B'H
Leave you with a story tonight about a young woman who was going to the mikveh for the first time as she was about to get married. She was told to tell the Mikveh lady that she was a Kalla which is Hebrew for bride. Somewhere along the way, she must have got confused. Anyway when she arrived at the Mikveh, she told the Israeli lady who was the Mikveh lady 'I am a Challa'. (Challa is the plaited loaf of bread that we have on the shabbat or yom tov table.) The lady looked at her a little strangely. 'Slicha Giveret??' So our young woman was very nervous repeated more loudly,'I am a challa. I need to go to the mikveh.' A person who was waiting her turn overheard her and started to laugh saying 'Challa usually needs an oven, not a mikveh.'
At this, the young woman became quite desparate to be understood. She firmly announced, 'I am a new Challa and I need to immerse in the Mikveh before my huppa.' There was a lot of laughter both before and after it was explained that the difference between two words was a chet and a kof. The challa has a chet and the bride has a kof.
Otherwise I now have reports and more writing to do. I really wanted to enter the ABR essay writing competition as apart from the brilliant prize money there is the prestige of it all. It is a toss up between inclusiveness in education and valuing the individual and the value of marriage as a sactifiction of the union between a man and a woman and what is for ultimately and why same sex marriage is a non issue or dead duck before it even leaves the waterhole.
2 comments:
B'H
By the way I woke up this morning and reflected on this last post for some reason and realised the implications of the comment of the woman who overheard this exchange. Language holds many connotations and inferences. The word 'oven' after World War II and Hitler and the Nazis (may their names be erased from this existence forevermore) has, for the obvious reasons, some terrible connotations, because millions went to their deaths through poison gas showers and were cremated and also there were other methods of death through starvation, lack of adequate medical care for illnesses etc etc. This has been burned into the consciousness of at least one generation in the non Jewish world and affected the consciousness of several Jewish generations since. Imagine if it was your parents and grandparents or great grandparents and relatives killed. It has evolved a black sense of humour in some Jewish circles but it is still not something to joke about. It is deadly serious.
When you look on the scale of other disasters like the earthquake and tsunarmi in Japan - that is a one off horrific event and it is disaster of epic proportions, but it does not come anywhere near the scale and horror of the holocaust or shoah in Jewish consciousness. I am not belittling what the Japanese have suffered in anyway what so ever. I am saying this. The holocaust was the result of ongoing anti semitism in Europe for generations. It was systematic killing over several years that could have been prevented if there had been one ounce of compassion and human empathy in those that perpetuated this horror on mankind. If they can do it to one ethnic group, they can do it to others and the Jewish nation was the scapegoat of Hitler and others.
Ships went from Germany loaded with refugees and were turned back by so called civilised nations. Don't ask me how these people lived with themselves afterwards. Some ships were torpedoed and they knew full well that these ships did not have soldiers on board, but refugees - women and children and older people. They wanted to live and enjoy life as does any human being.
B'H
Another point to also note is that it is the right of every human being to be able to live a life uninterrupted by persecution and warfare, but unfortunately some in the world think it is their right to destroy others' lives and to bully and to denigrate for their amusement if they can. If I had the answer to why, I would be a rich person indeed. I think unfortunately somehow, that some of us measure our worth against others and try to destroy anyone who is somehow a soft target. It gives them a sense of self worth and the ability to say 'I am better than that person because I have the power to hurt and maim them.' It is in effect, someone using others for their entertainment and pleasure without a thought for the other person and their perspective on events and life.
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