Values matter. What our values are can tell you a lot about a person, or an organization. When we were just getting started, CEO and Founder Aliza Kline worked with Rabbi Jessica Minnen to choose and elaborate on the seven core values that would define OneTable – not just how we operate internally, but also how we show up in the world.

Those values have guided us well, and now – as we plan for the future – we’ve revisited those values with our team and condensed the original seven into three major guiding values and principles. These are the values that show up in our internal performance reviews, in our design sprints as we create new resources, and in how we communicate with you all – our community. They’re also in our expectations of how our hosts and guests will treat each other and approach Shabbat each week.

Joy / Oneg

Shabbat is a weekly opportunity to create joy. Light, wine, nourishment, friendship — Shabbat is a reminder to delight in life, to punctuate the week with a regular sense of wonder, to pause and embrace that most overlooked of emotions: happiness.

Welcoming / Hachnasat Orchim

Shabbat is an antidote to loneliness, an ancient communal wellness practice. Rooted in the foundational texts of Judaism, welcoming guests and being a guest are expressions of radical hospitality that honor the essential value in every human being (kavod ha’briot) and create opportunities for connection in the modern world.

Elevation / Kedushah

Shabbat is an invitation to explore holiness, a sense of “sacred Otherness” by elevating time, space, food, and relationships. Kedushah welcomes the weekend with chochma (Jewish wisdom) the ever-evolving practice and experience of ritual through the balance of established custom (kevah) and personal intention (kavanah).