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Braiding Challah

by Rachel Gutin

When my family agreed to take in one of the refugees from Haven 3, I was excited. Sarah was fifteen, just like I was and, even better, she was Jewish too! There were only a few Jewish teens on the ship, and it would be nice to have one more of us.

I knew things wouldn’t be perfect. Taking Sarah in meant sharing my tiny room with her. Once we added the second bed, there would hardly be space to walk between them. Still, I was sure we could make it work.

But my excitement didn’t last for long. The day she arrived, Sarah barely spoke a word to any of us. Every time I asked her a question, she’d nod or shrug or ignore me entirely. That night, she cried herself to sleep, and when I offered her a hug, she cried even harder. I couldn’t figure out how to make her stop.

The next day, she went to school with me. The entire way there, she kept stopping to stare at things. “Come on,” I insisted more than once, but Sarah refused to hurry. She slowed down to run her fingers across a row of hanging planters, then stopped to gaze up at the high ceiling over the park. “We have real clouds back home. Yours aren’t as good.”

“Our clouds are fine.” We’d rescued her from certain death, and here she was, insulting our ship? Not only that, but we were already running late. “Stop looking at them. We don’t have time. We need to get to school.”

And my day didn’t get any easier from there.

At lunch, I had to help Sarah navigate the food court “Everyone gets the same number of meal credits each week, starting on Sunday.” I showed her how to check her balance. “If you run out before the end of the week, you’ll have to eat the tasteless stuff they give out at the free counter.”

Even after I explained all of it, Sarah went straight for the most expensive foods. I had to physically steer her away from the meat stand with a hand around her elbow. “Meat’s only for special meals. Like on Shabbat.” Friday night dinner and Saturday lunch were usually the only times my family ate meat. And even then, my father knew how to make a small piece of it stretch. He’d cook up some chicken soup for dinner, or a hearty beef stew with carrots and potatoes.

I had to explain the bread situation too: flour dust was dangerous in the ship’s ventilation system, so all of our bread had to be baked in the communal bakeries with their specialized air filters. Whether we bought from the bulk batches or reserved some time to bake on our own, it was almost as pricey as the meat was.

By the time we got back to the table, protein bowls in hand, lunch was almost over. I missed Cam’s report on his latest dating disaster, and apparently there’d been some drama during Salim’s chemistry class, but all I caught was something about a neon pink stain on one of the lab benches.

By the end of the day, I was utterly exhausted, and all I wanted to do was disappear into my room and shut the door. But of course, I couldn’t do that. Sarah got there first.

After dinner, I turned to my parents for help, but neither of them was particularly sympathetic. “Give her time,” my mother said. “She just lost everything.”

And I knew that. Of course I did. All of us had heard about how the main dome on Haven 3 cracked open, exposing everyone to the planet’s toxic atmosphere. Sarah had spent three entire weeks in an underground shelter with the other survivors, eating emergency rations and wondering if anyone would rescue them.

And her father hadn’t made it to the shelter in time.

But knowing all of that didn’t make it easier to play host to her.

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Tuesday wasn’t any better. When Audrey messaged me during dinner, inviting me to her place to hang out, I practically got down on my knees to beg for permission, even though it was a school night.

I was shocked when my father agreed right away. “And you should take Sarah,” he said. I could tell it was more than a request.

But half the point of going to hang out with Audrey was that I could finally get away from Sarah. “Audrey’s room is too small,” I insisted. And it was true, wasn’t it? Sure, we could squash three or four of us in there if we really tried, but…

“You’ll make it work,” my mother said.

“But she’ll be bored!”

“That’s enough. Quit braiding challah. Either you take Sarah with you, or you don’t get to go.”

“Fine.” It was clear I’d already lost this argument. “Let’s go, then.” I shoved my chair back and turned toward the door.

“Wait,” Sarah called after me. “Braiding challah? I don’t see any challah.”

I was glad no one saw me roll my eyes. “It’s just a story. Are you coming or not?”

Sarah wasted no time catching up with me at the door. “What do you mean, a story? Where’s the challah?”

I turned left, and led Sarah down the corridor that would take us most of the way to Audrey’s. “No one ever has challah in real life. Not anymore.”

“What are you talking about? I have challah every week.”

Every week? Sarah wasn’t making sense. “But it’s just a story! There’s this baker, and the rabbi, and… and…”

“That’s not the right way to start a story.”

“Excuse me?”

“If you’re gonna tell me a story, you should tell it properly.”

I was so startled by her demand that I nearly walked into a wall screen. Sarah hadn’t asked for a single thing since she arrived, not unless we prompted her. And now, she was getting insistent over a story?

But it was going to take us at least ten minutes to get to Audrey’s. Maybe telling a story would keep Sarah moving so it didn’t take even longer. Besides, I’d heard Rabbi Geselowitz tell this one so many times, I could practically recite it in my sleep. “Fine.”

I stepped aside to let a wheelchair user pass us. I waved to them and to the curly-haired toddler perched on their lap before I started. “In the days when people lived on Earth and knew how to care for our planet, a baker worked hard to make bread for his community. Every Thursday night, he would stay up late, baking enough bread to sell two loaves to each family for Shabbat. And every Saturday morning, he would come to the synagogue for services, but he was always so tired, he’d fall asleep partway through.”

“Wait,” Sarah said. “I think I know this one! Was the rabbi talking about challah in his sermon?”

It was the first time I’d heard Sarah get excited about anything, and I couldn’t help but pick up a little of her enthusiasm for myself. “Yes! Exactly. One Shabbat morning, the rabbi spoke about the special challah the Jews brought to the Holy Temple. They were instructed to make twelve loaves every week.”

“Twelve loaves of beautiful, brown, braided challah,” Sarah chanted.

That wasn’t how Rabbi Geselowitz told the story, and the singsong quality of Sarah’s voice rubbed me the wrong way. “Just let me tell it, would you?”

But I might as well have been talking to a bulkhead because Sarah kept going. “So, he thought he needed to bake twelve loaves of challah for God, and he did. And when he was done, he put them in the holiest place he could think of, the ark where the community kept their Torah scrolls. But…what does that have to do with what your mom said about braiding challah?”

“Well, maybe if you’d let me get to that part…” Even if Sarah knew how the story started, she’d clearly forgotten the ending.

Sarah let out an irritated huff, but at least she let me continue the story. “So, the next Thursday night, instead of baking his usual bread, the baker spent hours and hours making this challah, kneading the dough, and shaping it. And finally, just as the sun was rising, he slid the loaves into his ovens to bake.”

“Hours and hours? Challah doesn’t take that long to make!”

“But the story says—.”

“You’re telling it wrong. Challah’s made like any other bread, and braiding it only takes a few minutes extra!”

“It takes hours,” I insisted.

“It doesn’t! I make it every single week.”

And here we were again, with Sarah going on and on about how challah was real when none of us had made it for generations. “You’re lying!”

“Every week. With my father.”

Her voice caught, and I could tell she was about to cry. Hoping to distract her, I scrambled to tell the next part of the story “So… so anyway, he brought the challah to the synagogue early Friday morning. He opened the ark, and he laid the loaves out inside it.

“Later that day, another man came into the synagogue. This time, it was the man who cleaned it. And this cleaner, he had a large family back home, and they never quite had enough to eat.

“So, every Friday when he came to clean, he prayed to God for help. And this Friday, he—.”

“He opened the ark, and there was the challah!”

At least she’d stopped crying, I tried to tell myself. But I had to struggle not to grimace at yet another interruption. “Yes. Exactly. So, he thanked God for this miracle, and he took the challah home, and he was able to feed his entire family.”

If Sarah knew this story, why was I even telling it? “So, this went on for weeks, every single Friday. But the baker was getting more and more tired. And he was baking less and less of his regular bread. Other members of the community couldn’t get the bread they needed, because the baker kept on running out.”

At this, Sarah stopped abruptly, and I made it five steps past her before I realized she wasn’t following me anymore. When I turned back to find out what had made her stop, she said, “You’re telling it all wrong.”

We’d reached the turn-off for Audrey’s corridor. I didn’t have much time to finish the story. And I was more than fed up with Sarah’s interruptions. “I’m telling it right. Just listen.” I was determined to finish the story before we arrived at Audrey’s door. “One Friday morning, the rabbi figured out what was happening. She made the baker stay and watch until the cleaner came to pick up the challah. ‘You helped one person in need,’ the rabbi told him, ‘But in the process, you harmed everyone else. You’re wasting your time braiding all that challah. You need to use your resources more efficiently.’

“So that’s where the saying comes from. Braiding challah. Wasting time.”

Sarah glowered at me. “It’s not a waste of time. And that’s not how the story goes.”

“That’s exactly how it goes. Word for word.”

But Sarah turned away from me and stormed off down the corridor, back in the direction we’d just come from.

“Wait!” I really didn’t want to chase her down, but I knew I’d get into huge trouble with my parents if I didn’t.

“Have fun with your friend,” she called over her shoulder. She turned a corner and disappeared. I knew I should probably chase after her, but both of us were old enough to make our own decision. So, I continued to Audrey’s without her.

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After that, Sarah went off on her own more and more often.

On Thursday afternoon, she disappeared right after school ended and stayed away for hours. For the first time since she’d arrived, I did my homework in my room, at my desk, with no one else there to bother me. And when she finally got back, just in time for dinner, she was smiling—actually smiling.

That night, she even slept without crying. I began to think that maybe this could work out after all.

But when I got home from school on Friday afternoon, my father was waiting for me, and he didn’t look happy. “Where’s Sarah?”

“How should I know?”

“You need to keep better track of her.”

“Since when? I’m not her babysitter.”

At this, my father made a huffing noise, and allowed his shoulders to slump just a bit. “I know, but Sarah’s still learning her way around.”

“And she’d doing fine! I don’t see what the issue is. She’s crying less and exploring more, and—.”

“She used up all her food credits.”

“Wait, what?”

“I went to buy our food for Shabbat, and her account’s completely empty. The rest of us will have to stretch our credits to cover her until Sunday.”

But… “That doesn’t make any sense. I explained the whole thing to her! And I’ve been with her at every meal.” And now, the rest of us would have to cover her? I knew exactly what that meant. No special foods this Shabbat. Definitely no meat. All the time I’d spent helping her learn her way around, and this was how she repaid me? “Maybe you can try explaining.” I was sick and tired of being responsible for her.

“Explaining what?”

I whirled around, and there she was, standing in the half-open doorway, clutching a food sack too tightly in her hands.

“Nothing. Ask him.” I gestured toward my father.

But Sarah didn’t ask anything. “I brought you all something. For Shabbat?”

A gift. In a food sack.

That was where her credits had gone.

My father accepted the sealed bag from her and set it down on the table. “We… appreciate it.”

“No, we don’t,” I blurted.

“Dalya!”

I whirled back around to face my father. “No. You can’t tell me to keep a closer eye on Sarah’s food credits and then go and thank her for spending them on something frivolous.”

“Frivolous? It isn’t frivolous. It’s challah!”

Oh.

This was because I’d shared that story about the challah. “I told you it was a waste. You’re like the baker, making your special fancy bread and sacrificing all our other Shabbat foods just to indulge in this one minor thing.”

“It’s challah. How can any of you have a Shabbat meal without it?”

“Thanks to you, we can’t have a Shabbat meal at all. You ruined it, just like always. I wish you’d never come to live with us!”

“Dalya! Stop. That’s enough.”

But it was too late. Sarah pressed her hand to her mouth and fled into my bedroom. Before the door closed, I thought I heard a muffled sob.

My father immediately pointed to my door. “You need to go in there right now and apologize. I don’t care how much credit she wasted. I don’t even care what’s in that bag. She was trying to do something special for all of us and she doesn’t know the rules yet. Tell her you appreciate this… this… whatever this is inside here.” He unsealed the bag and tilted it until two small loaves tumbled out onto the table. Their bumpy surface gleamed golden brown beneath the kitchen lights, and the warm aroma of fresh-baked bread spread through the apartment.

Twelve loaves of beautiful, brown, braided challah. The line from Sarah’s version of the story echoed in my head.

And Sarah was like the baker who tried so hard to do what was right but missed the mark by lightyears.

So, I made a huge show of rolling my eyes, but ultimately, I went to talk to her.

When I tugged the door open, I found her scrunched up in the far corner of her bed, knees hugged tight to her chest as she whimpered. At the sound of the door, she glanced up. “Are you here to yell at me some more?” Her voice was rough and nasal.

“No.”

Yes, Sarah had messed up, and yes, I was still angry at her. But over the past few weeks, she’d lost everything. All she had left were memories and stories. I sat myself down on the edge of my bed, barely a meter away from her. I leaned forward and rested my elbows on my knees. There was nothing I could do to bring back Sarah’s home. But maybe I could give her space to share a little bit more of her community’s traditions. “So how does your version go?”

She blinked at me, clearly confused.

“The challah story. Your version. How does it go?”

Her gaze hardened into a glare. “Why? So you can tell me it’s wrong again?”

“No. I want to know. Really.”

For a minute or two, Sarah just sat there, staring at me, like she was waiting for me to share the punchline of some joke she’d completely missed. I was about ready to give up when she started talking again. “It’s… mostly the same. Not all of it though.

“The way we tell it, there’s no rabbi. It’s just the baker and the cleaner. One Friday, the baker’s running late, and the cleaner shows up early. The two of them see each other, and they figure out what’s going on. And then…

“They hug like best friends, and they spend some time talking. The cleaner finds out the baker lives alone, so he invites the baker to join his family for Shabbat dinner.

“The baker says, ‘sure. I’ll bring some challah.’

“And the cleaner says, ‘You already did.’”

By the time Sarah finished the story, she’d stopped crying completely, but I felt like I wanted to cry myself. The baker was alone, just like Sarah. And the cleaner’s family had welcomed him.

“You know,” I finally said, “You don’t owe us anything. You can just be here. With us. Just bring yourself.”

But Sarah shook her head. “It isn’t Shabbat if we don’t have challah.”

I wanted to tell her that wasn’t true. Not for my family. Not for any of the Jewish families on the ship. But to Sarah, this challah was more important than any other Shabbat food we could serve. It was worth spending every last one of her meal credits.

I still wasn’t thrilled with the lack of meat this Shabbat, but I knew I was going to have to let it go. “You’re right,” I finally said, because this was her truth, even if it wasn’t mine. For Sarah, Shabbat just wasn’t right if she didn’t have her challah. “I look forward to tasting what you baked,” I added, and I meant it. “Anyway, we should go help my parents get ready, yeah?”

I pushed myself up off the bed and offered her my hand. Her palm was warm and dry against mine. She gave my hand a squeeze before she let go, then followed me out of our bedroom.