My favorite thing to do on Friday mornings, that long-ago summer in Jerusalem when I was in rabbinical school, was to walk the 25 minutes to Machane Yehuda market. It was especially busy on Friday mornings, because everyone in west Jerusalem was preparing for Shabbes.

We had a little wheeled basket to carry food home. I shopped at the supermarket also; there was one right around the block. But the shuk was so much better. The sounds and the scents. A hubbub of languages around me. Gorgeous produce. The air redolent with spices and coffee and zaatar.

The first time I went I worried that I stood out in my capris and tank top and kippah, but no one seemed to mind. I barely knew how to cook, in those days, so my housemates and I dined on a lot of fish and vegetables: fresh things that were hard to mess up.

Before coming home I always stopped at one particular bakery for burekas, triangular pastries filled with potatoes or mushrooms or cheese and topped with sesame seeds. They are a Sephardic Jewish cousin to Turkish börek or burek, which has roots in Türkiye and Central Asia.

Burekas made the best Shabbat morning breakfast. Especially if I also had fresh apricots or figs, maybe some watermelon and feta. I taught my Hebrew school students how to make a simple variation on them, this spring, in our class on Jewish Cuisines and Cultures. 

Yesterday -- worried in heart, mind, and soul about everyone across the entire region: the people I know, whose updates I await in anxiety; and the people I don't know, who are equally precious in God's eyes -- I made a batch of burekas to eat for breakfast this week. 

Before I eat I will thank the Holy One of Blessing for my food, and pray for every human being who is in jeopardy across Israel and Palestine and Iran. Maybe it seems naïve to pray for peace at a time like this, but it is what I yearn for. A just and lasting peace, and safety, and hope, for everyone.