It’s been a really bad couple of months for Jews—what with the Bernard Madoff investment scandal, on top of the weight of the economic collapse, and the unpopular war in Gaza. That’s exactly why Edmon J. Rodman writes that Jews could use a nice Valentine’s Day card. He’s not sure what that would look like. But he gives 10 good reasons why the world should love Jews:
1. Inventing tzedakah boxes. Low tech. High concept. Coin goes in here—tzedek, justice, comes out there. Portable, cheaply reproducible and hopefully copied by everyone, the box is a powerful communal tool. Dating from the Temple, it provides an anonymous, easy method to contribute. Lives have been rebuilt with it, forests planted, mouths fed, study supported, all from something as simple as a cardboard can.
2. Cooking kasha varnishkes. A side dish of just buckwheat groats and bowtie noodles; think of it as Jewish aromatherapy. The smell gets right up in your head. Like in an old animated cartoon, the aroma transports you to another place: your mother’s or grandmother’s kitchen The Jewish obsession with food has led us to creating food pantries and organizations such as Mazon, “food” in Hebrew,” and Sova, “to be satisfied,” in Los Angeles.
3. Writing a ketubah, a Jewish marriage contract, where everything is spelled out: the responsibilities of the groom and the rights of the bride. Long before Victoria’s Secret, this document exposed other secrets, including a wife’s conjugal rights.
