First off, apologies to everyone to whom this post won't make sense. Explaining why it's funny would take ten times longer than writing the post. Shanna, feel free to write a ten-page comment giving background...
So, Thursday night I went to the supermarket. I do most of my shopping at the small stores near where I live, but this week a friend of mine was doing a late-night shopping trip and I went along. In this part of town, about half the people you see at the supermarket at 11 pm on a Thursday are frum guys with their wives' shopping lists, buying stuff for Shabbos. I didn't have a long list (just the things I can't get in walking distance--the big containers of plain organic Stonyfield yogurt, the kind of granola we like, popsicles, a couple of compact fluorescent lightbulbs) so I soon found myself on one of the benches by the checkout, working on my latest sock, waiting for my friend to be done.
And along comes this guy with, I am not kidding, an entire cartload of those Israeli chocolate wafer cookies--you know, the kind that come in the red package, with the layers of chocolate and wafer that you break rectangular blocks off. He's almost completely round, obviously Chabad, and when he gets a little closer I see that he's wearing a Yechi yarmulke. He must have a hundred packages of these cookies. He has nothing else. He can't be buying for a Purim party, or if he is it's going to be a pretty monotonous menu. It just looks like the cookies are on sale, he really likes them, and he is seriously stocking up.
And all I can think is, "You're that sure Mashiach is coming to redeem us before Pesach?"
(And don't you know that even if he does, you're still going to have to get rid of all your chametz??)
* * *
P.S. The compact fluorescent bulbs I got rock. The light fixture in our kitchen is only rated for 75-watt bulbs. That's not bright enough to knit by unless you have multiple bulbs, and the fixture only takes one. So I bought a compact fluorescent, which gives light equivalent to a 100w bulb while only using 26w. And it's supposed to last for 5 years. Even if it doesn't, it would be worth what I paid for it--I can knit in the kitchen now.
4 comments:
I think I get that - something about no leaven in the house during Passover, right? The ancestors not having had time to let the yeast rise before fleeing?
Are wafers leavened? I've never seen anyone make any (one of those things that are magically generated by factories, as far as I'm concerned) so I don't know.
I like those compact fluorescents, too, if I need the bright light. Though I'm finding in general that fluorescent lights bother me. In my room I've got several lamps w/ ordinary bulbs (OK, one of them's pale blue, and another is a red lava lamp) so I don't have to turn on the overhead fluorescents unless I really need quite bright light. But I like the one over the sink mirror, b/c I don't have to squint.
Yes, they are leaven. And yes, they have to go before Passover--so either he has to eat them, or somebody does, or they get tossed.
But the short version of why it struck me as so funny is that he is a member of a subsect of a sort of fringe (in my book, anyway) group of Jews who are expecting the Messiah more or less any minute now. So I was wondering if he was assuming that he didn't have to worry about getting rid of all those cookies, because the Messiah would get here before that. (Not that it would make a difference--he'd still have to deal with the cookies even if the redemption did happen on Thursday.)
Yes, he probably is single, and judging from his shape this may well be all he eats. But the combination of that, and the Yechi yarmulke (which is a reference to thinking that the Lubavitcher rebbe is the Messiah, even though he's, um, dead), and the late hour, all combined to make the whole thing very funny.
What can I say, I told you it wouldn't really bear explaining. I told the friend I was with and she laughed too...
maybe he's buying them to give out as shaloch manos?
Hee hee. . . .but, um, Chabad holds that you can sell chametz gamur - one of DH's more useful minhagim (but I still need it to fit IN my cabinet). So maybe it was just *that* good of a sale.
And maybe they already had the rest of the shalach manos/Purim party supplies, and he was just getting that "one last thing"? :)
Post a Comment