My mother wasn’t a natural in the kitchen, and possibly, she would have rather been elsewhere.
Wife of the Novominsker Rebbe, zt”l, and daughter of Rabbi Avrohom Eichenstein, of the great Ziditchov dynasty of Chicago
My mother, Rebbetzin Perlow a”h, grew up in a home where Shabbos was to be shared. The Eichenstein home was legendary for its openness and the many guests who walked through and stayed. Some of the guests who were there for the Friday night meal didn’t come Shabbos morning be-cause they went to work. There was a lot of kavod given to these people. To this day, I can sing you the zemiros that some of these men sang!
My parents had a severely mentally disabled child, and my grandmother would help my mother by sending Shabbos food each week. Each Thursday after school, my sisters and I would go pick it up. But first we made a weekly stop at the library, and then we would walk over to my grandparents’ home. We would stay for supper, an elaborate tasting of some of the Shabbos foods, and then my father would pick us up on his way home from Skokie Yeshiva. We returned to our home two blocks away with a big box of challah, fish, and cake.
Although my mother was endlessly busy with the crises of the community, as wife of a rosh yeshivah and rav, therapist, and president of the Women’s League, to name just a few of her many responsibilities, on Erev Shabbos she brought a sense of calm into the home. I can picture her sitting in the breakfast room with her sheitel on, dressed for Shabbos, from 11 a.m. and on, on a Friday morning. First thing Friday morning she had already attended my father’s parshah shiur. This was very intentional. First, Shabbos was brought in with the ruchniyus, and then the gashmiyus followed that, priorities in that order.
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