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My October Surprise
So. Last week I had to pop into Rami Levy’s to do some shopping. Rami Levy is, first of all, an important businessman in Israel, but “Rami Levy” refers to the chain of supermarkets he owns. They are popular for several reasons, notably lower prices on many goods, a quality house brand, and, although I know that tastes in coffee are rather personal, I find his coffee importer to know his (or her) stuff and Viva Italia! The stores also stock an enormous variety of products, keep the place very clean, and offer cell phone accounts, including “kosher phones” for those who want to avoid the internet.
The checkout lines were not too long, and I was soon loading my goods onto the conveyer. The cashier was a Muslim lady who once helped me retrieve my lost pin number. Rami Levy cashiers are an interesting lot — young women in hijabs, middle-aged Russian ladies, and a few middle-aged haredi men. Everyone is nice and pleasant, and sometimes joking around, sometimes obviously tired. Rami Levy stores on Friday mornings and the day before any holiday is usually a nightmare to be avoided, even if it means missing some last-minute item.
My stuff was moving along, and I was packing up with my usual stunning efficiency when things came to a halt. There were two bottles of beer. The cashier wanted me to pass them over the scanner. At first, I didn’t understand… but of course. She (or her husband) has become more religious, or raised the issue with management, or who knows what?? I put the bottles over the scanner, not wanting to make a fuss, but afterwards, I began to feel really, perhaps irrationally, annoyed.
As I got out of my car at home, I said hello to my Ethiopian friend Adamahon, and asked her if she had had the same thing happen. Sure, she said. It’s because they’re Arabs, or Muslims and aren’t supposed to handle alcohol.
“I know,” I said, “and on one hand, it’s not a big deal, but on the other…”
“It’s bad if you have a lot of beer and wine, though,” Adamahon admitted. “You think, why am I doing your job?”
This echoed my thoughts exactly.
“But,” she added, “Jews have a lot of shtick, too.”
Now there’s a word you won’t find in Amharic. Shtick is Yiddish. I’m not quite sure how to define it. It’s a way of doing things, but not in the sense of methodology. If your grandson is jumping up and down on the living room couch yelling at the top of his lungs, you tell him, “Stop doing shtick!” When I lived in California and went to the Berkeley Chabad House sometimes, I was always disconcerted by the fact that the rabbis, all born and bred in the New York yeshiva world, would turn their heads aside when speaking to me. They were invariably polite, interested in answering questions, kind and thoughtful — they just wouldn’t look directly at a woman. That’s one kind of Jewish shtick that Adadmahon meant.
But the issue is more complicated than shtick or Muslim customs. After all, the cashier didn’t bat an eye to pass through a bottle of alcohol from the cosmetic section, or the alco-gel. I don’t know if religious Muslims use alco-gel; I think there were some problems with it in American hospitals when the damned stuff was put out everywhere in the wards and public restrooms.
And if she’s so religious, why is she working? The one thing I agree with in the Quran is that husbands must support their families. Perhaps she is a widow? Not yet married? Hard to tell, but she certainly is young and was wearing what might be an engagement ring with a rather impressive stone. And of course, the Muslim/Arab world is changing rapidly and in some unexpected ways. How to balance religious commitment with a job in the world external to a purely Muslim society? Even Bedouin girls are going to school these days, after all. And such challenges are hardly unique to the Islamic world. Similar concerns have been vigorously debated throughout the Jewish world as well.
I wonder what the store policy is. I wonder if customers complain. I wonder if, being in Israel, and in a store that in this neighborhood caters to a large religious Jewish population in several towns, the customers just accept that if they have to pass certain products through the scanner for themselves, it’s only a matter of being accommodating and polite… and keeping the checkout line moving… I wonder if those who buy alcohol will shift to using the self-checkout more often, or whether Rami Levy will eventually stock fewer alcohol products.
Or whether, in the future, I’ll just get my wine and beer from the cute Russian guys at Yayin Be’ir downstairs from the supermarket. They already know I like Scotch and Gewürztraminer.
Published in Group Writing
We have no problem with electricity on Shabbos. We cannot open or close a circuit, but the status quo is fine. Lighting a candle on Shabbos is forbidden.
Why do you say that? The commandment to not “leave your place” on Shabbos is actually the very first commandment given connected to the day, and it connects directly to Jacob’s dream of the ladder. Shabbos is a day for connecting as Jacob does – staying in one place and working on spiritual growth. There is no sacrifice involved.
I would submit to you that the fact of the Jewish people’s existence for 3k+ years suggests that G-d is not highly offended. Our existence means we are doing something right. I would be among the first to admit, on the other hand, that the fact that the world is turning into a steaming pile of manure tells us that we are not doing enough right. Most of that, to my reckoning, is how we understand what G-d wants from us. But “spitting in G-d’s eye?” Counterfactual.
The text does not tell us to stay at home. It tells us to not collect manna on that day. It also tells us to not leave “your place.” The question is what defines a “place.” Jacob’s “place” is where he slept for the evening in the open. So… is “your place” your couch? your tent? bedroom? house? courtyard? city?
Coming to an understanding of a shared communal space inside a city is hardly nuts.
Who says it’s supposed to be a day of sacrifice? It’s a day set aside as a gift from G-d to spend with what truly matters.
Sacrifice in terms of not going to the movies, etc. Other things one might do rather than spend time with what truly matters.
Well, specifically a day of rest.
Yes, and when you’re probably a farmer or herder working 18 hour days, that’s a gift.
I’m serious, for each question, in 25 words or less, why did God rest on the seventh day? And then after that determination, why did He put it in the ten commandments?
From Genesis, Chapter 2:
Well, He made it holy, and therefore a means to achieve personal holiness. The same for the commandments. Not only are they good sense and create a moral society, but obedience to G-d is also a means to achieve holiness. It draws you to Him if you realize they are part of His ideal. What’s your take Flicker?
Well, I don’t really know. On it’s face it’s because God did something, and it’s reflective of His own character. For example, why did He rest on the seventh day and not on the eighth? God wanted to rest, but God did not need to take a break and rest.
There may be, and certainly there are, many known and unknown practical benefits to resting on the seventh say, maybe just as simple as “all work and no play” is not good enough for life and living. And it seems evident to me that God wants us to follow His example. And it may have a symbolic component, in that seven is the number of wholeness; is something intrinsic and interesting about seven (and I’m not at all into “special numbers”). But I haven’t really thought about why God rested.
Well, creating a universe has to take it out of you…
To set an example, a reminder that we may be in nature, but we are to separate from it (the number 7 having no natural role, and animals not resting). To be holy means to periodically take time to contemplate and change.
We do not know why God rested on the 7th day but He obviously had a good reason for doing so. I once read that every culture has adhered to a 7 day week since time began, although I never thoroughly investigated the subject.
The reason the Sabbath is one of the Ten Commandments is to remind us that God is in charge. One day of the week we let go and anknowledge that we have no power to control anything for the 25 hours that the Sabbath lasts — from sundown on Friday until three stars are visible in the sky on Saturday. We should take away from this that ultimately we are truly not in control of anything.
Maybe you heard that when Moses came down from the mountain, he told the people that he had good news and bad news. The good news was that he bargained God down to just ten commandments. The bad news was that he had to include adultery.
That’s just the point. It was just one little universe, not a dozen or anything.
Thanks, folks about Why rest on the seventh day. It was very helpful.
Actually, I believe Judaism was the first. All other ancient cultures used 5 or ten or the lunar month.