A long-standing rule in the Kovach household—when in town, you’re home for Shabbat (Friday night) dinner.

 

Work schedules, meetings, youth-group activities, class schedules, sports, etc., make weekdays challenging. But Shabbat is Shabbat. We all keep our calendars clear. Grandparents come over. We debrief and catch up. This time is holy and untouchable.

 

These days, we’re down to one child still living at home full time. For our other children, who live in four different time zones, Friday night dinner has been replaced by Friday video calls for Shabbat shalom wishes.

 

Today’s technology makes communications easy, even from Israel. We no longer need to bring a bucket of asimonim to a pay phone, and instead have clear and free video capabilities from our own cell phones. But the seven-, nine-, or ten-hour time zone differences made my weekly pre-Shabbat calls to my children not living in Israel rather challenging during my recent visit and would have been nearly impossible during the winter months, when the sun sets Friday evening in Israel before it rises Friday morning in LA.

 

Note: I’m not complaining, merely recounting an observation from my recent trip.