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What a transforming experience! I felt as if God's feminine side whispered in
my ear, "You have a wonderful task to do and it involves working this dough
to the point of pure pleasure." For half an hour I pressed, rolled, pushed,
pulled, squeezed, turned and lifted the dough as hard as I could. Toby, an
instinctive teacher, praised my kneading technique and the strength of my
hands. I found myself talking about my grandmother and the homemade challah
she made when I was young. My hands, it seemed, had been inherited from a
long line of women empowered by a sacred undertaking.

When my hands and arms grew tired, Toby encouraged me to rest and have a
snack - delicious marble cake, creamy cheesecake, and homemade coffee ice
cream - all handmade from the egg whites left over from her challah
baking.

After our snack, we returned to our baking. Toby produced a bowl in which the
challah had already risen. That's when I realized that the batch I had
fashioned would be presented to Toby's next student - a woman I didn't know
but to whom I was giving something very special, just as a stranger had
bequeathed her kneading bowl to me.

I cut my new dough into six pieces, which I then rolled into long, thin
strips. Toby showed me how to braid them. I tried to follow her as she
spoke: "Bring these two strips close together and then bring this one under
them and then it goes up over the right." Or did she say left? "Then the
other goes down, and then you start all over."

I loved braiding the dough. After all the loaves were shaped, we made some
miniature loaves with the leftover dough. Everything went into the oven.
Toby invited me to visit the neighborhood while the bread baked, so I
shopped. The time flew by. When I returned, about an hour later, I found
Toby walking down the steps from her house with big gray plastic garbage bags
in her hand, filled with the fruit of our labor. She placed the bags in the
passenger and back seats of my car. We hugged and kissed each other. She
told me to come back any time for my next lesson.

The aroma filled the car. I had enough challah to last at least a month.
Toby climbed the stairs back to her family, and I began driving toward the
Verrazano Bridge. It was rush hour, but I was calm. I felt as if I had
accomplished something special, a feeling I hadn't had for years, perhaps not
since I was a girl and learned how to skip or ride my bike. The scent of the
challah and the memory of its baking replenished me. I had a restorative
sense of a job well done.


How Can You Relate To This Story?

One of the core ingredients for a Recipe for Enchantment lies in the doing.


Sometimes this doing happens privately, even within one's own mind such as
meditating. Sometimes it happens between people in ways that are refreshing
such as playing together or visiting. There is also a concept
of "doing good deeds". When we are doing in the service of others, often
a host of positive emotions take place. The person doing the action can feel
happy, uplifted, wanted, special and certainly the person who is the
recipient of the "doing" can feel joyful, contented, special, involved,
loved.


Think for a moment about when you have been "doing" in a way that either
enriches your life or someone else's. Don't be shy - the hardest part of this
may be giving yourself credit where credit is due. Have you helped someone
out? Been there in a special way for a friend? Have you taken good care of
yourself? Been your own best friend by an action you took - be it a
pampering bath or finally divorcing an abusive spouse? Share some of your
"doings" here.





On the other hand have you felt good when someone gave to you by "doing"?
Perhaps a teacher gave time and extra tutoring that made all the difference?
Or a friend had a meal waiting when you got home from the hospital? Share
what the person did and how it made you feel.