Mandatory Shabbat mealtimes would keep families from overheating

To live as a Jew has never been simple. For generations, external forces have tried their utmost to destroy us. They have waged wars, forced conversions, exposed us to pogroms and, well, the rest is history. What they’ve never quite understood is that there’s actually a foolproof way to achieve their goals: just leave us alone. If that doesn’t do it, then simply encourage us to host one another more often, especially on Shabbat, when phones are banned and no-one can confirm what time lunch was meant to start.

There were times when this very scenario threatened to rip my own family apart. We would gather, in impressive numbers, at my parents’ home for Shabbat meals. And as the herding of bodies toward the dining table began, it would dawn on us that one person, always my younger brother, had yet to arrive. A repeat offender, he seemed utterly at peace with us starting without him. In fact, I sometimes suspected he preferred it as it meant there was less pressure on him to perform punctuality.

But my father was never convinced. Reluctantly, he would agree to start, though not without employing his masterstroke of strategy: slowing the kiddush process down to the pace of an arthritic tortoise. Wine poured in theatrical slow motion, hand hovering just a little longer than necessary over the challah cover, all in the faint hope that the prodigal son would walk through the door.

Of course, by the time he eventually did, he arrived not to a warm welcome, but to an environment so hostile, it made Pharaoh’s Egypt look like a Club Med holiday.

And that, right there, is why I believe the Jewish world needs something radical: a universal table-time calendar.

Just as we have candle-lighting times published meticulously for every Shabbat of the year, so too should there be mandated meal times. If candle-lighting is 17:37, then Friday night dinner should be declared a global constant at, say, 18:48. Lunch the next day? 12:45 sharp. No arguments, no debates, no frantic glances at the clock wondering whether Auntie Bev meant “around noon” in Joburg Standard Time or in her usual “fashionably late” time zone.

Think of the unity it would bring. No more clandestine WhatsApps before Shabbat asking, “What time do you guys usually eat?” No more family feuds disguised as theological disagreements. We could all arrive in peace, knowing that somewhere in Sydney, London, or Glenhazel, Jews are sitting down to their chicken soup at precisely the same moment.

Of course, there would be complications. We all know that no universal Jewish system can survive without at least 17 exceptions and a subcommittee to argue about them. Which means, inevitably, there would have to be a separate calendar for Chabad. And possibly another for Sephardim. And probably a third for that one family who insists that “we always eat after early mincha” even though no-one remembers when early mincha actually ends.

Still, imagine the potential: a neat little booklet with global “Shabbat Meal Times”, issued annually along with the candle-lighting guide. Friday night dinner at 18:48 this week. Lunch at 12:45. Third meal at 17:15. Unless you’re Chabad, in which case: dinner whenever the farbrengen winds down, lunch when the fabrengen continues, and third meal … well, sometime before havdalah.

Still, I believe the idea has merit. It could save families. It could save friendships. And if nothing else, it would give us one less thing to fight about. Because let’s face it: Jews will survive persecution, pogroms, and exile. But turn up late to a Shabbat lunch one time too many? That might be the end of us.