Ask any new mother, and they will agree: One of the really nice “fringe benefits” of having a baby is…receiving meals from friends and family for a few days (or, if you have really amazing friends and family, weeks) afterward.

Yes, you could cook up the same pot of spaghetti and meatballs or chicken and rice as your sister-in-law or across-the-street neighbor, but isn’t it always nicer to eat food that you didn’t have to cook? And let’s not forget, of course, that when you make spaghetti and meatballs for your own family, you don’t usually include a soup and a salad and a container of cubed fruit and a plate of cookies to go along with it, do you? But your sis-in-law or neighbor oftentimes will—not when they make it for their own families (hey, they’re not any better mothers than you are!), but when they send it to you, the new kimpeturin.

It’s one of the beautiful things about Klal Yisrael—we’re always doing chessed, and that’s especially so when the chessed involves making sure everyone has what to eat. And although a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich does technically constitute “what to eat,” no self-respecting Yiddeshe Mama would ever want a new mother and her family to subsist on that while the mother recovers and gets back her strength.

Maybe that’s why The Shabbos Kugel Turnaround makes such a pleasurable read—because it highlights the chessed that goes on within our communities. In this fun children’s book, a mommy who’s not feeling well receives not one or two or three kugels for Shabbos, but many, many more than that! And that’s just the beginning of the chessed train that follows…

The book brings out another very important lesson, too: emunah in Hashem; realizing that whatever happens is His doing, and He knows what’s best for all of us.

Now tell me: with such integral lessons a part of this book, and with such a delicious storyline (you’ll have to take my word for this, but I’m sure you’d agree)—could you be blamed for wanting to buy this book for your kids??

Click here to purchase online.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 1st, 2018 at 10:10 am and is filed under General, New Books. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.