The Western Wall and Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

This fall, a group of organizers in New York are planning to break a world record: 3,000 guests gathered at the Javits Center for what they hope will be the largest Shabbat dinner ever held.

The event, dubbed The Big Shabbat, promises grandeur — a reproduction of Jerusalem’s Western Wall for participants to place written prayers, clergy-led blessings from partner synagogues, a raffle for a free trip to Israel (where the raffle winner will deliver the notes), and a lineup of unnamed “celebrities” and “wow moments.”

The goal, organizers say, is to send a message of unity, joy, and Jewish pride in a time of fear and uncertainty. With antisemitism on the rise and Jewish identity under pressure, it makes sense to want to create something big, bold, and inspiring.

But there’s something deeply gauche about trying to put New York’s Jewish community into the Guinness Book of World Records in the name of Shabbat.

Shabbat isn’t a marketing stunt. It’s a spiritual inheritance — one of Judaism’s oldest, most intimate, and most consistent rituals. Shabbat doesn’t need to be performed. It needs to be practiced.

“With every passing week, it is more and more important that Jewish people feel they have common spaces to come together over the aspects of our culture that unify us,” said food writer Adeena Sussman, one of the voices supporting the event. “Shabbat dinner for the initiated is a huge source of comfort and succor and joy.” She’s absolutely right — and that is precisely why we must treat Shabbat not as spectacle, but as sacred.

Shabbat’s power is not found in “wow moments” or celebrity appearances. It doesn’t need a stage or a spotlight. What it needs is a table — a place to pause, to reconnect, and to belong. For millennia, Shabbat dinner has been the bedrock of Jewish continuity. The candles, the challah, the singing, the blessings — these weren’t one-off extravaganzas. They were weekly rituals, lovingly repeated across generations and geography. They formed a rhythm. They created memory.

Even the more well-meaning elements of The Big Shabbat risk missing the mark. The organizers plan to distribute a “Shabbat Box” to guests — a curated kit to help them recreate the evening at home. The intention is good. But it’s easy to imagine how quickly this could feel more like promotional swag than a spiritual tool. Boxes don’t build tradition. People do — around shared meals, in quiet rituals, week after week.

If we truly care about Jewish continuity, let’s invest not in one-time performances, but in helping Jews across the country build lasting habits. Support families who want to host Shabbat but don’t know how. Help synagogues create regular community dinners, especially for the unaffiliated or disconnected. Offer Jewish students the resources to invite friends into Friday night rituals. Train lay leaders to be Shabbat hosts in their neighborhoods and campuses. These efforts may not go viral — but they go deep. That’s what endures, and that is what we as a Jewish community should be championing.

To be fair, public Jewish events can play a role — especially in times of fear, where simply showing up as a Jew in a shared space carries weight. A well-executed event may spark curiosity or make someone feel less alone. But we confuse visibility with vitality at our peril. A convention center packed with Jews isn’t a sign of religious health if it’s detached from actual, weekly Jewish living.

Israel offers a compelling contrast. There, Shabbat dinner isn’t an event. It’s a norm. It’s woven into the rhythms of life across secular and religious lines alike. You don’t need to be observant to participate — you just need to show up. There’s no celebrity necessary. The invitation is enough. The expectation is cultural. That’s the model we should be following: a culture of inclusion, not illusion.

There’s another concern, too. When we reproduce the sacred — such as a replica of the Western Wall — and pair it with a raffle and a prize trip, we risk turning a place of personal prayer into something gimmicky. The Kotel is sacred because generations have wept and whispered there. Because people arrive on their own terms, in search of something larger than themselves. Sacredness can’t be manufactured. Awe doesn’t come with a promotional hashtag.

The deeper risk is that efforts like this condition younger Jews to associate Jewish life with one-off “experiences,” rather than embedded practices. The future of Jewish identity won’t be secured by intermittent inspiration. It will be sustained by reliable community — by rituals that are passed on, taken up, and made one’s own.

Let’s imagine a different kind of investment. What if the dollars and energy being poured into a one-night dinner went instead toward seeding thousands of Shabbat tables across New York — and beyond? Tables in homes, in synagogues, in Hillels and Moishe Houses, in college apartments and empty-nester kitchens. Tables where children learn the blessings, where friends sing together off-key, where newcomers feel welcome, and where candles are lit not for the camera, but for memory.

As groups like One Table already know, Shabbat doesn’t need to be made spectacular. It already is — in its simplicity, its beauty, its weekly return. What it needs now is not more wow. It needs more why. It needs more who. And it needs more homes, families, and communities committed to doing the work of continuity — not as a one-night statement, but as a lifelong rhythm.

Our task is not to break records; it’s to break bread.

Samuel J. Abrams is a professor of politics at Sarah Lawrence College, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and a scholar with the Sutherland Institute.