10 Simple Ways to Make the Final Two Shabbatot of the Year More Meaningful

The coming Shabbat (August 29) and the following Shabbat (September 5) are the final two Shabbatot of the year. If your first thought is to wake up at five in the morning, learn for three hours, and take on five new commitments, hold on. There is another approach that may work much better, and it is far smaller.

Rabbi Yechezkel Levenstein, one of the great masters of Mussar of recent generations, often emphasized the unique significance of these two Shabbatot. His teaching is based on the Gemara in Tractate Shabbat: “If the Jewish people would observe two Shabbatot according to halachah, they would immediately be redeemed.” From this, he taught that if two properly observed Shabbatot by the Jewish people can bring redemption to the entire nation, then two Shabbatot observed with exceptional care by an individual can likewise serve as a powerful merit in judgment. He encouraged people to invest special effort in these final Shabbatot so that they might serve as advocates on our behalf on the Day of Judgment.

Following are ten enhancements to make these Shabbatot especially meaningful.

1. Make Shabbat Halachah Part of Your Routine

Many of us learned how to observe Shabbat at home, and a surprising amount of our knowledge comes from “that’s how we’ve always done it.” That may be a wonderful source of family memories, but it is not always the most precise source of halachah.

Learning regularly from an organized book of Shabbat laws can be eye-opening. Sometimes we discover that things we worried about are actually permitted, while other things we have always done, require greater attention.

Learning the halachot of Shabbat does not necessarily make Shabbat more complicated. Often, it brings clarity, confidence, and peace of mind.

2. Spread Your Shabbat Preparations Throughout the Week

Instead of squeezing every Shabbat preparation into Friday morning, try spreading the work throughout the week.

Do the shopping on Monday. Prepare one dish on Tuesday. Buy flowers on Wednesday. Set the table on Thursday night. Suddenly, Friday changes from a frantic race against the clock into a day of finishing touches.

You may be surprised by how much calmer the entire home feels when most of the work has already been done.

3. Let Everyone Take Part

If there are other people in the house who can help prepare for Shabbat, giving them responsibilities is not merely a way to lighten your workload, but it gives them the privilege of participating in the mitzvah.

The Gemara (Shabbat 119a) tells us that some of the greatest Amoraim personally participated in Shabbat preparations. Rav Safra would prepare the meat, Rava would salt the fish, Rav Chisda would cut vegetables, and Rabbah and Rav Yosef would chop wood.

When you ask children to set the table or peel vegetables, you are allowing them to feel that they helped create Shabbat. And when a child feels that Shabbat happened partly because of his or her contribution, that child may come to the Shabbat table with an entirely different sense of connection.

4. Move Your Personal Deadline 15 Minutes Earlier

You do not need to revolutionize your Friday. Simply move your internal deadline fifteen minutes earlier. If you’re thinking “Fifteen minutes? I don’t even have fifteen seconds!” then you may be exactly the person this suggestion was written for.

Try it once. You may discover that those final fifteen minutes are largely filled with tasks that could have been completed earlier, along with several frantic trips around the house looking for something that somehow never gets found anyway.

Creating that small pocket of time can transform the moments before Shabbat. There is suddenly time to look at the beautifully set table, breathe, smile, and perhaps even enjoy a cup of coffee before candle lighting.

5. Wear Real Shabbat Clothes

We all know the phenomenon. The Shabbat meal ends, the beautiful clothes come off, and somehow they are replaced by “something comfortable.”

That comfortable outfit, to put it delicately, often began its career as sleepwear. Every family seems to have one legendary garment: faded, extraordinarily comfortable, and defended by its owner with the insistence, “It’s not pajamas. It’s just comfortable clothing.”

The Gemara (Shabbat 113a) derives from the verse “And you shall honor it by refraining from your ways” that one’s Shabbat clothing should be different from one’s weekday clothing.

Try remaining in proper Shabbat clothing throughout the day. When the Shabbat clothes stay on, the Shabbat atmosphere tends to stay with us as well.

6. Prepare for Shabbat With Joy, Not Sighs

This may be the most difficult enhancement on the list, and perhaps one of the most meaningful.

It is the same cake, the same cleaning, and the same cooking, but without the familiar soundtrack of sighing in the background: a sigh when opening the refrigerator, another when closing it, and one more while walking across the kitchen for no apparent reason.

In some homes, you could probably tell what time it is on Friday by the intensity of the sighing.

Children, incidentally, may not remember exactly what was on the menu. But they often remember the atmosphere in which “Come to the table!” was said.

Preparing for Shabbat with greater joy may do more for the atmosphere of the home than another elaborate dish ever could.

7. Begin Blessing Your Children

If blessing the children on Friday night is not already part of your family tradition, these final two Shabbatot of the year can be a beautiful time to begin.

It takes only a moment: place a hand on your child’s head and offer a heartfelt blessing. It is a simple weekly moment of connection that can become one of those memories children carry with them for many years.

8. Read Shnayim Mikra Ve’Echad Targum

Reading the weekly Torah portion twice in Hebrew and once with Targum is an explicit halachah in the Shulchan Aruch (Orach Chaim 285), yet many of us quietly admit that we do not always manage to complete it.

Try it this week. It does not require an enormous amount of time, and it means that when you arrive at the Torah reading on Shabbat, you already know the parashah.

When someone at the Shabbat table asks, “So what happened in this week’s parashah?” you may actually have an answer instead of a slightly embarrassed smile.

9. Make Shabbat a Work-Free Conversation Zone

It begins innocently enough: “So, what’s happening with that project?”

Two minutes later, you are holding a full staff meeting in your living room. There may be no PowerPoint presentation, but somehow the stress level is exactly the same.

Try a simple Shabbat enhancement: decide in advance that work discussions are off the table.

You can even choose a family code word, such as “Shabbat,” when the conversation starts drifting back toward business, deadlines, or workplace problems.

10. Bring Torah and Zemirot Back to the Shabbat Table

Sometimes everyone sits down to a beautiful meal, the food is wonderful, and within minutes the conversation has wandered into, “Did you hear what happened to...?” Before anyone realizes it, the Shabbat table has become an unofficial neighborhood committee meeting. 

There is a simple solution: fill the space with something better.

Try sharing two thoughts about the weekly parashah, asking the children a question, and singing one familiar Shabbat song together. It does not need to be lengthy or elaborate.

You may be surprised by how different the table feels when Torah and zemirot give the meal its direction.

One Small Change Can Make a Different Shabbat

Shabbat gives us far more than we give it. It provides holiness, quiet, family time, and a table around which we can sit together without phones and the constant distractions of the week.

As the year draws to a close, choose one or two small changes for these final two Shabbatot. Sometimes a modest, sustainable step can bring far more lasting change than an ambitious resolution that disappears almost as quickly as it began.