Empty Nester Shabbos Dinner

We have some semblance of supper most days.  Even on the two major fast days, a meal precedes the fast.  And I have been fortunate to prioritize supper with my family most nights, as did President Obama who had more pressures on his time.  Once a week we have shabbos dinner, never leftovers, virtually never eaten out unless traveling.  It surpasses caloric sustenance.  We have kiddush, sometimes delayed if sundown arrives after our usual suppertime.  We have challah.  Often that meal has more than one course, though not always.  It is elevated above supper on the other days.

Ironically, my very favorite shabbos dinners took place my final two years of medical school.  I ate alone.  There was a vegetarian restaurant that I liked within walking distance of my apartment.  It is unusual to be able to select from an entire menu so this was a special destination reserved for the onset of shabbos.  And I always ate alone there, enjoying the creativity of the chef and the folk music of a guitarist.  But that dinner is only eaten alone out of necessity.  Once I married, that was allotted time for my wife, unless my residency schedule had me on call Friday night, and with children, we all assembled unless a parent was away at conference or a child at camp.

Shabbos dinner remains a designated highlight of our week, though the children are long on their own.  When working, I had to cook chicken, our usual entree, very early in the winter, when shabbos would commence long before I arrived home.  Now as retired people living as a couple, we have more flexibility.  Chicken still dominates, kiddush and challah remain.  Gefilte fish is long gone, though I have a few jars in the pantry which serve more as a snack.  I try to have some pareve munchee on hand.  Kosher beef has gotten expensive since the Rubashkins were shut down and some hauled off to the Otisville Minyan so crock pot beef stew has gotten less frequent.  And we were never singers of zemirot.

Despite the special occasion, we rarely extend or receive an invitation from other families. While we are empty-nesters, a look around the sanctuary at shabbos morning services reveals quite a lot of people who have been widowed.  I never queried whether or how often they invite each other or get invited as guests.  And as my experience as a medical student attests, the dinner can be made a week's high point even eating alone among strangers. But that's not the intent of our tradition.  I assume, perhaps wrongly, that our Rabbi has the pulse of how those who now live alone introduce the weekly shabbos to their homes.  Maybe it can be improved.  Maybe we should be the ones to try.