gesture of belonging. So many times we try to perfect a recipe, just like we try to perfect our appearance, our resumes, our homes, our families….all to fit in. Yet I can be in a room with 100 women making challah and no one bread will look like the other. I can share the same methodology and the same technique and still it will come out differently. Because sometimes we get so caught up in fitting in that we forget we were never meant to, but we were always meant to belong.

Just as breaking bread fosters a sense of camaraderie and kinship, so too does the cultivation of meaningful relationships, and community serve as a cornerstone of personal growth. In the company of others, we find solace in shared experiences, draw strength from collective wisdom, and derive new perspectives that enrich our journey towards self-discovery and self actualization. We can feel a sense of belonging when we can just be ourselves and have a shared experience with the simplest of life’s ingredients.

More Than Just a Recipe: A Journey of Growth

I mentioned that Challah became the gateway for my social media platform. I realized that in being vulnerable and exposing my inner thoughts, my introspection I could reach more people. I remember thinking how if only I could sit together with everyone and break bread, we could learn to build peace. I remember experiencing all four seasons in Israel. I saw how the fields were harvested, planted, pruned, the wheat was gathered and I could go to the store and purchase a variety of different flours. I realized that I needed to adjust myself to these new ingredients, they were different than what I was used to. The world became different from what I was used to.

I learned to take the tools and techniques of what worked when I made Challah in Canada and applied them to Israel. The conditions were different, so I adjusted, but the ingredients were the same. Love, Faith, Courage, Openness, Unity, Strength, Hope.

What Challah taught me was that anywhere you make it, it will always turn out differently. Because when your environment changes, so to, do you change. Sometimes the conditions aren’t ideal, and you need to adjust, be flexible, and be open to change. But what if the recipe turns out better, what if there was always a missing ingredient that you never knew existed that you finally realized was always there. What if you realized the ingredient that was always the same but ever changing was YOU.

The Recipe of Life: Embrace the Unexpected

You ultimately make the Challah, you ultimately make your life. You can do your best to set the right conditions, go to the right school, marry the right person, live in the right community but you can’t control everything. You miss things, you mess up things, YOU change things. And nothing is the SAME. Rather than thinking about everything that could go wrong...did you ever consider thinking about everything that could go right? Can you consider that what was a mistake, was a redirection and a change in the recipe of life that made the outcome different, maybe better?

I guess what I’m saying is we all are tasked with taking these basic ingredients and depending on the intention we set and the circumstances we find ourselves in, we still have the ability to take something ordinary and make it extraordinary. We can learn from Challah that we can not only nourish our bodies with this soulful food, but we can nourish our souls, with the key ingredients of LIFE.