Chabad in Mt. Lebanon launches ‘Love and Knaidels’ community outreach
Rochel Rosenblum, left and Rikel Rosenblum work on making apple crisp during the Sweet Beginnings event at Chabad of the South Hills.
Leah Herman talks about the importance of food preparation.
Leah Herman, left, and Batya Rosenblum
Barb Helmrich shows off a pair of apple crisps.
Dori Oshlag gets ready to toast the start of the Sweet Beginnings program, prior to providing musical entertainment.
You’ve heard of, or perhaps participated in, an activity that lives up to the saying of slaving over a hot stove.
Leah Herman never sees it that way.
“I think we all learned early on that food can bring people together more than anything else,” she told a room full of women who were about to prepare pans of apple crisp. “It is not about the most delectable dish or the most obscure spice. It is the love and dignity that we give to another human being.”
Herman served as guest speaker for Monday’s Sweet Beginnings program at Chabad of the South Hills – Jewish Center for Living and Learning. The event kicked off a larger-scale effort, Love and Knaidels: Kosher Cooking for a Cause, through which women at the center in Mt. Lebanon are performing community outreach.
“The idea is that four times a year, before the major holidays, groups will come together,” center co-director Batya Rosenblum explained. “They will decide on a menu, and they will decide on a cause. They will come, prepare it and then bring it to that place.”
For Sweet Beginnings, the room full of women in attendance made two containers each of apple crisp, one to take home and the other to share with senior citizens, homebound individuals and others in the community.
Herman, who is on the Judaic studies faculty at Tzohar Seminary in Squirrel Hill, reinforced the concept of food preparation as a bonding experience.
“I have made some of my dearest friends in the kitchen,” she said, telling of a woman she met in North Carolina prior to moving to Pittsburgh.
“With our little girls literally underfoot, we cooked every Thursday afternoon, every week, for about 10 years,” Herman recalled. “As we talked and stirred and tasted, we’d talk about ourselves and our families and our very different backgrounds. We found out we had much in common. We shared our hopes and our fears as new mothers.”
For her, cooking also promotes togetherness and a sense of provision.
“I think all of us have lamented, one time or another, all that effort and nothing to show for it. The food that we take hours to prepare is consumed within minutes. It’s gone,” Herman related to a chorus of knowing laughter. “But your family feels nourished and warm and cared for. Your friends feel valued and loved.
“It’s not just food,” she said. “It never is. It is so much more.”
For the women preparing apple crisp, the food selection represented a familiar component in celebrating Rosh Hashana, the Jewish new year, which this year starts on Sunday evening. Eating apples dipped in honey is “very symbolic of a sweet new year,” Rosenblum said. “A lot of people make apple dishes, and that’s why we chose this, which is tried and tested, and we know it works well.”
Many Sweet Beginnings participants already have signed up for future Love and Knaidels events prior to these holidays: Hanukkah in December, Purim in winter, Passover in spring – when knaidels, a type of dumpling, traditionally are served – and Shavout in May.
As they prepare food, they might keep Herman’s words in mind:
“It is not about the most delectable dish or the most obscure spice. It is the love and dignity that we give to another human being.”
For more information, visit www.chabadsh.com.