“Haircut twenty dollars” read a sign in a barber’s window during the covid-19 epidemic,
in Columbus Avenue, Manhattan. It added: “Overdue haircut, twenty-seven.”
Overcharging for corrections that are overdue is similar to a polemic
against the doctrine that you must repent immediately if you want to get to heaven.
I’m a supporter of Augustine’s Hippo prayer, which said: “Lord, make me chaste, but please not now!”
Premature avoidance of khumras is a sacred cow to which I don’t kowtow.
I suppose that means that I am less a Nazirite than an oenophilic hypocrite,
long on wine, on hair far shorter than on literary offenses I compulsively commit,
less pro procrastination than anti antisemitism,
regarding just the latter of the two above a barbarism.
Inspired by the NYT Metropolitan Diary, 3/14/21:
Barber Shop Window
Dear Diary:
Sign seen in a barber shop window on Columbus Avenue:
Haircut $20
Overdue Haircut $27
A ‘khumra’ is the prohibition or obligation in Jewish practice that exceeds the bare requirements of halakha.
Gershon Hepner 3.15.21
Gershon Hepner is a poet who has written over 25,000 poems on subjects ranging from music to literature, politics to Torah. He grew up in England and moved to Los Angeles in 1976. Using his varied interests and experiences, he has authored dozens of papers in medical and academic journals, and authored “Legal Friction: Law, Narrative, and Identity Politics in Biblical Israel.” He can be reached at gershonhepner@gmail.com.
