Challah Bake in Rashi’s Memory

By Mindy Rubenstein – Chabad.org

Like rising dough, the attendee list for Chabad of Georgia’s “Mega Challah Bake” just kept growing—so much so that organizers had to find a new location to accommodate the huge crowd of more than 1,000 women on Wednesday night. Even so, the enormous banquet hall in downtown Atlanta—the largest meeting room in the state—was filled wall to wall, and all the way to the back doors as women came together to share in baking of challah.

“The crowd just grew and grew,” said Dassie New, co-director of Chabad of Georgia, which includes 11 Chabad centers around the state.

The Oct. 29 event took place in honor of Rashi Minkowicz, the beloved co-director of Chabad of North Fulton in Alpharetta, Ga., a suburb north of Atlanta. She passed away suddenly this year at the age of 37, leaving behind her husband, Rabbi Hirshy Minkowicz, and eight children, the youngest just 2 years old.

Rashi’s daughters, Tonia and Henya, chanted Psalm 20, and community members and Chabad rebbetzins took to the stage to share personal memories of Rashi. They spoke about her amazing and characteristically large challahs, the way she put people at ease with her warmth and generosity, and regaled all with stories behind the mikvah that she built—a huge undertaking in an area lacking in many Jewish services and institutions when the Minkowicz family moved there from New York in 1998.

The Talmud says that even after someone passes away, they live on in the mitzvahs others do in their merit.

Early the program, a video was shown of the Lubavitcher Rebbe—Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory—discussing the mitzvah of challah for women and girls, and its importance.

New also emphasized to the enormous gathering of the need and urgency for Jewish unity: “Jewish women in Georgia unite through the mitzvah of challah with all Jewish women around the world.”

Indeed, hundreds of challah bakes have taken place the world over—from the United States to South Africa, which last October held one of the largest-ever such events, with a whopping 2,000 participants.

‘A Very Auspicious Time’

“It’s amazing to see what a group of powerful women can achieve,” said Chani Silverman, co-director of Chabad Lubavitch of Cobb County, Ga., who helped organize the event, including recruiting volunteers to help fill thousands of pre-measured containers of flour, sugar, salt and oil to use to make the challah.

Each woman had all the ingredients set out in front of her, as well as orange “Mega Challah Event” aprons, gloves, a large mixing bowl and a cookie sheet.

Miriam Lipskier, co-director of Chabad of Emory University in Atlanta, led a lively, fast-paced challah mini-demonstration.

She also instructed the women to set aside a small portion of the dough, explaining that doing so is a biblical commandment. In Jewish communities for thousands of years, she said, people would give a portion of their food and other items to a kohen, spiritual leaders of the community.

Giving and sharing are part of the fabric of the Jewish people, continued Lipskier, and the mitzvah of separating challah is a reminder of this.

“When saying the blessing on challah, the gates of Heaven are open to our prayers,” added Silverman. “It’s a very auspicious time to pray to G‑d on behalf of sick people, in addition to family and friends.” The women then joined together in reciting the prayers as a group as names scrolled across the screen of those in need of healing.

Later, they took some time to be joyous, clasping hands and dancing around the perimeter of the room.

“It was an awesome, inspiring and touching evening,” said Heidi Herman, who has lived in the Alpharetta community for 10 years. “I was very proud to be a part of the event. Rashi was a very kind, caring and approachable person.”

Of there being more 1,000 women gathered in a single venue doing a mitzvah in her honor, Herman said: “I would have expected nothing less. She deserved to have 20,000 people there.”