It’s a strange thing, these Shabbat dinners. So public, so performative, and so different from what I’m used to.
Growing up in San Diego, Shabbat dinners were simple; my parents, my sisters, sometimes grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles, or family friends. My mom would cook, my sisters and I would help, and we’d set the table while Idan Raichel played from the family iPod speaker. We’d read from the same old pixilated prayer books that somehow looked outdated even the day we bought them.
The nights were always filled with laughter. Someone doing pushups between courses. Someone breaking into a verse of Sir Mix-a-Lot. Sometimes a fashion show just to make everyone laugh. It was chaotic, but it was ours.
Shabbat, for us, wasn’t about perfection. It was about connection. Connection to each other, to the Shabbas Malka, the Sabbath bride, that sense of peace and beauty you feel when you slow down long enough to notice it.
It was about being present with family, friends, and community, and letting the noise of the week finally fade out.
When you move to New York and start looking for your community, your Jewish community, you realize there are more options here than you’ll know what to do with.
You’ve got your Orthodox, your Reform, your Chabad, your Young Professionals, your Spiritual, your “not religious but connected.” While that’s incredibly beautiful, and I’m genuinely grateful for it, especially in this climate, it can also feel overwhelming. There’s a dinner, a group chat, or an event for everything and everyone.
But when you strip it all back, what is Friday night dinner really supposed to be about?
For me, it’s always been about slowing down. Saying the prayers. Eating together. That deep exhale at the end of the week that signals you’ve made it through.
Now, in New York, that peace sometimes comes wrapped in something else entirely.
There’s an industry of what I’d call Experiential Shabbats.
If the average “young professional” Jewish event feels like disorganized speed dating, these are the glossy, curated versions. Candlelit, ticketed, chic, aesthetic, and vibey. They come with themes, playlists, and price tags that can rival a night out at a top restaurant. It’s spirituality with an RSVP and a cost.
The Search For Connection
The other week, I went to one of these. A spiritual, magical Sukkot Shabbat in Williamsburg hosted by a celebrity tech entrepreneur.
It was… something else.
Over a hundred people packed into a massive Bedouin-style tent lined with rugs and soft pillows. The ceiling was covered with branches and leaves, with just enough open space to glimpse the starless New York sky. We sat shoeless and cross-legged, passing around challah and sipping a specifically sourced ceremonial cacao drink. The smell of incense burned my unfortunately sensitive nostrils.
The host, kind and magnetic, must have said “blessings, blessings, blessings” a hundred times in his speeches. Each repetition felt heavier than the last, as if he was willing the words down from above.
Between blessings, live musicians played hypnotic reinterpretations of Ashkenazi Shabbat melodies. Later, a DJ took over, turning the space into a full-on dance floor.
The lighting was a mix of candle glow and perfectly placed mood bulbs. The intention was pure. And yet, for a while, I couldn’t shake this strange hollowness. That feeling when something is supposed to move you, but doesn’t quite reach your heart.
Maybe it was me. I’ll admit, I was anxious at first. Surrounded by so many beautiful, well-dressed strangers, with my cousin being the only person I knew there, and waiting in line for food for easily thirty minutes. But then something shifted.
Somewhere between talking with a guy from Boston, a woman from Colorado, and someone I hadn’t seen since college who is still salsa dancing her nights away, I started to feel it click.
That slow, familiar warmth of connection.
It wasn’t the setting, the music, or the lighting. It was the small handful of people around me. Honest conversations cutting through the noise. The kind that makes you forget, for a moment, how fast life in this city can be.
For anyone unfamiliar, Sukkot is a Jewish holiday that celebrates the harvest, gratitude, and the impermanence of life. It’s a reminder of our ancestors, the ones who wandered, built, rebuilt, and still managed to create moments of holiness under open skies. Traditionally, people eat outdoors in handmade huts called sukkahs, decorated with fruit and greenery. You make it yourself, together, and that’s the point. Connection to the land, to simplicity, to one another.
This was that, with a Burning Man twist.
By the end of the night, I felt grateful not just for the event but for the few genuine connections that came out of it. What began feeling hollow became meaningful once I actually slowed down enough to be present. The same lesson Shabbat is meant to teach us.
Because that’s New York. Endless faces, endless events, limitless opportunities, and sometimes a lack of connection. Maybe the real answer isn’t to find it. Maybe it’s time to build it ourselves.
The kind of Shabbat community where you don’t need perfect lighting or a curated guest list to feel something. Just good people, good food, and the reminder that the best moments in this city are still the quiet ones you make yourself, together.
All the best,
Ariel Knows Nothing
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