{"id":3902,"date":"2008-08-21T09:19:18","date_gmt":"2008-08-21T17:19:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=3902"},"modified":"2008-08-21T09:19:18","modified_gmt":"2008-08-21T17:19:18","slug":"the-moroccan-amen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=3902","title":{"rendered":"The Moroccan Amen"},"content":{"rendered":"

Robert J. Avrech writes<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Before we eat, I mount the stairs to wash my hands.<\/p>\n

There is a Moroccan mother—her Hebrew accent is distinctively Moroccan—with a brood of children near the washing station. Mom’s eyes are painted in blue eye-shadow and her glue-on lashes were a bit on the goopy side. She wears skin tight jeans, and a scoop neck blouse that leaves little to the imagination. Leopard print high-heels round out the wardrobe. Her hair is doing that scary Amy Winehouse thing.<\/p>\n

You get the picture.<\/p>\n

Anyway, Mom is getting her kids to wash their hands with soap and water. Every once in a while she gives one of the frisky pre-teens, a light swat, saying “Maher, maher!” Hurry, hurry.<\/p>\n

I wait patiently for the kids to clear away so I can ritually wash my hands before eating bread.<\/p>\n

But then Mom sees me, and she orders her children to step back.<\/p>\n

“Clear away, clear away, the gentleman needs to wash.”<\/p>\n

The kids, hands dripping with soap, all stepped back a few paces and looked at me with round, moist eyes.<\/p>\n

Mom motions for me to step forward.<\/p>\n

I say in Hebrew, “No problem, let your children finish cleaning their hands.”<\/p>\n

“No, no, yours is more important, please, sir.”<\/p>\n

Yup, she uses the formal Hebrew word, “Adoni.”<\/p>\n

I wash and Mom carefully tears off a paper towel and reverently hands it to me.<\/p>\n

I say the b’racha, the blessing.<\/p>\n

And Mom answers “Amen, amen, v’amen.”<\/p>\n

Mom makes eye contact with me and gives me the sweetest most lovely smile I have ever seen since, well, since Shirley Temple dazzled American audiences in the depths of the depression.<\/p>\n

I exchange a long look with mom. I can’t thank her because between the time you wash and say the b’racha, and the time when you eat the bread, one is not allowed to speak.<\/p>\n

To show my gratitude, I give a formal little bow of the head.<\/p>\n

I feel like Mr. Darcy<\/a> in Pride and Prejudice<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Mom bows her head too. Bows her head lower than mine.<\/p>\n

And in that moment I no longer see the blue eye shadow, the false-eyelashes, the saber-like nails lacquered red as a Chinese vase, no longer see the unfortunate hair and heels.<\/p>\n

I feel ashamed of my previous harsh judgment for now all<\/em> I see a fine Jewish woman who loves Torah and Judaism, a worthy descendant of the four biblical matriarchs, Sarah, Rivkah, Rachel and Leah.<\/p>\n

A few minutes later, I eat the best meal of my life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Robert J. Avrech writes: Before we eat, I mount the stairs to wash my hands. There is a Moroccan mother—her Hebrew accent is distinctively Moroccan—with a brood of children near the washing station. Mom’s eyes are painted in blue eye-shadow … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[150],"tags":[11543,11538,11541,11540,11542,11539],"class_list":["post-3902","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-robert-j-avrech","tag-american-audiences","tag-blue-eye-shadow","tag-mr-darcy","tag-pride-and-prejudice","tag-scoop-neck","tag-skin-tight-jeans"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3902","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3902"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3902\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3903,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3902\/revisions\/3903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}