This Rosh Hashanah, my daughter sits next to me for the entire three-hour service, which baffles me for several reasons. The first being that we are members of a Reform Congregation, and growing up conservative, I always thought Reform meant shorter and easier. However, what is more noteworthy is that my daughter is seven and all her religious school friends are in the childcare room watching Bluey (one of her favorites, and mine too if I’m being honest). As the choir begins its opening song, I whisper to Ruthie that she can join her friends whenever she wants. 

The time speeds by. 

She loves turning the pages and singing the prayers and even swaying and bowing at the correct places. I try to imagine services from her perspective. Music and singing, something resembling a little bit of choreography and dance. New characters on the bima. Ruthie loves her Disney musicals and her chapter books that always have a dilemma, a moral, and a good measure of humor. “When the Torah comes by, you’re supposed to kiss it,” she tells me as the ark opens. I ask her why even though I know the answer. “For respect,” she pauses, “and love.” I can feel the tears of awe and joy huddled in the corners of my eyes. 

So how did this happen? 

I remember back to my childhood, sitting between my mother and grandma. My mom counting the pages until the end, my grandmother slipping me little gems of hard candy to help pass the time. The only magic I had ever felt was when Cantor Goddesman sang. She was the daughter of our former cantor and in a rock band in San Francisco and wasn’t really a cantor except on the high holidays. But besides that, Judaism was an obligation. Something we did to make grandma and grandpa happy. Jewish services and holidays were something that we attended but never created. Much of that would change for me at Jewish summer camp, BBYO, and Hillel, but that’s a story for another time. 

Flash forward to me becoming a mother. 

My grandparents had all passed before I married, and my mom didn’t live nearby, nor had the sense of matriarch like my grandma had. However, my mom gave me a copy of Beth Ricanati’s Braided for Hanukkah, December 2020. My pandemic sourdough project has been a failure, and challah seemed like it would satisfy my craving for baking bread, creating Jewish ritual, and marking time. 

Ruthie and I made our first challah January 1, 2021. 

She was almost 2 ½. Me with a little trepidation, her with mostly curiosity. Grandma’s red mixing bowl gives me the calm and sense of authority I lack. Even though challah wasn’t in her repertoire, the red bowl makes me feel like I was less alone. I swore we’d always make plain challah and do everything by hand, just like Ricanati suggested. 

Keep the ritual simple and mindful. 

That lasts for a few weeks. I start following challah makers on social media and love the idea of wildly colored and flavored challahs. We come up with something new each week. I write down our ideas, what worked, what could be improved upon, and snippets of our lives. 

One day, a friend of mine who had been hearing about our baking told me I should start my own challah instagram. I did and friends and family near and far followed along. 

We built the Jewish community and connections I had been seeking. 

Each week, we give away our extra challah and always infuse blessings and hopes into it. Prayers for the sick, celebrations of births and milestones. Many times, peace and love. As Ruthie grows and more people want challah, we start using Grandma’s yellow KitchenAid mixer. A day-long process turned into refrigerator rises when school days grow longer and more frequent. She watches tv and snacks more while I measure and mix, knead and braid. But even though she wasn’t hopping up on the counter to help, she was lighting Shabbat candles and saying the blessings every week. 

This Rosh Hashanah, Ruthie picks an apple-filled challah and writes our intentions on the gallon-sized bag. 

Then she surprises me and tells me we need to ask the other families who are coming for their wishes for 5786. She takes the Sharpie and writes them. She does the same thing on the first Shabbat after the holidays when she invites a friend from school over. I love how our ritual both stays the same and evolves. 

After services, so many people come up to both Ruthie and me and comment on her great focus during the entire high holiday service. I know what some of them were really wondering: 

How did I do it?

Besides offering the wisdom of letting your child sit in the first row for an unobstructed view, the answer really begins with that first challah that set us on this journey of over 260 Shabbats since then. Our prayers began wordless. With hands and hearts making something neither of us could have imagined. Now we’re standing next to each other, sharing a prayer book, singing the same blessings our ancestors have sang, and I think back to those offerings Ruthie had written: health, peace, love, kindness, compassion, and grace, and I know, this is what we have been braiding together all of these years.