Not Perfect, Still Ours

Beth, a young Ashkenazi-German Jewish woman who was raised in Berlin in the early 2000s. She went to college in California, where she met her now wife, Abaynesh. She loves to travel and spend all her time outdoors. 

Abaynesh: A Beta-Israel Jewish woman who was raised in Tel Aviv in the early 2000s before her family moved to California. She loves art and culture, bringing a new life to everything that she touches. 

Spotify- Not Perfect, Still Ours 

Let’s set the scene! Beth and Abaynesh just got home from their honeymoon abroad! They’ve planned a special Shabbat with both of their families at their newly established home in rural California. 

The gravel crunched louder than Beth expected.

She stood in the doorway of their small rural California house, dish towel in hand, watching the first car pull up in a cloud of pale dust. The late afternoon light stretched everything long and golden—the fence posts, the oak trees, the thin line of smoke already curling from the kitchen window.

“They’re early,” she said, half to herself.

“They’re always early,” Abaynesh replied from behind her, not looking up from the cutting board. “Your mother believes in preparedness as a spiritual value.”

Beth turned, managing a tight smile. “It is a spiritual value.”

Abaynesh grinned. “So is arriving with ten people at once and no warning.”

As if on cue, a second car appeared behind the first.

Beth groaned softly. “Oh no.”

The door barely had time to open before voices filled the house.

“Bethy!” Her mother stepped in first, arms already outstretched, carrying a covered dish balanced precariously in one hand. Behind her came her father, quieter, scanning the space with soft curiosity.

“Oh, it’s beautiful,” her mother said immediately, already moving past Beth into the kitchen. “Smaller than I imagined, but charming.”

“It’s exactly what we wanted,” Beth said, closing the door against the breeze.

Before she could say anything else, the second car doors slammed in quick succession, and laughter—loud, overlapping, musical—carried up the path.

Abaynesh didn’t wait. She slipped past Beth and flung the door open just as her family approached.

“Enat!” she called, pulling her mother into a hug that seemed to fold time in on itself.

Greetings overlapped—Hebrew, Amharic, English blending into something fluid and warm. Someone kissed cheeks, someone clasped hands, someone pressed a container into Beth’s arms before she could even register who had given it to her.

For a moment, everyone crowded in the doorway.

Then there was a pause—subtle, but real.

Beth’s mother and Abaynesh’s mother both stepped toward the kitchen at the same time.

They stopped.

“Oh—please,” Beth’s mother said, gesturing.

“No, no,” Abaynesh’s mother replied, smiling just as politely.

Beth felt it like a held breath.

Abaynesh broke it easily. “Or,” she said, slipping between them and taking both dishes, “we all go in and make a mess together.”

The kitchen filled quickly.

Beth tried to keep track of everything—what was going in the oven, what needed chopping, who needed space—but the rhythm she was used to kept slipping out of reach.

Her mother measured carefully, narrating as she went. “If the oven runs even a little hot, it will burn the bottom—”

Abaynesh’s aunt, beside her, added a handful of spice to a simmering pot without measuring at all. “It will be fine,” she said, tasting and adjusting again.

“What is that?” Beth asked, hovering.

“Just something small,” Abaynesh said, not looking up. “Taste.”

Beth did. It was rich, unfamiliar, layered in a way she couldn’t immediately name.

“It’s not what I expected,” she admitted.

Abaynesh smiled. “That’s the point.”

Beth laughed, but her eyes flicked to the oven.

She forgot the challah.

Not completely—just long enough.

It was the smell that caught her, sharp and unmistakable.

“Oh—no, no, no—” She rushed to the oven, pulling the loaf out too quickly, setting it down with a dull thud. The bottom was dark—too dark.

Her chest tightened. “I ruined it.”

“It’s not ruined,” Abaynesh said, glancing over.

“It’s burnt.”

“Only a little.”

“It was supposed to be—” Beth stopped herself. Perfect, she almost said. Like home.

Abaynesh took a knife, sliced off the worst of the bottom, and broke off a piece. She tasted it, chewed thoughtfully, then shrugged.

“Still bread,” she said. “Still Shabbat.”

Beth let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding.

As the sun dipped lower, the house shifted.

Voices softened. Movements slowed. The table, mismatched and slightly too small, was filled with dishes that didn’t quite belong together and yet somehow did.

When it was time, Beth reached instinctively for the matches.

Abaynesh’s hand hovered near hers.

They paused.

Beth glanced up. There it was—the quiet question neither of them had fully asked yet. Whose way? Which words? Which rhythm?

“Together?” Abaynesh said.

Beth nodded.

They lit the candles side by side.

The blessing came out slightly uneven—Beth starting a fraction earlier, Abaynesh’s cadence different, their voices overlapping and then finding each other again.

It wasn’t polished. It wasn’t practiced.

It was theirs.

The candle tipped just after.

A small, sudden shift—the table leg catching unevenly on the floor, or someone brushing past too quickly. The flame wavered, then leaned, wax spilling onto the table.

“Wait—”

“Careful—”

Hands moved all at once, voices rising, chairs scraping.

Then it was upright again.

The flame steadied.

Silence hung for half a second longer than necessary—

—and then someone laughed.

Soft at first, then louder. Another joined in. Soon, the whole table was laughing, the tension dissolving into something easier, lighter.

Beth found herself laughing too, breathless.

Dinner unfolded in layers.

Dishes passed back and forth—some familiar, some entirely new. The flavors didn’t match in any traditional sense, but no one seemed to mind.

Stories surfaced.

Beth’s father spoke about Berlin winters, small Shabbat tables, and the careful preservation of tradition. Abaynesh’s mother spoke about Tel Aviv, about movement, about the older stories carried from Ethiopia.

At first, people listened politely.

Then they leaned in.

Questions came—curious, not cautious. Laughter threaded through the heavier moments. Connections formed in unexpected places.

Beth looked around the table and felt something shift—this wasn’t just a gathering. It was a weaving.

She slipped into the kitchen without announcing it.

The quiet hit her all at once. The hum of conversation dulled behind the wall, replaced by the soft clink of dishes and the faint crackle of candlelight.

She leaned against the counter.

“It’s a lot,” Abaynesh said from the doorway.

Beth turned. “I wanted it to be perfect.”

Abaynesh tilted her head. “Why?”

“Because it’s our first one. Because both our families are here. Because—” Beth gestured vaguely toward the other room. “This matters.”

Abaynesh stepped closer. “It is perfect.”

Beth shook her head, half-laughing. “The challah is burnt. The candles almost fell over. I don’t even know if we did the blessing right.”

Abaynesh reached past her, breaking off another piece of challah. She handed it to Beth.

“Eat.”

Beth did.

“It tastes fine,” she admitted.

“Exactly.”

Beth looked at her. “You’re very relaxed about all of this.”

“I’m not relaxed,” Abaynesh said. “I just don’t think perfect is the goal.”

“Then what is?”

Abaynesh smiled, glancing back toward the other room. “This.”

It started with a voice—low, steady.

A song Beth half-recognized.

Someone else joined in, then another. The melody shifted slightly as it grew, different harmonies folding over each other. Hebrew words anchored it, but the tune moved—stretching, adapting.

Abaynesh took Beth’s hand and pulled her back into the room.

They stood at the edge at first, listening.

Then Beth joined—tentative, then stronger. Abaynesh’s voice came in beside hers, different but fitting.

It shouldn’t have worked, all those variations layered together.

But it did.

It filled the room.

Later, the table broke into smaller circles.

Parents compared stories. Siblings joked. Someone asked Beth what it had been like growing up Jewish in Berlin. Someone else asked Abaynesh about traditions Beth had never even heard of.

The questions weren’t careful anymore. They were open.

Beth sat back, watching it all.

By the time the last car pulled away, the house was quiet again.

The table was a mess—wax hardened in uneven pools, dishes stacked precariously, crumbs scattered everywhere. The challah, what remained of it, sat slightly lopsided on the counter.

Beth looked at it and sighed. “I’m sorry.”

Abaynesh raised an eyebrow. “For what?”

“For… all of it not being—” She stopped herself.

Abaynesh crossed the room, broke off the last piece of challah, and handed half to Beth.

They stood there in the dim light, eating.

“It didn’t go how I planned,” Beth said.

“No,” Abaynesh agreed.

Beth looked around—the mess, the remnants, the quiet after something full.

“Everything that mattered still happened,” she said slowly.

Abaynesh smiled. “Yes.”

Beth leaned against her, the weight of the evening settling into something warm and steady.

In the stillness of their home—the one they had just begun to build—nothing felt mismatched anymore.