I never dreamed that, one day, I would own a Shabbat urn. Shabbat urns were for the families of my friends from the Prestwich Jewish Day School, who today would be defined as “haredi,” but were then described simply as “frum.” Or for our neighbors in Broughton Park, members of the Machzikei Hadass shul in Northumberland Street. I never set foot in that shul. I thought I wouldn’t know where to sit, and I’d be dressed differently from the other girls and feel out of place.
Our neighborhood was almost totally populated by Jewish families. Fifty, sixty years ago, they were a mixed bunch. Most of them were middle-of-the-road Jews, like us; they kept a kosher home, lit Shabbat candles, celebrated yom tov with a festive meal and the table laid with the best china and hand-embroidered tablecloth. They went to shul on Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur and the major festivals. But they would turn on lights, drive, and watch television on Shabbat. Teenagers would go into the center of Manchester and meet their friends – all likewise Jewish – in Kendals’ Coffee Lounge on Saturday mornings.
In our early to mid-twenties, my friends and I found nice Jewish boys and got married. We met our husbands through friends, or at a social evening or party, or a debate at a Jewish club. None of us married out.
I met my first husband at a meeting of the local Liberal Party and, after a time, we decided to get married. His family welcomed me warmly. They were possibly a little more observant than my own, but the families were “a good fit.”
Where would we live after we married? Like many young Jewish couples of the time, we decided to move away from the Broughton Park and Prestwich area, and settled on Sale, a pleasant suburb of South Manchester. House prices there were cheaper, there was a shul, and a small Jewish community.
The first Shabbat after we moved into our house, we decided to go to shul. This was not out of any religious fervor, more an acknowledgement of our new start, a new phase in our lives – and curiosity to see what the people were like. We thought it would be nice to go to shul from time to time, but not each week. Neither of us was religious, and had no plans to become so.
We found the shul, a modern, one-storey building about 20 minutes’ walk from our house. The mechitza was so low that, inadvertently, I sat in front of it, that is, in an empty row in the men’s section. Luckily, someone saw me, and beckoned to me to sit next to her on the row behind that deceptive mechitza. After the service there was a kiddush, and she invited me to go to it with her.
I reunited with my husband and, to our surprise, there were several faces we recognized from our former lives in North Manchester, men my then husband remembered from school, someone who had married the cousin of a friend of mine. They were delighted to welcome us to Sale, and immediately invitations came for tea on Shabbat afternoons, and even for Rosh Hashana and Succot, which were only weeks away.
We didn’t mislead anyone, but they all assumed that we were shomrei Shabbat. There wasn’t even a minyan of shomrei Shabbat people in Sale at that time, so they were pleased that we would be adding to the meager stock. Perhaps naively, I had no idea how this misperception would affect my life.
I was soon to find out. My husband was invited to a shiur run by a Chabad rabbi, who came to Sale each Monday evening from North Manchester. To my surprise, he began to go regularly. He enjoyed it, both the shiur itself and the camaraderie of the four or five participants. As it didn’t affect me, I didn’t mind.
However, he began to go to shul on Shabbat mornings – each Shabbat morning. I was still happy to relax at home, on Shabbat morning, after working full-time in a demanding job. I might go along to the shul if there was a kiddush, or not. We would often be invited for tea at the home of new friends, where the talk was generally about shul topics, such as the difficulty of arranging the daily morning minyan. But it was pleasant, and the tea party was enough for me to feel “involved” in our new community.
After accepting several invitations to afternoon tea, we thought we ought to reciprocate and invite one or more couples to our house one Shabbat. I thought I would only have to think about the food aspect – bake a cake and biscuits, perhaps serve crackers with egg salad or a smoked mackerel spread – and, of course, drinks. But my then husband said,
“We’d better buy a Shabbat urn.”
Why?” I answered curtly.
“Because we can’t go into the kitchen and boil water and make them tea from that on Shabbat.”
“Why not? It’ll be in a teapot, who’ll know? We do that for ourselves.”
“True.” He paused. “And it’s time we stopped.”
I was shocked. I counted to ten before replying.
“I didn’t know you were thinking along those lines. I’ll have to see.”
I didn’t like the sound of this at all. It seemed like the thin end of the wedge. What might be next? “If we ask people to tea next Shabbat, I know Uncle Manny would buy us a Shabbat urn. He knows where to get them at a good price. We’ll just have to tell him what size we want.”
I could see I would have to give in on this one, but I would be on my guard for any further suggestions which might change our way of life in a direction I didn’t want.
Uncle Manny came up with the Shabbat urn. There had been some confusion about the size, and he bought a huge one which could have been used for a shul function. Even I had to laugh. We used it the following Shabbat with aplomb, as if it had been part of our Shabbat equipment all our lives.
When we came on aliyah in 1978, we donated it to the shul.
The Shabbat urn had been “the thin end of the wedge.” Over time we did become shomrei Shabbat. And not only with my agreement, but with more enthusiasm than I could ever have predicted. Now, decades later, I can’t imagine how my life would have been had this not happened.
We need to trust that Hashem’s plans for us are leading us in the direction we need to take.
