Shabbat at Home with Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump
Every Friday night.
In the cold, dark days of winter, the sun sets early on a Friday night. Depending on the week, the sun might set as early as approximately 5:15 p.m. Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump have spent the whole day preparing for this: The eve of the Sabbath. Their phones are off. Their computers are locked in a safe and the safe’s combination is written down and kept in yet another safe, only accessible by Jared, Ivanka, and their housekeeper, who does not even know of the safe’s actual contents. Their windows are closed and blocked by a second set of walls that come down before sunset and stay there until sunset the following evening, once the Sabbath is over. There are only four people on this planet that have access to them for these 24 hours: Their three children, Arabella, Joseph, and Theodore, and their housekeeper.
The Sabbath is a time for mindfulness and reflection on the week gone by. To shut yourself off from the outside world and spend time with your loved ones. It’s also the only reprieve Ivanka and Jared have from the POTUS’s alarming policies, divisive cabinet picks, and his tweets. It is important that the world knows that when Trump makes his worst, most hateful decisions, the Kushners had nothing to do with it. Certainly this is not a coincidence. Six days a week it’s, “Nordstrom is dropping your line this, you played a role in bringing about the apocalypse that.” But not today. Not on Shabbat.
Ivanka and Jared begin Shabbat the way any other family would: By saying the prayers over the traditional Shabbat candles, wine, and challah. “Baruch, atah, Oh God, what have I done?” Ivanka starts the blessing, thanking God for what he’s provided and then apologizing profusely for her role in destroying his creation. The family eats the festive Shabbat dinner. It is always an impeccably prepared, delicious meal, for they know that without Jared’s small influence over his father-in-law for the evening, it could be their last. “Do we have enough rations in the event of a nuclear war?” Ivanka asks her husband. He nods solemnly. When they say the blessing over the children, Ivanka whispers, “May God make you like Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah,” and “may you outlive the nuclear holocaust your family will have helped to create.”
Jared and Ivanka do not make love on the Sabbath. In fact, they rarely make love at all anymore. They lie awake at night, eyes towards the ceiling. The next day, they’ll play with their children, and for a brief, shining moment, they’ll feel like a normal family again. But all Shabbats must come to an end, and with their end, comes the onslaught of the real world. And for Jared and Ivanka, that means reentering the inner circle of Donald Trump.