Our family started looking at Saturday as Shabbat.  One of the most interesting thigs that we got from the experience was the recognition of how much using the word "Shabbat" changed everything.  Before then, in our house, Saturday was Saturday.  But we started to think about what it meant that Saturday was Shabbat and suddently my three and a half year old asked questions like, "Mom, I think the people who work at CBS are Jewish."  I said, "Ezra, why would they be Jewish?"  And he said, "Well, because they play all their cartoons on Shabbat morning."  It changed the way we looked at the world.  And then suddenly other questions started to come.  Like, "Mom, I can't do that, right? - because I won't be home in time for Havdallah and we talked about how we are going to do Havdallah from now on."

"Okay, that means your friends need to come over here and do Havdallah with us"

It is a shift to say that we as Jews don't have Friday night and Saturday, we have Shabbat?  Suddently, when we use the word, how much it changes everything and the way we look at it.  We do lots of things in our house where we will say, "Oh wow, it is Shabbat, but so and so still has his birthday party and it is with your friend and we are still obligated...", or "So and so's performance for public school is that afternoon and we need to figure it out."  But all of a sudden we are having conversations we never had before.

In contrast, another woman, in another conversation about Shabbat said: "My kids will tell you that Shabbat is Friday night."

What messages are we sending to our children about the importance of Shabbat?  What are we teaching them?  Are we modeling Shabbat for them in a way that will stay with them throughout their lives?  And if not, how can we do so?