I can’t remember…were they called “Dangling chads” or “Hanging chads?” I’m talking about those Florida scraps from the Bush/Gore election whose controversial dangling had to go to the Supreme Court for its decision. Anyway, looking back on my articles I realized there were some of those I’d like to take care of today, but hanging or dangling, let’s just call them Miscellaneous Items.
Kipah vs. Yarmulke
So, I’d say 90% of the head coverings you swiped from Bat/Bar Mitzvah services were yarmulkes. They’re the ones that are silk-ish or at least shiny and have enough room on the inside to have those lovely inscriptions, “The Bat Mitzvah of Tiffany Schleplowitz and the Bar Mitzvah of Tyler Schleplowitz, the twins of Mr. and Mrs. Sean Schleplowitz, January 1, 2011, Temple Rodfei Kesef, Palm Beach, Florida.” I mean that would never fit inside a kipah which is usually, but not always, a knit head covering worn by anybody but overly Orthodox brethren in both Israel and the United States and anywhere else.
The plural is kipot and nowadays you can find any design on them that reflects the wearer. I for one have a kipah that’s got baseballs on it, but I think I gave it away to my 11-year-old grandson.
Temple vs. Synagogue vs. Congregation
For the Orthodox there was only one Temple built twice – and some would like the third to be built but that could take away the jobs of rabbis since kohanim (ancient priests and their descendants) offered sacrifices in the Temple and rabbis don’t do that kind of work. Truth be told, neither do those who have “Kohen” after their names (right Andy?). They are descendants of the priests; descendants of the Levites have “Levi (pronounced LAY-vee) after their names. Kohanim have other privileges: having the first aliyah, presiding at a pidyon ha-ben (redemption of the first born), and a few others - and destroyed twice, once by the Babylonians in 586 BCE and once by the Romans in 70 CE. They, therefore, would never call their shul TEMPLE because of that.
Reform congregations used “Temple” a lot, probably to tick off the Orthodox a la “We’ll show you!” Since the entire sacrificial system was anathema to our movement and totally removed from our siddurim, we never hesitated to call our House of Worship Temple So-and-So. My Wilmington congregation was Temple Beth Emeth (actually it was the Temple of Truth, just as Beth El Congregation was the Hebrew Friendship Congregation until it was kosher to use Hebrew). In the 1980s, one of our presidents and I came to our Board and said, “The building is the Temple, but we want to highlight the people. Let’s officially change our name to Congregation Beth Emeth.” Great idea! We did.
There are some congregations, a Conservative one I know in Charleston, SC, which uses “Synagogue” preceding its name, Synagogue Emanu-El. Most unusual.
(Speaking of Mother’s Day…Here are stereotypical and very old one-liners about Jewish mothers:
- Mothers offer advice twice: when you want it and when you don’t.
- A mother’s love is a better cure than chicken soup, but chicken soup is cheaper.
- Your mother is the only person who knows more about you than you know about yourself.
- If you can’t remember whether or not you called your mother, you didn’t.
- The motherly advice you ignore will always turn out to be the best advice she ever gave you.
- If you forget, your mother will remind you of all your mistakes so you don’t repeat them.)
The Conservadox have two days of Rosh Hashanah, so we’ll have two days
of Mother’s Day with the continuation of the “Jewish Mothers” piece tomorrow.