Around 700 students and community members attended the annual Mega Shabbat hosted by Northwestern Hillel, Chabad and Olami Evanston at the Ryan Fieldhouse on Friday.
Shabbat, the day of Jewish rest and celebration, is observed weekly from Friday evening at sunset until Saturday night. Individuals come together over a meal featuring Challah — a traditional braided bread — and Kiddush — a blessing over wine. After that, they refrain from work or technology use.
While Jewish communities on campus celebrate the holiday weekly, Mega Shabbat presents a unique opportunity to share the tradition with students of all backgrounds.
Weinberg senior Sophie Perel, a student chair on the Mega Shabbat Planning Committee, shared that their ultimate goal was to make Mega Shabbat a religiously inclusive event. To accomplish this, she said they lowered the barriers of entry in two areas.
Firstly, student table captains were not required to take on such a ritualistic role as before. In previous years, table captains were expected to lead the ceremonial elements associated with Shabbat, including saying prayers in Hebrew.
“We didn’t want there to be a barrier to people wanting to be a table captain because they felt like they needed to say the prayers that they don’t know and they’re in a different language and stuff like that,” Perel said.
Secondly, the committee created a Google Form this year to make sign-ups more accessible. Previously, students had to register within the Hillel Hub, an online registration platform for weekly Hillel events.
While these changes may seem small, Perel said they contributed to “the most mega, Mega Shabbat,” surpassing last year’s count by around 150 people.
Non-Jewish students attending Mega Shabbat said the welcoming sentiment allowed them to attend the event without any pressure of feeling out of place.
Weinberg first-year Nandita Aggarwal said Mega Shabbat brought her closer to her Jewish friends and allowed her to learn more about Jewish culture.
The support Mega Shabbat received from non-Jewish students and community members has been a huge part of the event’s growth each year, according to McCormick and Communication junior Evan Weitzman, who served as head of outreach on the committee.
He noted that in addition to sharing Jewish culture with others, the event is a way to show off Jewish pride.
“The line I used in some promos was, ‘We’re here, we’re proud and we’re not going anywhere,’” Weitzman said. “(Mega Shabbat) shows that Jewish communities here are supported, and we’re an important part of Northwestern.”
Weitzman said Mega Shabbat is for anyone and everyone.
“It’s about opening up our homes and our hearts and sharing this really core tradition of our religion, of our culture, to the rest of the Northwestern community,” Weitzman said.
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— Hillel brings annual MegaShabbat celebration to Ryan Fieldhouse
