Do any of you lovely ladies wear stockings or nylons with your sandals? Why or why not?
There aren't many frum people in my community, so we don't have a minhag. I want to be modest, but I also wonder how much attention my toes really draw. Right now, I wear stockings to shul, regardless of my footwear and do whatever I feel like on the other days.
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- Current Location
- Halfway To A Shluff
I'm about to go into my ninth month of pregnancy next week, IYH. I've seen a lot of women go to the mikvah in their ninth month as a segulah for easy delivery and for the person after them to get pregnant. Does anyone have any links or literature on this?
Schlissel Challah time!
I need to buy whole wheat and bleached white flour and yeast for the Challahs. I think we have a spare key I can use to bake into the loaf.
Oh, and as to why we do it... several theories...
1. Based on "Pitchi Li Achoti, Ra'ayati..." ("Open up, my darling..."--Shir HaShirim 5:2), on which the Medrash states "Pitchu li petach ke-chudo shel machat...," (cf. Shi HaShirim Rabbah 5, s.v. "Kol Dodi Dofek") = something like "Open your hearts (in teshuvah) like the eye of the needle, and I (God) will open the rest like [a very large opening].
2. According to Kabbalah on Pesach the gates to heaven were open, and following Pesach the lower gates are shut, and it's up to us to open them again, therefor on the 1st Shabbat we put the key on the challah to show that through the mitzvah of Shabbat we are opening the locks [original source?].
3. In the desert the Jewish people ate from the manna until after Pesach upon entering the land (with the bringing of the Omer, see: Josh. 5:11), at which point the ate from the produce of the land, and became dependant on their livelihood for the first time (now they had no manna). The key in the challah after Pesach is a request the God should open the Sha'arei Parnasah (gates of livelihood). Alternatively, the manna began to fall in the month of Iyyar, and this Shabbat is always Shabbat Mevarchim Iyyar.
I wrap a key in aluminum foil and drop it into the middle of the braid before it rises for the last time.
I've seen online photos of Challot in the shape of a key, the poppy seeds sprinkled in the shape of a key, a little dough key on the top of the braid and a key itself on top of the challah.
So why do we do it? It's said to be a segulah for wealth and a happy home. Often people will bake the key to their front door into the challah.
x-posted
I know that everyone is probably just as crazed as I am getting ready for Pesach (it's 12:30am now and I don't see sleep on the horizon for many hours) and this is probably best for another list/community but I am having an issue and I wanted to see if any of the women out there had any advice/had been in the same position.
As things have turned out, my night for going to the mikvah this month is this Saturday night. This is also the year that my sister and her family will be in town and we are having them for Shabbat and the first days of Pesach (although they will be staying in a different apartment in our building). So, how does one go to the mikvah on the night of the sedarim without it being completely obvious that they have been to the mikvah. There would be only one reason why my hair would be wet over the chag so I can't chalk it up to anything else (I wear a hat, beret or scarf to cover my head and it does not completely cover my hair). In the past it has always been the first night of the chag, so I blended in well with all the other women that washed their hair right before the chag began. That doesn't work for the second night. Nor does "blending in" work when I am the hostess of the sedarim.
This wouldn't even be an issue if I were pregnant. Oh wait, that's my mother-in-law's voice coming through. :) Feel free to ignore it. As the hour is getting later and we are getting closer and closer to Pesach, I'm getting punchier and making weirder jokes. Keeping a sense of humor through all of this. That's what has kept me sane year after year. :)
Chag Kasher V'Sameach!
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- Current Mood
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busy
Banot, do you have here in Hebrew- and English-speaking LJ any Jewish religious communities? I mean -- the Kosher ones, not some Progressive or Conservative?
If so -- give me the links, please.
Please say Tehillim for Orah Meital Bas Bellah - her Kapitel is 16. She was in a car accident and is in surgery right now. It's serious enough that they changed her name.
With your help, she should have a Refuah Shleimah RIGHT NOW!!!
