A QUESTION OF MINHAG

Following an exhaustive and lomdish debate on the absolute and relative values of studying Torah, in a comment-string on Dovbear's blog (http://dovbear.blogspot.com/), which undoubtedly prompted much reflection among the readers, some wise words were placed in the comments underneath a far different post (http://dovbear.blogspot.com/2008/03/funny-funny-fox.html).

They reflect an insight that, once you grasp it, is transcendently obvious - but it takes genius to think of it first. The author is Margavriel.


This is what he wrote:


MG: (some line about something from the New Testament)

SAM: I've never read the New Testament, at least not large portions of it.

MG: On Purim, it's a mitzvo to read the New Testament! ונהפוך הוא

SAM: No, it should be a mitzvè to read the New Testament on Nittel, because you're not allowed to lern Torah then. Davkè, you should lern anti-Torah.

MG: Ah, right! If we were lerning Torah, it would look like we were celebrating their holiday. So instead, we lern the New Testament, so it is clear that we are not celebrating their holiday.

SAM: Yup! You're getting it!

MG: Right. You should go into the subway station on Nittel, and read the New Testament, loud and clear, so that everyone can know that you are not celebrating their holiday. Preferably, you should leyn it out of a klaf.


------Mar Gavriel

=======================================
GLOSS:
1. The Subsequentia is not infrequently called the New Testament in the common tongue. That name means merely that someone held on to a regenerative gland or organ while speaking, in the manner of Roman witnesses in a court case.
2. Klaf is also 'qlaf'. It is not the same as its Arabic cognate 'quluf'.
=======================================

ADDENDUM (RECEIVED FROM MARGAVRIEL AS I WAS POSTING):

MG: You know the minhog not to eat mattzo 30 days before Pesach?

SAM: Yeah.

MG: Well, my minhog is not to shake lulov 30 days before Sukkes.

SAM: Mine, too.

MG: And not to hear shôfor 30 days before Rôsh Hasshono. (I accomplish that by not going to shul.)

SAM: Mine, too. Plus, my minhog is not to say Slichos 40 days before Yom Kippur.

MG: Why 40? Why not 30?

SAM: Oh, you're right. I only have to stop going to Slichos 30 days before Yom Kippur. I could theoretically go to Sfardi Slichos during the first 10 days of Elul. But I'm not Sfardi, so I don't.

MG: But if you stopped by at a Sfardi minyon, you could.

SAM: Right. That would not be in violation of my minhog.

MG: What about not drinking thirty days before Purim?

SAM: Well, I fulfilled that this year. I haven't drunk anything -- except small amounts of wine -- for the thirty days before Purim this year.

MG: What about the brandy that I convinced you to drink last night (11th of Ador)?

SAM: Yes, but last night was already Purim!!! Don't you remember?

MG: Oh, right. I forgot.


=======================================

NOTE: Please be aware that reading the Subsequentia on nittel nacht only applies to people from whom one actually expects a serious demeanor and a scholarly habitus. In the B.O.T.H. household this is not required - my savage outbursts of fury and insane ranting, and Savage Kitten's increasing frustration with allergies, shoppers, Chinese-Americans, relatives, recalcitrant lobsters, and sickening children's choir recordings in the kretchmutch season, should be enough to convince nearly everybody that we are not celebrating their holiday. We will tell them so if they still doubt. Nix from celebrate.

I, however, will be celebrating Purim. But you didn't hear it from me.