hen it comes to marketing Judaism, especially to young adults, it is hard to imagine a program, innovation and –dare I say it — gimmick that has not been tried. I would like to suggest one. Let\’s make Judaism harder.
The Hebrew language is not famous for its curse words. There is one, however, emach she\’mo, meaning, \”may his name be erased.\”
In our tradition, it is a horrible curse to be erased from human memory. For example, Hitler, emach she\’mo: Even as we remember him, we remember to forget him. Those who evoke our most horrible memories are those who most deserve to be forgotten.
For the uninitiated, the happy minyan is a fairly recent American phenomenon, in which the melodies of Reb Shlomo Carlbach of blessed memory are infused into the davening.
Well, it used to be true that the melodies were infused into the davening. Now the davening is virtually one long Reb Shlomo-fest.
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