USA Challah Bake Highlight 2020

hi my name's robin meyerson and we had the great big holla bake last night it started out originally as a local arizona event but soon cities across the country wanted to join so we had cities like atlanta and chicago st louis canada we had messages from the united united kingdom and from australia and south africa it really turned into a worldwide event last night [Music] we took the women and we took all these women and broke them up into different zooms and then within different breakout rooms we had the ability for cities to go into their own little special breakout rooms and to meet with their people from their city richmond virginia baltimore had two rooms queens uh rockland county of new york we had an advanced room a beginner's room people were in the california room even in california there were different rooms the options were just endless so we had gluten free we had beginner holla making we had the option for advanced we also had the option if people wanted to go into a little breakout room and learn more deeply about shabbos itself and how it affects our body and our soul people were learning and making chala they had their ingredients on hand and about 20 minutes later we came back together what's so cool about doing a national holiday is that you're actually doing the mitzvah right there together with other women across and other children across the whole country so you actually got your hands in the dough together and you're actually praying together while you knead the dough and you're actually taking the halal and saying the bracha together there's such a power in the jewish woman we all come from sarai menu our foremother and we all have her spiritual dna so the great thing about being all the women together is that we just have so much power in the room so you know it's interesting i've been hosting the live uh bergen county uh polybake the past few years we get between 800 to a thousand women but this year obviously because of covid we couldn't do it live but this has a twist it's like when you take lemons and you make lemonade or a blessing in disguise for us because we were able to tap in to women that we would have never been able to tap into and but it made it more of a cohesive unit [Music] it just showed you the power and the unity of women when we come together and it was something so special to be a part of a global woman event now it's amazing to be part of my own local event but then to be able to touch people that you normally don't get to see and um you could never have done that if it wasn't for kovit i guess i knew when kobet hit literally back in march i knew immediately right then that the world needed shabbos project more than ever and so i knew that we needed to build our little noah's ark inside our own personal homes and that we needed shabbos so my kid committee got together and we said what are we going to do for the shabbos project and he said let's just do it and so we made free ingredients available to the local participants in our local arizona community for people who were in need if they were affected by covid and then other cities decided to come on board originally when i called around and asked cities what are you doing for shabbos project people were kind of like down in the dumps they weren't really sure what they were going to do because of cobit and i said what are you talking about you got to keep going you got to persevere you got to be persistent you got to persist and be consistent you know shabbos is what keeps the jewish people alive it doesn't matter if there's kimono virus we have to do this and actually the mitzvah of making the hala we dedicated last night for the spiritual and physical healing for all the virus that has in the world you know whether it's physical or spiritual ailments we really want our mitzvahs to affect the whole world any time when women get together and can do something positive to do a commandment we are most definitely most definitely doing something for the jewish people we have tremendous amount of power as women we are powerful women that can bring the redemption and the more we work together the more the unity we have the sooner it will come i feel it's just so important to build up the self-esteem of the jewish women and know that they are the ones who bring shabbos into the home they're the ones most of the time who do all the cooking and the shopping and the setting of the table and so i really encouraged everybody to do the shabbat challenge which is to take on something more whether it's to light candles on time whether it is to set a beautiful table to learn more tour at their table or to just disconnect from the news and from social media to stop gardening stop doing laundry you know it's our present from god to have this shabbos what was amazing is that when i saw the gallery at the end i saw that there were so many different levels of jewish women there and i don't just mean there were religious or ones that didn't seem in their appearance as religious as others that's that's besides the point i think what i found so heartwarming is the age differences i saw grandmas i saw moms and i saw children out there and that is so special when we take on a mitzvah like challenge we take on this commandment and it passes down from generation to generation to generation because we are a link and when we could link it together all those generations we make a tremendous chain and when we link we can keep that chain really nice and strong i'm so grateful to the chief rabbi of south africa for having this brilliant idea all these years ago because it really inspired me and therefore i've been able to inspire thousands and thousands of people across the country and in our local community by inspiring women to feel productive i know originally it was to get this shabbat feeling and we as women have taken it on in reference to the khala and making these holidays but you know what that's how you inspire when a person feels productive when a person feels good about themselves that they've accomplished that just shoots them over the edge to do more and that's what these hollow banks do women feel empowered women feel amazing that they've produced something and it doesn't hurt that what we produce smells yummy and tastes great