Vayeitzei Challah

My kids were home from school and wanted to do a parsha project. This is the challah idea they came up with: challah shaped like a ladder resting on challah shaped like rocks fused together into one large rock (okay, really pull apart challah, but use your imagination).

I took some extra challah dough, pressed it into a rectangle, and added a chocolate filling (coconut oil spread over the dough, sprinkled with pareve Israeli Nesquik and chopped bittersweet chocolate). After folding the dough in half, I slit the dough to make it look like a ladder. I baked it at 375 degrees for 20 minutes and, presto: chocolate ladder danish.

Parsha Challah: ladder and stone

For Vayeitzei, a pull apart challah for the stone on which Yaacov laid his head, and a ladder challah (fougasse) for the ladder in Yaacov’s dream.

To make the ladder, make a rectangle that is 8″x4″ and cut slashes for the rungs. When you stretch out the rectangle to a longer length (16″) you make space between the slashes for the rungs of the ladder.

I got the idea for using a pull apart challah from Parshah mom, who has some other really great ideas. For example, she hands out cards, each with a word that has the same gematria as Sulam (ladder) according to Ba’al Haturim and asks the person who gets that card to explain the metaphor (e.g., “a ladder is like money because . . . .”).

Rabbi Frand explaining how ladder (sulam) is like money (mammon).
Rabbi Kahn, gematria of sulam as the same as Sinai and kol (voice).
Sedra Selections: gematria of sulam the same as oni (poverty), tzome (fasting) (also how fasting, voice, and money equal teshuvah, tefillah and tzedaka, which are done on earth, but reach the heavens).
Shoresh.org has a complete discussion of this topic.