Shebrew in the City
Shebrew in the City is a podcast exploring all things Jewish. Combining interviews and informational episodes, join Nicole Kelly as she discusses her journey with motherhood, spirituality, and everything from Hanukkah to the Holocaust. Giving a voice to modern Jews and spreading love and joy, whether you're Jewish, Jew-ish, or not anything resembling Jewish at all, there's something here for everyone.
Shebrew in the City
"What Baking Can Do" - An Interview with Dr. Beth Ricanati
Join us on an enlightening journey with Dr. Beth Ricanati, whose unique path from Reform to Conservative Judaism offers a tapestry of cultural richness and personal growth. Through engaging anecdotes, Dr. Ricanati warmly shares her upbringing her transition to the spiritual experience creating Challah in her home and beyond. We explore the playful and heartfelt family traditions, such as the amusing "Challah Monster," and discuss how Jewish customs have shaped her approach to parenting and education.
Dr. Ricanati also opens up about her fascinating professional journey, starting with a background in Art History that seamlessly lead to a career in medicine. Her experiences at Columbia and the Cleveland Clinic inspired the creation of Lifestyle 180, a program that integrates nutrition, exercise, and stress management to combat chronic diseases. This chapter of her life highlights the importance of adaptability, especially her move to sunny Southern California, where new opportunities and joys awaited her. Her story underscores the transformative power of lifestyle changes on personal well-being.
Finally, immerse yourself in the comforting world of challah-making with Dr. Ricanati, who transformed from a physician experiencing burnout to a passionate author and workshop leader. The therapeutic process of baking led to her book, "Braided: A Journey of a Thousand Challahs," and nationwide challah workshops. Through these experiences, she discovered the profound health benefits of engaging in meaningful rituals and building community connections. With her insights, you'll be inspired to embrace the power of traditions and find peace in the simple joys of life.
Visiting a city maybe for the second time, and don't want to visit the same tourist traps? Check out top dog tours. We have lots of different options for walking tours of neighborhoods and attractions that everybody will love. We are in Boston, Philadelphia, Toronto and New York City. You can visit us at topdogtours. com and check us out on social media for offers and discounts. Hi, I'm Nicole Kelly and this is Sheb ew in the City and today I'm talking to Dr Beth Ricanati. How are you doing today, doctor?
Dr. Beth Ricanati:I'm doing very well, thank you. Thank you so much.
Nicole Kelly:I'm so excited to talk to you because we're talking about one of my favorite subjects for a decent portion of your interview. I think Challah, I love Challah. We have this thing in our house that somehow I don't know who created it. I think it was my husband, the Challah monster, my daughter. We've created this kind of mythical character that comes and steals your challah and she pretends to be scared of it and it's very cute, but she gets challahs at home every Friday from school.
Nicole Kelly:Because I'm not a baker, so I'm very thankful for that, but we're going to talk a lot about challah today.
Dr. Beth Ricanati:Fabulous, thank you. I share a love of it as well.
Nicole Kelly:So I usually start off by asking my guests where they're from, what their Jewish upbringing was like. For my female guests, if they had a bat mitzvah, what that was like. So let's dive in.
Dr. Beth Ricanati:Absolutely. I am from Cleveland, ohio. I now live on the West Coast, but I am a Midwesterner. I grew up very Reform. I am now solidly conservative. It's been a journey, continues to be a journey. I didn't know that people made challah growing up. I thought it came in the plastic bag from the Jewish bakery you had a couple times a year and I did not have a bar mitzvah. Unfortunately, all of my kids have been bar and bar mitzvahed. I did attend Sunday school through ninth grade. I had a confirmation what they called it back then. I don't know if they even still do that in reformed synagogues, but that was the extent then of my Jewish education, and it wasn't until I went off to college that I really started to learn more.
Nicole Kelly:So they do still have confirmation, because we're members of a reform synagogue and what ours does is pretty cool is. The culmination of it is they take a trip to Germany, and specifically Berlin. Oh, my gosh Because that's really where the reform movement started. So I'm hoping when my daughter is older she's only three, so we've got some time.
Nicole Kelly:Yeah, though with what I'm about to go into, I'm sure she's going to spend a lot of time in Germany. I am about to embark on a graduate program in Holocaust and genocide studies, so I'm sure she'll end up in Germany at some point before 10th grade. Yeah, I'm very excited with what I'll be able to do with the degree, but I'm a little overwhelmed, understandably.
Dr. Beth Ricanati:Yeah.
Nicole Kelly:So you made the transition from being Reformed to Conservative. Usually it's the other way around, which is the journey that I made, because I grew up in a conservative synagogue, though I feel like my personal family was leaning more towards Reformed than Conservative. Like we didn't keep kosher, you know. We went to like you know the required Shabbats through Hebrew school, but not like extra holidays. Like I feel like I celebrate more holidays now than when I was a kid. I go to like everything. So what caused that transition and what was that?
Dr. Beth Ricanati:transition like and what?
Nicole Kelly:did that entail for you and your family?
Dr. Beth Ricanati:Oh, it's been absolutely wonderful. So I married a man who grew up, I would say, conservadox really more conservative, but more on the observant side of conservative was a mixed marriage, because it really felt that way. We were bringing two wildly different backgrounds together and in the beginning we were members of a reformed synagogue and we did not keep kosher. He grew up keeping kosher and then we had kids and that changed everything for us. We began a journey when we had kids that continues to this day, where we have just been embracing more and more of our tradition and religion and background and heritage and we studied with more observant rabbis once the kids were born, studied with more observant rabbis once the kids were born and ultimately did join a conservative synagogue and sent the kids to summer camp Jewish summer camp, overnight camp and I really came to hold on to Jewish ideas and thoughts as a tool for parenting. And that's really where it became really helpful, like when the kids were little. I mean now they're in college and beyond.
Dr. Beth Ricanati:But when they were really like your daughter's age, but when they were, you know, sort of preschool-ish, I began to see the merits of a lot of Jewish teaching as a wonderful guide for parenting and it was such an easy path then to embrace and I've come to really love it. And that's where we are today. And we do keep kosher ish. Now. I mean, well, we have, you know, we separate milk and meat and we don't have, uh, you know, we don't eat pork or shellfish, um, except, I must admit, when I travel. Sometimes I have a little linguine and clams, but we won't talk about.
Nicole Kelly:I've heard this referred to as kosher style. If you're not keeping like strict laws of kosher style, right.
Dr. Beth Ricanati:So we have separate dishes and and and that, but but right, I don't have two sinks and two dishwashers.
Nicole Kelly:Yes, yes, and some people have special Passover kitchens, which I've seen in some houses, which is extra next level, that they only use it during Passover.
Dr. Beth Ricanati:Wow, no, I don't have an extra kitchen.
Nicole Kelly:It requires a lot of space. I feel like you know, being in New York, where I'm impressed that people can have room for two sets of dishes and a dishwasher period. That's always, you know, like we just moved into an apartment that has a washer and dryer, so I feel like I've reached the pinnacle of New York living.
Nicole Kelly:Like our initial apartment we were in for eight years and we had a little countertop dishwasher and then our next place had a real dishwasher and laundry in the building and now we have everything. So I feel like I've made it, which is a weird, touch a corner, a weird like milestone for New Yorkers. So I read that you majored in art history and undergraduate and for your undergraduate degree and then you decided to pursue medicine. That's a pretty extreme shift. What caused that?
Dr. Beth Ricanati:It's a pivot, but, I have to say, by way of background, studying art to become a physician, I think, should be a requirement for everybody, because I spent four years learning how to look, how to see, and then it became very easy when it was time to, when we were in medical school. All of my clinical work in medical school went very, very well, because I knew how to look and how to see in a really different way than my biology and chemistry major colleagues or co-students. The pivot became apparent, though, in college, because I was at school on the East Coast, having grown up in Cleveland, as I mentioned and it was the early 90s, late 80s, early 90s and I became aware of some women's health issues, that there were Supreme Court cases and things like that, and I had not known about any of this growing up in Ohio, and I wanted to do something about it and I wanted to try and effect some change, and I have always thought that if you're going to try and change something, you have to actually get in there and change it. So I thought if I had an MD, I could probably have a more of a leg to stand on in women's health than not, and I actually had always spent my whole childhood in one way or another helping other people.
Dr. Beth Ricanati:I learned Braille as a child and volunteered at the Sight Center in Cleveland, which is an organization for the visually impaired and blind, and actually wrote with Stouffer's Food, wrote a cookbook for the blind in high school, and I always worked and volunteered in hospitals. So it was no surprise in hindsight but hindsight is always 20-20. And if you had told me when I entered college and I went in with the idea of majoring in art history which is sort of interesting to go in with the same major that one goes out with, but anyway if you had told me then that I would be a science geek, I would not have known who you were talking about. But it's been a great combination, I think. And also then it made it really easy as I know we'll get into later but I pivoted yet again and so the stage was set early on that I was obviously going to be doing lots of different things that were outside of the box.
Nicole Kelly:One has to expect the unexpected when it comes to careers. Yes, yes, indeed, I feel the same way. We moved to New York to pursue musical theater and now.
Nicole Kelly:I'm going to be studying the Holocaust, so very, very, very different. But again, looking back, a lot of it makes sense and no one seems surprised. And I've also read that a lot of medical schools. They like students who aren't necessarily pre-med because it brings a well-rounded doctor out of the program. So if you're interested in going to medical school, maybe you can minor in something science-y and major in history or art or something.
Dr. Beth Ricanati:I think it's a great idea. I couldn't agree with you more. I definitely think it matters.
Nicole Kelly:You're going to get a lot of that chemistry in med school and stuff. Anyway, it's not like you're going to miss out on it.
Dr. Beth Ricanati:No.
Nicole Kelly:So, while after medical school, you worked at the Cleveland Clinic and you co-created something called Lifestyle 180. What is that, and can you tell me a little bit about how that came about?
Dr. Beth Ricanati:Sure, so actually at first. So I was in New York as well and I totally respect the small apartment. We did not have laundry in our apartment, so I'm right there with you.
Dr. Beth Ricanati:But I went in, as I mentioned before, with an interest in women's health. So I went to med school with that as a focus and I trained at Columbia actually in New York and practiced in their women's health center for a couple years and then, when we moved back home to Cleveland, I started at the Cleveland Clinic in their women's health center. I'm an internist by training, just to give background, so I take care of adults. And after I had been in the women's health Center for about five years at the Cleveland Clinic, they had a new department called the Wellness Institute that they were setting up and establishing. Treat chronic disease through lifestyle. So think food, exercise and stress management. And those were things that I was becoming increasingly more passionate about, because no matter how many women I saw a day in my clinic, invariably we always were talking about did you eat breakfast and how are you managing your stress? Have you moved? Today, I mean, I was having the same conversation again and again and again. So the idea that I could be involved on a larger scale and have greater impact was extremely exciting to me, and I also really believe in the power of lifestyle modification to treat and to prevent disease. And the good news is that now and now it's 15 years later it's certainly more mainstream. Then I felt like some people thought I was crazy, but we did incredible work.
Dr. Beth Ricanati:So Lifestyle 180 was a program that was set up to take patients who had what I like to think of as low-hanging fruits what I like to think of as low-hanging fruit, so heart disease and high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, obesity, even some cancers and put them through a program where they it was a six-week program. They came twice a week and had nutrition, exercise and stress management classes. We measured everything. We measured labs, we knew about their medications, we ate all of their biometrics, so their blood pressure, their heart rate and their weight, and we also measured behavioral. We looked at different scales, right, how stressed were they? And it was so exciting to see over that six weeks and then we followed them actually for a year. So the program in its total was a year and we were were ecstatic because it worked.
Dr. Beth Ricanati:I mean people, uh, they felt better, which was so exciting to me, and they were able to move the needle on all of it. So people who were on medicine were able to lower their medicine and sometimes even come off of their medicine, which was really cool. They improved all of their lab functions. So if they had high cholesterol, it got better. If their hemoglobin A1C, which is a marker for diabetes, was elevated, it went down. Their weight went down. Their blood pressure went down.
Dr. Beth Ricanati:It was really, really gratifying to see that, yes, you can change what you eat, you can think about how you're going to move, you can think about how you're going to manage your stress and you can therefore have a really positive impact. We know, nicole, that 75%, 80% depending which study you want to look at of chronic diseases are impacted by lifestyle. That is a huge number, which I find really exciting because it means that we have so much control, no matter what's going on in the world and God knows, this year there's a lot going on in the world but we still can stop and, in my case, make hollow, which we'll talk about, but we can stop and think every day how we're going to impact our own health. Which case make hollow, which we'll talk about, but we can stop and think every day how we're going to impact our own health, which therefore, of course, impacts everybody around us. It have a huge ripple effect.
Nicole Kelly:Yes, I am a type two diabetic and I feel like I'm constantly thinking about food and have many, many thoughts on that but that's another podcast completely and have many, many thoughts on that but that's another podcast completely. But I'd like to talk about that too. So someday, yes, yes, yes. We can definitely. Maybe we'll revisit. We'll just talk about food which, for better or for worse, I love food, so at some point you then ended up moving to.
Dr. Beth Ricanati:Southern.
Nicole Kelly:California. What caused that move? Moving from Ohio to California is a pretty big difference.
Dr. Beth Ricanati:It was a big difference and it happened really quickly. My husband had a job opportunity and I was so excited to try something new. We've moved a lot and I love that personally, and the kids were the right age. I didn't want to leave when they were in high school. They were younger then. I thought it would be easier to move at a younger age and what a treat to come to a completely new environment. I have to say the weather here is lovely being in Cleveland. My husband called me one day at work about the opportunity and it was winter time in Cleveland and it was great from the grounds to the heavens and gosh. I really don't miss that, quite frankly.
Nicole Kelly:So here we are. I'm originally from Southern California so I understand, but I made the opposite move and I feel like I'm never leaving here, despite the terrible weather. I feel like I'm much more of a New York City girl than a.
Nicole Kelly:SoCal girl, but a lot of my friends and family are very Southern California and they're never going to leave, so I definitely respect that. So let's jump into um. What what I really want to talk about is your book called Braided Journey of a Thousand Halas. How did that happen? You know let's, let's I want the whole story. Did you start baking hala and then write a book? Had you been baking hala already? Like I want the let's, I want the whole story. Did you start baking challah and then write a book because you've been baking already? Like I want the whole I want the whole spiel.
Dr. Beth Ricanati:We move, oh love to tell it. We moved back to ohio from new york and I was working at the cleveland clinic and, uh, I am sure in hindsight, nicole, that I had physician burnout, but at this. So now imagine this is 15 years ago. That was not a common moniker in our vocabulary and I certainly didn't know how to talk about it and nobody around me was talking about it. To say I was stressed out would be an understatement. We had three little kids. Both of our families were there. I was trying to be a present mom and a present family member and a wife and a spouse and all these things and go to work. It was hard for me. I really struggled.
Dr. Beth Ricanati:And about this time during the Jewish New Year, a girlfriend of mine from my New York days called and we were chatting. She was wishing me Happy New Year, asking me what I was doing with the kids You're so cute, I can barely brush my teeth these days and get out the door in the morning. I'm not doing it, I don't know what we're doing and she said oh, you should make challah. I just came from a mommy and me class at the JCC on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, it's super easy. I was like, yeah, right Back to the comment I made earlier. I had no idea people actually made challah and I'd certainly never worked with yeast, so the idea that I was going to bake something was almost laughable. But she kept talking about it and it really did sound cool, for lack of a better description and so I tried it that week and I have to say, nicole, it changed my life.
Dr. Beth Ricanati:I stood at the kitchen counter in Cleveland, I was home alone and I just had my hands in a bowl of dough trying to make challah. I was not on my beeper, I wasn't answering a page, I wasn't worrying about a patient and I wasn't worrying about my kids. I just was trying to mix flour and sugar in a bowl. And then the crazy thing so I'd never baked bread. So I didn't understand what was going to happen. When you actually bake bread, which is your house, becomes a home. That smell, that aroma, it's just, it's magical. And there I was a couple hours later, enveloped in the smell, and I took those lopsided loaves out of the oven I'm better now at braiding and they look real like I had made something. And my kids were so excited, and my husband, who obviously appreciated the tradition a lot more than I did at that time, was incredulous and it was so cool.
Dr. Beth Ricanati:I did it again the next week and, before I knew it, nicole, I was trying to find a half an hour every Friday to make the dough. I was trying to find a half an hour every Friday to make the dough, and I did for years and I ultimately realized I had learned a lot of really important life lessons. At this point, we were now living in LA and I thought, okay, I'm clearly not the only stressed out mom on the block and I've learned a lot from this ritual. I want to share that, and that's what became the genesis for the book. And the book came out in the end of 2018. And since then, it's just had this incredible life of its own, and I've been able to share it with people all over the country.
Dr. Beth Ricanati:I now lead workshops. The great news is we're back in person. It started virtually during COVID, but I now get to travel and make Hama with people. I'm a physician, right, I'm not a baker, so I talk about this and I think about it. I write about it with that as my lens, where I'm taking this ancient Jewish ritual, which is so powerful, and I'm overlaying it with these ideas and thoughts that I've learned as a physician. I talk about the importance of mindfulness and being present and managing our stress, and why building community is so important to us, and I found that the more I do this, the more I realize exactly how important it is to do this. It's been a very easy pivot for me.
Nicole Kelly:That's very different than working in women's health, but very, very but helpful, helpful in a very different way.
Nicole Kelly:Yeah, I see the connection, but yes, I feel like we were saying it's one of those things that if you had probably told yourself you were going to be doing hollow workshops, you would have thought you were crazy. So a lot to unpack with that. I have lots of questions. So you said that you, you know, after the book was published, you started doing workshops and speaking engagements. How did that start? And you know, if I was, you know, to take a workshop with you, what would I expect from that?
Dr. Beth Ricanati:Yeah. So the first year that the book came out and I knew nothing, by the way, about publishing, about books, about it I mean, I wasn't in the author-writer space at that point at all and I started doing what I now, in hindsight, would say was sort of traditional book marketing I did some book tour. I mean, I went on a little mini tour and it really was, honestly, was COVID, so we had been home a week, the kids were back home from college, we're all in our house in California. It's tight quarters and I had had the fortune in this past, in the year before and as the book was getting out of meeting all kinds of fabulous people in the holoverse, as my husband calls it, which I think is beautiful.
Nicole Kelly:That's where the holomonster lives in the holoverse.
Dr. Beth Ricanati:Yeah, exactly. And a friend of mine reached out from Atlanta and said to me you should teach a virtual class. You know, we're all home, maybe we'll be home a couple of weeks. Little did we know. And my kids said mom, you have a laptop, get a ring light, you have a kitchen studio. There you go. And so I did.
Dr. Beth Ricanati:I started that Friday, a week or two in quarantine, offering hollow workshops, and what we do in a workshop is still pretty similar to what I did then. I mean, it's just, it's evolved for sure. But essentially, to answer your question, you know what do you expect at one of my workshops? What we do is we make dough together and in the hour that we're together, I talk the whole time. And I'm talking about while we're getting our hands in the bowls of dough and while we're together as a group, having this tactile experience with this ancient Jewish ritual. I talk about the importance of a ritual, I talk about a tactile experience, I talk about being present, I talk about having a way to manage your stress this is mine, you can pick whatever you'd like but why? That actually matters to our health because, again, I'm coming at this as a physician. And when we're done. We have a bowl of dough I like to think of it as a bit like a television show I bring out another bowl of dough that I've made so I can demonstrate braiding and baking and talk about that, but people go home with a bowl of dough that then they can braid and bake at home.
Dr. Beth Ricanati:Sometimes I do a longer workshop, depending on the organization, and we do actually do some programming while the dough rises and then we come back and braid it. People go home with a loaf, but you don't go home with finished baked bread. In general, I have done this at certain facilities where we actually do longer workshops, where we do bake it, but the basic workshop, the one that I do all the time and I've done a hundred of these is we make dough together and have this experience, which I find really empowering. And what's been particularly gratifying, nicole, since a year ago, since October 7th, is that I not only am working with Jewish groups, but I'm working with all kinds of groups. I work with churches, I've worked with a law firm, I've worked with corporations, I've worked with a lot of schools and medical schools and universities, and what's so powerful and impactful for me is to build bridges and to work with people of different faiths and different backgrounds and come together, because I think that's how we're going to move forward and have hope.
Nicole Kelly:I love all of that. I'm so. I love all of that. One of the things you'd mentioned about is the benefits of meaningful rituals, and I feel like I'm not baking challah because no one wants to eat any challah I make or braid because I've made challah before yes.
Nicole Kelly:I've made challah before and I cannot braid it to save the life of me. So it comes. It's a whole mess, like I've had instructors re-braid for me. So there's that. But I have found other things in my life that have become meaningful Jewish rituals, which I think are very helpful. But what do you think are the health benefits of because you say you're coming from this as a physician the health benefits of meaningful rituals, whether it's baking challah or if you're not Jewish, doing something else or going to synagogue on Fridays or whatever that is, what are the health benefits of that?
Dr. Beth Ricanati:or whatever that is. What are the health benefits of that? Yes, so I think it helps us feel connected and it helps give us purpose, and I find that that is really important for our mental health. And there's a connection between the mind and the body. I mean, when I actually went to medical school, which was 30 years ago, there was the body. We learned a lot about Western medicine and the body. We didn't necessarily talk so much about the connection between the mind and the body.
Dr. Beth Ricanati:I've come to really appreciate alternative and complementary medicine together with Western medicine. I think that they work very, very well together. They work very, very well together and having a sense of belonging and community and ways to manage your stress significantly impact your health, and now we have actually data and research that support that. So when you have a meaningful ritual so, for example, me making challah when I stop and I make challah on Fridays and I take a deep breath and I am there and present at the kitchen counter, I'm having an impact literally on my body and I'm calming down and being present. That's great for so many. It's great for my heart, it's great for my mind, it's great for my mood. It doesn't get any better than that.
Nicole Kelly:So you mentioned you'd never baked challah before you started. So, what did you? It's better now, practice, practice, practice.
Dr. Beth Ricanati:Practice does make perfect.
Nicole Kelly:What if someone you know got your book, was interested in doing this specific, meaningful ritual to kind of unwind and center themselves? How would they start? Never baked before. What would be your advice to them?
Dr. Beth Ricanati:To get the six ingredients in a bowl and put them on the kitchen counter. It's really just that simple. The lovely thing about this particular ritual we do it every week, it doesn't matter. One week it's great, one week it's not great, who cares? I actually believe that perfect is the enemy of the good, and it's just the fact that you're engaging in it. So you just start, and some weeks, even now, like I made a lot of challah. Last week, we were back in Ohio for Rosh Hashanah and I made a lot of challah, which was great fun. Some of it was sublime. I'll just pat myself on the back and there was a batch I made that just wasn't Nicole. I felt so awful. Everyone thought it was fine. No one said anything, but I was like yuck, this is not my standard. I don't know what happened. I don't know it was the same ingredients. Sometimes that's just life. So how do you do it? You just start, just get out the ingredients, put them on the kitchen counter, take a deep breath.
Nicole Kelly:One step at a time. So you mentioned not good and good challah. And what, in your opinion? What makes a challah good or not good?
Dr. Beth Ricanati:oh, other than it's being properly baked fully yeah, no, no, I know it's so subjective, but I want the dough to have a certain feeling, a je ne sais quoi. I can't exactly explain it, but when you, when you feel it and it, you know. And it actually took me a while the first year or so that I made challah, I was terrified and I didn't alter the recipe. One iota Abby had sent me the recipe. I copied it exactly, didn't change anything, and it didn't always work though, and I finally realized after about a year oh, you know, I could adapt, I could modify, I could play with it, and I have found that when I hold back a little of the flour and then see what the dough needs, and one of the big lessons I learned is that you can always add more, but you can't always take out. I mean, obviously the whole point is that's a life lesson and once I started doing that, so that is probably the biggest factor.
Dr. Beth Ricanati:Now, when I make, I play with the amount of dough and sometimes it changes. I mean, you're familiar with southern california, so two years ago we had horrible wildfires that were close enough to where I live that that the air was definitely wonky and it happened to be on a friday and the joe as a result was crazy like I added so much more flour to compensate some of the the workshops that I've done. I've had participants who are in high altitude and they've had to modify on, for example. That's another classic example that I can give you right off the bat. But I think actually I was in Ohio last week and the air is different and the water is different than it is here and I think that's also what would happen.
Nicole Kelly:I don't know it just that's what scares me about baking. I'm like a, like a D level cook at best my husband's, it's the truth. Uh, my, my, I can make like three things, and one of them is like a pre-marinated chicken from Trader Joe's. Uh, I'm not a good cook. I took cooking in high school and I was the dishwasher. That's the big joke. So my husband's the cook and he just has this really great way of like, like you said, playing with things. But baking is, I think, scary to him, though. Our kitchen is bigger now, so I think we're getting a KitchenAid and I'm my, my friend, who's like a real baker, was like well, obviously, like you need to start baking, but I think that's one of the things that scares him and definitely me about baking is the change with dough and you know, like the air and the water, like all of that is that's one of the reasons that New York bagels are so good is the water.
Nicole Kelly:So if you are, it's the water and the pizza and that's. It's the sourdough in San Francisco. Same thing. It has to do with the water, so with baking, there's much more that goes into it. So I, I, I like how, I really like how you've compared it to life, how there's challenges. It's going to be different but, you just have to do it, and I, before I talked, to you, I, you know who knew making baking challah was was so deep and philosophical.
Dr. Beth Ricanati:It's very deep. I have to tell you there's so many lessons that come out of this incredible bread.
Nicole Kelly:It's also a mitzvah for women. We're supposed to bake challah, which my husband jokes with me. He's like you're not fulfilling your mitzvah. I was like I'm doing a mitzvah by not baking challah, but I feel like maybe I should try, Maybe I'll keep my husband on board in case. I need like an expert, so you bake a lot of challah.
Nicole Kelly:I do and you talked about how you become more observant. So, with all this challah, what does Shabbat look like at your house? Do you have a lot of people over? Is it more of a personal family experience? Is it sometimes just you and your husband, if you say your?
Dr. Beth Ricanati:kids are in college, so what does that look like?
Nicole Kelly:or does it really vary?
Dr. Beth Ricanati:It varies and we have Shabbat now in our life, which is such a beautiful thing. So we did have a lot of challah and when the kids were little it became a very easy way to have their friends over and it almost got to the point where I wasn't that intentional about it because the kids were here and their friends came and I didn't really think about it. Now that they're not here we've actually been very intentional about it, because it's so easy to just not have Shabbat. I don't live in the community, so to speak, so it's not. You know, everyone around me isn't.
Nicole Kelly:There's no Shabbat siren.
Dr. Beth Ricanati:No. So we, several times a month, we have people over and I love that and sometimes it really is just my husband and I. And then we joke because our favorite meal on Friday nights is to just light the candles, say the blessing, have a really good glass of wine and devour the challah. Unfortunately, we can't do that every week. That would not be a good idea. But we do have Shabbat every week and usually it's with other people, which is very meaningful for both of us at this point.
Nicole Kelly:Yeah, I think that's one of the great things. We don't have people very often because limited space, but I think it's one of the things I do like about Shabbat. Is that what it is? With a bunch of people, it becomes a real communal experience.
Dr. Beth Ricanati:Right, yeah, and just a beautiful anchor to the end and beginning of the week. I like that a lot now. I really like that.
Nicole Kelly:Yeah, we try at least to light candles and do some grape juice and challah at the very least, if we're not doing something better, because my daughter will ask for grape juice and challah, so I don't know if it's a food-driven thing for her, but she's already kind of, I think, buying into the idea of this is what we do every Friday, which I like. Oh, that's beautiful. Yes, so you had mentioned October 7th and how things have changed, at least from your workshops and challah making. Can you kind of delve into that a little bit more, or how things have changed personally for you since October 7th? I think everybody who you know feels affected by what happened can say that their life changed at least in some way.
Dr. Beth Ricanati:Oh, nicole, I feel like it was the before and the after. I was just, and continue to be, devastated, really, really horrible. So how has our life changed? We now, on Shabbat, every Friday, we light three candles, because we always only lit two, and now we light a third for the hostages. We started that immediately. For a while we were saying extra prayers also on Friday night. I always now oh, actually, let me backtrack.
Dr. Beth Ricanati:So one of the lovely things I do when I make challah, which I've been doing for years, that I was taught, actually, when I got to make challah in Israel, which was so cool, but anyway, I learned about making challah in the merit of somebody or something and bringing more intention to the experience. So since October 7, one of the, at the beginning, when I start to make challah, I always think about it every week. You know in whose merit am I going to make this batch, and I always now add in the hostages, and it just now add in the hostages and it just. It brings me a little solace and I actually do believe in the power of prayer, so I think it. I think it helps.
Dr. Beth Ricanati:Interestingly for me, since that time I have felt more connected to my community and it's been really. That has been a silver lining to all of this, and a really lovely silver lining. And then I had an opportunity this summer I don't know if you know about this book yet it just came out, but I had an opportunity to be a to participate in an anthology that was released as an ebook and an audio book on October 1st, called On being Jewish Now, and the paperback version is coming out November 1st and there are 75 authors and advocates who have written about. We all wrote a short essay about anything post-October 7th and the book is divided into all kinds of categories Some are joyous and some are sad and everything in between, and to be involved in experiences like that has also really been impactful for me.
Nicole Kelly:That was another question I had. So how did you get involved with that and what did you write about?
Dr. Beth Ricanati:So Zibi Owens, who's the editor of the book and has a publishing arm as part of her media company, published the book. I was fortunate to meet her, actually right when Braided came out. She had just just just started her podcast. This was the fall of 2018. And she started in the summer of 2018. So brand new, and I was a guest on her podcast, which was super fun, and we actually made challah together here in uh la, and then I've done a couple events with her over the years since then.
Dr. Beth Ricanati:So she reached out in uh in july to ask if I would I think it was july um to ask if I would be be able to do this, and it was like, of course, mean. This is just a beautiful, beautiful thing to have come into being. I'm really thrilled about it, and I wrote about Hala, of course, but what I wrote about was coming together as community. So I mentioned a bit before how I make hollow with all different types of people and particularly, I'm leaning into that in a big way post October 7. So I wrote about what the ritual means to me, but then also I highlighted one of the experiences that I've had during the year. These are short essays, by the way, they're all under 1000 words. These are short essays.
Nicole Kelly:by the way, they're, all you know, under a thousand words. I just submitted something that they wanted a thousand words and I couldn't get it. It was like right under 2,000. I couldn't figure out how to do that.
Dr. Beth Ricanati:It's so short. Short is actually Nicole, I think it's harder it is All.
Nicole Kelly:My school papers are very long. I hate when they give like if I'm writing a paper, it's going to be longer than you're going to ask for and there's nothing I can do about that.
Dr. Beth Ricanati:Yeah, our, our, our directive was 500 to a thousand words. Oh my, that's like it's like one single thought yeah, they're short, they're short, it's tough, but, but there's something really, really powerful about this book and definitely check it out, not only as a book when it comes out in November, but now. The audio book is really great because most of us read our own pieces.
Nicole Kelly:Oh, that's nice that you were able to do it yourself.
Dr. Beth Ricanati:Yeah, so it's lovely to hear everybody speaking and that's fun, and just I've never actually heard that before. Fun, and just I've never actually heard that before. Or you know, I haven't read a book like that where all the contributors actually recorded their own, which is neat, which is really neat.
Nicole Kelly:We've got dogs in the background.
Dr. Beth Ricanati:I'm sure you're going to hear ours. At some point I was worried about that, but now I'm less worried.
Nicole Kelly:No, no no, we are a pro-dog house. Do you have plans to write another book? I mean, you know you're a writer. Now Are you going to stop at just one and that just be your?
Dr. Beth Ricanati:kind of opus? No, I don't know. No, it's a great question. I have been working on something off and on actually for a couple years. I've shelved a few. I've something off and on actually for a couple years.
Dr. Beth Ricanati:I've actually I've shelved a few, I've got one going now about halfway through um and I don't know. I I really enjoy writing. I didn't know that about myself. The things we learn, um, I do enjoy it, and what I really enjoy are other people's stories and sharing other people's stories. So so there might be. There might be another book in me, which would be super fun We'll see and I'm really enjoying the workshops, so that will continue for now.
Nicole Kelly:So, speaking about the workshops, I wanted to ask how, how, if I wanted to join a workshop, how would I find? Out what events you're going to be doing. Or if I wanted to book an event for my organization, how would I go about that? Events you're going to be doing?
Dr. Beth Ricanati:Or if I wanted to book an event for my organization. How would I go about that? So at the moment I am no longer doing them, just me myself, and I meaning that I used to just put a link up on you know in my newsletter, on on my website and say, you know, next Friday. I'm doing this at this time, but now I'm working with organizations, institutions, you know, whomever so, to participate in a workshop. At this point it's through you know, fill in the blank organization, your synagogue, your school, your whatever, your office, your whomever, and they bring me in and it's great. I work, you know, all over the place and I've even now gone out of the country to do it, which is fun. Um, so how do you do that? You reach out to me. So you reach out to me either through my website, which is just my name, bethricanadamdcom, or you find me on Instagram or Facebook and, uh, also my name on Instagram, beth Rickonati MD. And we work together and set it up, which is really fun.
Nicole Kelly:I know Well, now I want to eat challah. Oh well, please, exactly, which is just an always thing that I want to do, I just want to always eat challah.
Dr. Beth Ricanati:It's the only bread now I like to eat, quite frankly.
Nicole Kelly:We were doing a play thing with my daughter and there was an instructor and they pulled up a picture of bread and they asked her what it was and she went challah. So she just thinks all bread is challah now. So that's where we're at in my house which is fair, I think, you have succeeded.
Dr. Beth Ricanati:My job as a Jewish mother is done.
Nicole Kelly:So these next questions are short form questions done in the style of the actor's studio you can do like a quick answer. So what is your favorite Yiddish word?
Dr. Beth Ricanati:Oh, that's a good one. Let's say Mishigas.
Nicole Kelly:I love that as well. What about your favorite Jewish holiday?
Dr. Beth Ricanati:Oh, Passover hands down, which I know there's no holo, but I love to have. We have Seder every year. That's my favorite thing. I love Seder. Yeah, I did, I know.
Nicole Kelly:Not the no challah part, but it's only a week. So if you were to have a bat mitzvah today and have a big blowout party, what would the theme be?
Dr. Beth Ricanati:Oh my goodness. Well, we'd have to do something around challah because it really does rule my life, so something around challah. Okay, what profession other than your own would you want to attempt? You know, nicole, I like what I do. I don't know right now if I would attempt something else. I mean, when I was younger I had a list a mile long of things I wanted to do and be, but I don't regret not doing them.
Nicole Kelly:If heaven is real and God is there to welcome you, what would you like to hear him say?
Dr. Beth Ricanati:you, what would you?
Nicole Kelly:like to hear him say you did good. You did good, all right. Well, thank you so much for joining me,Dr. Beth. It has been a pleasure and hopefully all of you are going to go either bake or grab some challah or, even better, book a workshop. So this has been. Sheb rew in the City and I am Nicole Kelly. ©. Transcript Emily Beynon.
