A ‘Dvar Challah’

BARBARA LEWIS CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Lots of people bake challah for Shabbat. And lots of people study the Torah portion that is read in synagogues every Shabbat. But only a few bake challahs that illustrate the weekly parshah. Davida (De-De) Robinson is one of them.

She got the idea from her son Ian, who was working in Chile a few years ago. He told her the rebbitzin at the synagogue he attended made challah every week shaped to relate to the Torah reading.

Robinson had just retired from teaching second grade at Congregation Shaarey Zedek’s religious school and thought this would be a good way to continue teaching and learning Torah. Her project forces her to dig deep and view the words through a new lens. Sometimes her breads are a more literal portrayal of the portion; other times the statement is more artistic.

“When I can make these ancient words in the Torah relevant to life today, it all comes together for me,” said Robinson, who lives in Franklin with her husband, Warren, and is a member of B’nai Israel Synagogue and the Isaac Agree Downtown Synagogue.

Interpreting and translating each Torah portion into a creative challah design can be challenging, she said. She’s going into her fourth year of baking Torah-related challahs and doesn’t want to repeat a design, or even the part of the weekly portion she references.

Robinson posts photos of her challahs on her Facebook page, along with a “d’var challah,” a brief summary of the relationship of the challah to the parshah.

For Parshat Vayishlach last November, which tells of the meeting between brothers Esau and Jacob after 20 years apart, Robinson related the story to Detroit-area brothers Bryan and Danny Fenster, who were reunited after Danny had been imprisoned for months in Myanmar. The challahs portrayed two figures hugging. “What we read in the Torah between Esau and Jacob gives us hope on repairing relationships; what we witnessed this week with Danny and Bryan also gives us hope, hope that justice can win over corruption,” she wrote.

During the pandemic, Robinson found many of the Torah portions related to the experiences she and a lot of her

LEFT: Challahs can be a literal or artistic impression of the weekly Parshat. RIGHT: This challah for Parshat Bo is

acquaintances had been having.

For Parshat Bo in early January, which tells of the plague of darkness, her cloud-shaped challah was thickly covered with poppy seeds. But there was a slit in the top.

“The darkness of COVID once again feels insurmountable, not to mention a sincere arrival of winter,” she wrote that week on her Facebook page. “But we must all remember that after these plagues the Hebrew nation is freed from bondage and soon dances at the Red Sea shore celebrating their freedom! Looking at our fraught world today, we can see that there is a little bit more sunlight each and every day. As Leonard Cohen wrote ‘there is a crack, a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.’”

For Shabbat Mishpatim, which fell in late January this year, Robinson noted the Torah’s directive not to charge interest on loans to fellow Israelites. That week, one of her challahs was shaped like a big zero while the other, along with two rolls, looked like a percentage symbol. Soon after baking them, she was heartened to see that Rabbi Arianna Silverman of the Downtown Synagogue picked up on the same theme in her weekly Shabbat message and related the “no interest” idea to Hebrew Free Loan of Michigan, which Robinson has long supported.

At the end of the year, Robinson creates a book with photos of her creations and gives a copy to each of her three sons, Ruby, Ian and Avery. Sometimes she’ll use a shot taken before the bread is baked, because the baking process can affect the design in unanticipated ways.

Robinson has been making challah every Friday for decades. Before starting the Torah project, she would dabble in different designs or braids, sometimes making special shapes for Jewish holidays, birthdays or other occasions. She never colors the dough and uses only seeds to decorate — except in the case of the teddy bear challahs she makes every week for her 2-year-old grandson, which have chocolate chips for eyes. Friends and neighbors often enjoy the fruits of Robinson’s passion.

Sometimes she just makes more challah than the family can use. “Then I put a notice out on email and friends come and pick it up,” she said, adding that this was helpful early in the pandemic to those who had trouble getting to bakeries or supermarkets.

Robinson has kept up a correspondence with Ian’s former rebbitzin, Gachi Waingartin. They exchange their challah photos every week. Waingartin writes in Spanish, and Ian often serves as translator.

“Sometimes we have the same idea, but the challahs look very different; we each have our own style,” she said.