Peevey thingy

[mamadeb]

Is it wrong of me to be bothered by the whole Prayer Shawl thing?



Not the concept, per se, except that I'd imagine that anything made for someone you loved (in whatever manner) would be made with good thoughts for the recipient, and so I can't see why you'd need an organization. But others might feel differently about that, or like that it's part of a whole thing, and so that's not my problem.

It's the name. It's that prayer shawls in Judaism have been around forever (at least a thousand years, if not more). It's that they have a specific role to play in Jewish religious observance and prayer. They are considered sacred objects, and those who wear them are supposed to behave in a proper manner while wearing them.

And while this usage doesn't exactly *cheapen* the term, it changes it from something very Jewish and holy to to us to something...else.

I know terms change and meanings change, and I'm sure the ladies who invented the concept thought they were coming up with an original name, but I keep reading things about "knitting a prayer shawl for Aunt Martha to wear to church", and my mind breaks for *so* many reasons. And, anyway, the original meaning of the phrase is still around and still in use.

I don't know. "Prayer Wraps." "Good Thoughts Shawls." "Love Shawls." Something else.

Edit: I think it's that, unlike most people, I did grow up with the preferred term being "prayer shawls."

Comments

[ailsaek.livejournal.com]

Well, you see, I didn't grow up Jewish. My first encounters with a tallis or tallit were under that name. "Prayer shawl" came later. I get slightly dioriented by "yarmulke," for instance, because I know what the word means, but I never hear anyone Jewish using it. And the idea that Orthodox Jewish women didn't used to worry as much about covering their hair and kol issha just seem like thoughts from another planet, because the only Judaism I know is the Judaism I've encountered since 1998 or so, online and in person.

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

I know that. It's more...I'd just read five comments in a row that all seemed to say, in effect, "You think of them as 'prayer shawls'? How unJewish of you."

I know no one meant it that way.

[ailsaek.livejournal.com]

I can see that. To me, your reaction seems more Jewish than mine, because the various permutations of Jewish nomenclature and observance are part of you, whereas all I've done is read about them, not internalize them. I know a fair amount about how certain authors and current authorities say Judaism should be, but not so much about how it actually is (or was).

[gingicat]

Huh, I default to "yarmulke," these days.