Shabbat San Diego Mega Challah Bake

Second rise for my Shabbat San Diego Challah 

Now in it's second year, Shabbat San Diego is all about celebrating Shabbat together.  In San Diego, the aim is for 25,000 Jews to participate in some sabbath-related activity at some point over the weekend, regardless of affiliation or non-affiliation or degree of observance.  Shabbat San Diego joins Jews in 500+ other cities across the world that are all celebrating Shabbat together on the same weekend as part of the Shabbos project.  This year, it's Oct 22-24, 2015.

Shabbat San Diego challah, fresh out of the oven

And what is Shabbat without the eggy bread goodness of challah?  And if you're going to make challah, why not prepare it in a crowd of 2,000 on the playing field at the San Diego Jewish Academy?  So Steven and I joined the crowd tonight and made our own loaf of bread.  All the ingredients come in your very own bowl, and instructions were provided by two sisters-in-law, who guided us onscreen.  Making challah is a spiritual endeavor, as it turns out.  It's not just mixing yeast, sugar, water, oil, eggs, salt and flour, though it's that too.

Before you form the dough into a braid, the tradition is to "separate the challah."  You pinch off a piece of dough, lift it up high, and recite a prayer.  Then in some traditions, you burn that little piece of dough.  But because in a football field of 2,000 people, fires are not a good idea, we just discarded our little piece of challah.

Now, I did not have great expectations for our bread.  I mean, the yeast was mixed in with cold water. We didn't knead it long enough, etc. We really didn't know what we were doing.  But we took the dough home and I followed the rest of the directions, and well, IT WAS REALLY GOOD.  Let Shabbat begin!

Samuel: "I know it's Thursday night, but  it looks so good.  Can I just have a taste?"