Azriela Jaffe, a writer for Mishpacha magazine, was so moved by an article she read in the Yated about the power of chatzos – being ready for Shabbos by Friday midday – that she has not missed chatzos since. Reorganizing her life and her week has been so life-changing and brought so much kavod Shabbos into her home that she wrote an article about it for Mishpacha. And, judging by the droves of letters the magazine received, the idea obviously hit a chord among readers around the world. They too craved greater serenity on erev Shabbos or were looking for a new practice to bring zechus (merit) to their families in trying times. Today, Azriela is known around the world as the “chatzos lady,” and the international movement she inspired stands at 180 strong.
The seeds of Azriela’s new commitment were planted two years ago. “One typical harried erev Shabbos, I was late lighting the candles,” admits Azriela, a Highland Park, New Jersey, resident. “I had fallen prey to the, `I’ll get just one more thing done’ yetzer hara. On that day, I decided that, from then on, I would light the candles 10 minutes earlier than the posted time. We haven’t been late for lighting since we began this practice. In fact, if my daughter sees I’m busy and might not make it, she’ll say, `Hurry up, Ima, or you’ll be late for being early’!”
Azriela had been lighting 10 minutes early for some time, when she realized one Friday morning that her children did not look forward to erev Shabbos. “They associated Friday with unpleasant chores,” says Azriela. “As a household without professional cleaning help – my choice, my husband keeps offering to get it, but I have my reasons – I enroll my children in helping with the Shabbos preparations. Each of them worked for about an hour, all told, but I found myself constantly after them, saying things like, `Enough with the whining; pick up the broom!’ One day, I heard one of my children groan, “Oy, tonight is Shabbos. I wish it weren’t Shabbos!” Of course, she quickly clarified that it was the cleaning she dreaded, not Shabbos itself, but still, it hurt my heart. For my kids’ sake, I had to disconnect erev Shabbos from the burden of cleaning.”
In that same Yated article, Azriela read about the concept of embellishing a mitzva as a zechus (merit) for a personal need. “Although my children are pre-teen, all of the shidduch crisis articles and letters to the editor were weighing on me. An idea formulated in my mind: I’ll be ready for Shabbos by chatzos every week, and I’ll ask Hashem to consider this extra effort as a zechus for shidduchim for my children.”
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To pull off chatzos, Azriela spreads out her Shabbos preparations all week long. Motzei Shabbos and Sunday have become the time for menu planning, grocery shopping, and baking challa or desserts. She makes one or two dishes for Shabbos each day of the week, so that all the Shabbos cooking is done by Thursday. The children help cook or clean the house on Wednesday and Thursday evenings.
“My husband loves coming home from work on Thursday evening with the table set for Shabbos, and the house in Shabbos-mode,” says Azriela, who spends Friday mornings on last minute cleaning and food preparation. On an early Shabbos, she might need to finish as early as 11:40 a.m., during the summer, not until 1 p.m. “Truthfully,” says Azriela, “the last few minutes used to be important when I first started keeping to this practice, but now, it’s so much a part of my life that I am usually done even before 11:00.”
At the moment of chatzos, Azriela symbolically and literally puts down the broom, closes her eyes, and davens to Hashem, asking that her dedication to this practice be considered a zechus for her children’s upcoming shidduchim. “My children know of this practice, and it comforts them. When they come off the bus, it’s after chatzos, so there’s nothing expected of them other than a pre-Shabbos shower and not messing up the house. When my husband enters the home an hour before Shabbos, he’s not encountering a harried, exhausted Ima with a short fuse, but a relaxed, clean, beautiful house with happy children and the smells of Shabbos.”
So powerful was Azriela’s personal account of taking on chatzos, it was even mentioned by Rabbi Yissocher Frand in this year’s annual Shabbos Shuva drasha. After this event, I contacted my fellow Mishpacha writer, and Azriela encouraged me to join the email-based chatzos support group for women, despite the fact that I only had hopes of making smaller strides than chatzos in my Shabbos observance.
Since Rabbi Frand’s drasha, more women from around the United States, as well as from other countries, like Israel, Australia, England, South Africa, and Canada, have joined together to support each other with chizuk (encouragement) and concrete suggestions. These range from chatzos-friendly Shabbos recipes to how to keep the toddlers from wrecking the Shabbos table set on Thursday night to recommended shiurum to listen to while folding the laundry – on Tuesday – so that it doesn’t interfere with Shabbos preparation. Close friendships have been formed via the internet, as frum women from varied backgrounds pursue the same goals. “Women who have been observing Shabbos for over 50 years are changing their practice,” says Azriela, “and their married children and grandchildren are learning about chatzos. Shalom bayis has increased between husband and wife, and love and honor for Shabbos has grown exponentially. We draw Mashiach closer to us by the day, as the members of the group and all the people they touch elevate Shabbos observance to a whole new level. In fact, the email support group has been so powerful that we started a chatzos support phone hotline for those women unable to access email – and even for those emailers who wish to call each other. Callers can touch base during a selected half hour each day.
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Rachel Lewin is one of several “chatzosers” who live in Baltimore. “I am finding that Friday afternoons are relaxed and fairly calm – like a Sunday afternoon,” she says. “Before joining the group, after lighting, I was busy chopping salad, setting the table, and preparing the first course. Now, since I’m more organized, I have time to daven and play with my two kids, ages five and two. When my husband arrives home from work, he usually has very little to do except his personal preparations. This means that he often has time to go to shul early and learn. So, I’ve seen that the advance preparations in the physical realm have tremendous benefits in ruchnius. Oh, and I work outside the home about 25 hours per week, including Fridays! So people shouldn’t think that this is only for stay-at-home moms!” she concludes.
Yael Yunger, of Beitar, Israel, was inspired to strive for chatzos because of something she learned. “I heard that on erev Shabbos the Satan tries very hard to make machlokes (arguments) between a husband and wife. As lichtbentching (candle lighting) draws near, he `dances,’ because the tension levels in the home are rising,” says Yael. “By making chatzos, you are telling the Satan, `There is no room for you in this house.’ Last week was our second week doing chatzos, and when the kids woke up on Friday morning, the house was clean and the table already set. My five-year-old said, `Mommy, when Tatty comes home he’s going to think it’s already time to say Kiddush. I’ve found that chatzos has helped eliminate the erev Shabbos panic, because on Thursday it’s still too early to panic, and by Friday morning I’m almost done.”
Rivkie Levitin of Chicago took on chatzos after attending a weekly shiur based on the sefer of Rav Shimshon Pinkus, Shabbos Malkesah. “We learned that the Shelah Hakodosh interpreted, `Lo sevaaru eish b’moshvoseichem – you shall not burn a fire in your homes’ to mean not to get angry,” explains Rivkie. “The word lo has a gematria of 31, and the Shelah learned from those words that for 31 hours of Shabbos (beginning from chatzos), one should not become angry. I began looking into the chatzos group afterwards as a means to attain that goal.
“I am not currently doing chatzos all the way,” continues Rivkie, “but I have taken small changes upon myself. The most notable one is setting our dining room table every Thursday night. It really adds a wonderful aura of Shabbos, and brings extra peace and calmness into my home on Fridays – even the shortest Fridays of the year. I can vouch that even a `half-baked’ chatzos has a tremendous hashpa’ah (influence) on the family. The children all know that I am doing it to bring an extra dose of shalom bayis to our home. I have a busy schedule and cannot keep up with the rest of the nashim tzidkaniyos (righteous women) who are ready for Shabbos from chatzos. I don’t always have the time to prepare for Shabbos a little every day, or even midweek, but I have nonetheless seen results. Most of all, I have `met’ some wonderful women through this venture, whose common goal is to increase kavod shem Shamayim in this world, under the leadership of the indefatigable Azriela Jaffe.”
Yocheved Krems, of Yerushalayim, explains: “I’ve been part of the group since shortly after it started. I had always run around like the proverbial chicken with its head cut off right up to shekiya. Unfortunately I didn’t always make it, either! When my kids were little, erev Shabbos was a scream-it-all. There was no kedushas Shabbos. I am a baalas teshuva, and I never absorbed what the beauty of Shabbos was. It was a lot of work getting into and a lot of work in the middle and a lot of work cleaning up from. And I resented it a bit. After many, many years, I learned more and grew more, and when I read the chatzos article by Azriela, I was touched. When I read that a group was forming, I was actually a bit jealous that I hadn’t started it! But I knew that I wanted in, even though I didn’t dream I would ever `make chatzos.’ Why? Because it was another deadline, only earlier. Over the years, my husband had asked me not to cook after chatzos, but I could never do it. You do not want to know how many times I was processing something after lichtsen, because how could we get by without the babaganush or Arabic salad?
“I’ve come to learn that chatzos is not about another deadline,” continues Yocheved. “I could cut back and not do and do earlier and I’d still rush into lichtbentching. What has changed is my attitude. I’m calmer, more relaxed all day, erev Shabbos. We make a simpler menu – too simple sometimes. But because I work a lot, that’s just what we do right now. Now, seven months after I began working towards chatzos, I am calmer, the kids help a little more (I have three teenagers), and I do not run all over town shopping on Friday only to come home and run myself ragged preparing for Shabbos. I don’t always “make” chatzos, but chatzos has made me a much calmer person.”
Nechama Safra, of Moshav Beit Chilkiya, in Israel, who was also inspired by Azriela’s article, says, “The calm that settles over our home Friday afternoon is priceless. It creates the perfect atmosphere for accepting Shabbos with joy. Since I started all this six months ago, I actually accomplish more, and the food is more delicious. This is probably the special bracha that comes with being ready early for the Shabbos Queen. We decide beforehand that Queen Shabbos is more important than that extra kugel or salad, and you know what? She pays you back by making everything great. Last week, in a quiet moment, my husband said to me, `You know, I think you’ve become a better person since keeping chatzos.’ He meant more spiritual, I think. It was a great, unexpected compliment.”
“Even in South Africa,” says chatzos member Shuli Mirkin, “with more domestic help than elsewhere, chatzos encourages a mindset of Shabbos is coming, and that changes one’s whole week. It is the anticipation generated from that mindset and the practical preparation that results which ultimately lift one into Shabbos kodesh – and even more, it generates a huge desire to be mekadesh Shabbos more and more each week.”
How does the Chatzos Lady envision her own chatzos observance when her children have grown? “When, im yirtzeh Hashem, I walk my last child to the chupa, I don’t believe that the “making chatzos” commitment will stop. I’ve discovered the real beauty in it. Shabbos is on my mind every day, all week long. It has to be, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. My children now see being ready by chatzos as normal, and I hope I am blessed to merit grandchildren who know no other way than to greet the Shabbos Queen with serenity.”
Azriela Jaffe will be the guest speaker for the Talmudical Academy’s upcoming tea, on Sunday, April 18. If you wish to enroll in the chatzos email support group, email chatzoslady@gmail.com, and indicate if you wish regular or digest (a summary version).
Categories: Judiaism
