The Spice Box
THE SPICE BOX Help! There's a mikveh in my sukkah! Reader Lauren Azouli of Miami writes, "Presumably the traditional Jews in Miami were pleased to see the sukkah standing in the yard of the...
...Vanity plate...
...Here are the best of the lot: "Bare Mitzvah"—Roby Newman, NYC "Praise the Lord and Pass the Soap"—Seth Rosen, Scarsdale, NY "Siman tub and mazal tub"—Hillel Goelman, Victoria, BC(E...
...The oldest surviving spice box, the product of a German silversmith in the mid-1500s, is in the shape of a tower...
...which translates as "beautiful fields...
...Data, Ltd.'s Jewish Ethnication Program, we have identified every 'Cohen' in the United States who has a telephone...
...This month, and in the months to come, we offer still greater variety in filigree and silver, in flags, bells and turrets— some of our favorites from the new collection of the Israel Museum in Jerusalem...
...So the Gentile silversmiths who were commissioned by individual Jews to craft those early spice boxes copied their "natural" habitat...
...Our computer program has identified 32,547 Cohen families with telephones...
...Due to the rush, a number of typos slipped into the English translation...
...Year of the synagogue Rabbis who lament dwindling interest in the synagogue, take heart...
...Rabbi Saks informs us that although his is the only congregation within 50 miles of Benton Harbor, none of his Christian neighbors has as yet shown up for religious instruction...
...Material cannot be returned...
...America, tis Zion Isaac Mayer Wise, the founder of Reform Judaism in America, was also the founder, back in 1854, of the first Anglo-Jewish weekly newspaper, The American Israelite, which is still publishing...
...inhale the spices at Sabbath's end, and you can mask, for a time, the acrid odor of the fires of damnation...
...You guessed it—"See Synagogues...
...And, when nobody knows, we get stories— midrashim—which are usually more engaging than facts...
...As to the boxes, they're apparently a solution to the problem of what to do with a combination of spices...
...Why a tower...
...When is a sukkah not a sukkah...
...The translation had the High Priest offering up "liba,tions of swine...
...Artisans from other cultures used their own local architecture for inspiration...
...The tremendous variety of designs includes human figures, animals, birds and plants, buildings and towers, boxes and pyramids, boats, and even choo choo trains...
...Nobody knows...
...You'll recall (but we won't blame you if you don't) an item in September's TSB, claiming that there are 180,000 Cohens in the USofA...
...2. Check p. 220 of the •Greater Lafayette (Indiana) Yellow Pages, submitted by GedaJyah Engel...
...Assuming that up to 15% of all Cohen families are not listed in the telephone directory, then it would follow that there could be up to 38,290 Cohen families in the U.S...
...At dusk, one day during the intermediate days of Sukkot, the Federation security guard heard a strange noise in the sukkah...
...The treifest typo of all, according to Paul Blumstein (Lomita, CA), was printed in the text of the Yom Kippur Avodah Service (which describes the High Holiday rituals practiced in the Holy Temple...
...As to TSB, our literary mix of inhalables, we've been pleased, since its inception two years ago, to illustrate these pages with examples of spice boxes from the collection of The Jewish Museum in New York City...
...Joseph (Michigan) Yellow Pages, submitted by Rabbi Moshe Saks of Benton Harbor...
...But little did they know how traditional the structure was...
...Why, when it's a mikveh, of course...
...How come we have spice boxes...
...Because otherwise, the spices would make a mess...
...J'accuzi"—Roby Newman, NYC "Save water...
...Ma Bell loves you...
...One of Miami's homeless refugees had dragged a large can filled with water into the sukkah and was taking a hath...
...Now what we'd like to know is: What do we have to do to convince them, when the year 6139 rolls around, to write it, mem (40)— mem (40)—nun (50) —tet (9), which, conveniently enough, spells out the name of our favorite American Jewish publication...
...destruction, and that certainly isn't a nice name for the 5,744th year since the Creation of the World...
...That is, why are spices part of the service that concludes the Sabbath...
...So we asked our readers to suggest titles for ,our TSB piece on same...
...Many Bohemian spice boxes, for example, feature bulbous bell towers not unlike those found on the rural Baroque churches of the area, and spice boxes that originate further to the east often sport typical Oriental motifs...
...Now this clearly raises an important question...
...Or, call it shdemot...
...You'll find there, under the heading "Religious Instruction," exactly one entry—"See Synagogues...
...Be sure to include your name, address and telephone number...
...Get the ADL...
...According to Marsha Cohen in the September 1982 Spice Box, ' at least 180,000 would be Cohens.' Based upon her suggestion of 180,00 Cohens divided by our estimation of up to 38,290 Cohen families, this would yield an average family size of 4.7......Halavai...
...Reader Lauren Azouli of Miami writes, "Presumably the traditional Jews in Miami were pleased to see the sukkah standing in the yard of the Greater Miami Jewish Federation on Biscayne Boulevard...
...Shdemot also happens to be the name of the magazine published by the Israeli United Kibbutz Movement...
...It is assumed that everyone knows what millenium we are living in...
...Numbering our days Counting Cohens Contributing editor Bill Novak draws our attention to the current debate in the hallowed halls of the Israeli establishment, spearheaded by Education Minister Zevulun Hammer...
...Some of those towers included bells, a reassurance to superstitious Jews who hoped the bells would frighten off the evil spirits...
...They might have used cheesecloth, but the opportunity to explore the decorative arts was, happily, preferred...
...After all, bar mitzvah boys—and girls—often get cold feet...
...Maybe she meant Colin, Cohan, Kohn, Kohen, Cone or any other number of Kohanic surnames...
...Those who look to the future may have realized already that next year, 5744, in its usual Hebrew rendering, will be: tav (400)—shin (300)—mem (40)— dalet (4...
...Hillel Goelman)' (Whose entry is a play on the wedding song, "Siman toy u'mazal toy...
...So Hammer has proposed re-arranging the letters, and writing the numerical values in this order: shin— dalet—mem—tav...
...The evidence...
...We reserve the right to edit all submissions...
...If you need a doctor in San Francisco Perish the thought, hut sometimes you could get sick in a strange city, and you wouldn't know anybody, and you'd like it if you could maybe find a doctor who's a landsman...
...1. Check p. 869 of the Benton Harbor—St...
...So how come we have spices...
...Better you should stay well...
...How could you forget...
...No one is sure...
...Does Ma Bell know something the rest of us don't...
...We are delighted to cooperate with the Israel Museum in printing photographs of these treasures...
...It read yayin, which is Hebrew for "wine...
...So: The fires of Gehinnom are extinguished on Shabbat, and rekindled at its end...
...Is there a significant respect in which synagogues (or the seeing of them) help to control temperature...
...Uh-oh The folks at one California Chabad House had a tight printing deadline to meet in order to get their English/Hebrew machzors ready in time for the High Holidays...
...the name of a bird, or shed met—the evil spirit is dead...
...There, so help us, you'll find under the heading "Temperature Control Equipment" exactly one entry...
...Please send us ideas, notes, curiosities—anything you'd like to share with our subscribers...
...how clever a group...
...And the winner is...
...daven with a friend"—Morris Friedman, The Bronx As promised, the winner will receive a prize of dubious value and a letter of effusive praise...
...Or, more simpty, the sweet spices are a metaphor for our hopes for the week to come...
...In medieval days, spices were precious commodities...
...We can't vouch for their medical skills, nor even for the fact that k'shmam ken hem (they are as their names), but reader William Silverman recently took this photo on Clay Street in Chinatown, S.F...
...Consider the ad in TAI of October 28...
...Invitation Readers are invited— and encouraged—to submit material for The Spice Box...
...Upon pulling aside the curtain at its entrance, he made a startling discovery...
...Accordingly, they were stored in guarded, fortified towers...
...Blumstein notes that the Hebrew version, at least, was correct...
...Or is this whole thing yet another tedious illustration of anti-Semitism...
...You can read this acronym as shadmit...
...Ah, moment readers...
...Here's an eye-opener re the same from reader Bruce Arbit of Milwaukee: "As part of A.B...
...Do worshipers get hot flashes, for example...
...Remember the Denver havurah that scheduled its meeting in a member's hot tub...
...Our thanks to Dr...
...For the sake of brevity, convention dictates that the first digit, representing 5,000, be dropped...
...They've been that since the first century BCE—or maybe even earlier...
...Emanuel Friedman, Burlingame, California...
...Remember Marco Polo...
...Based upon a statistical probability algorithm that we developed, we can estimate that up to 14 percent of all Cohens are not Jewish...
...The exhibit, "Towers of Spices," includes intricately-crafted European spice boxes, most of which were salvaged after World War II...
...First they said we control the banks, then the press, and now— brrrr—the temperature...
...Depending on length, we'll pay from $5 to $50 for material that is accepted...
...He was persuaded that America was the new Zion, and who knows, maybe he was right after all...
...The problem with this spelling is that it is pronounced tashmad...
...The spice box is one of the few Jewish ritual objects whose shape and size are not governed by law, and those who have crafted spice boxes have taken full advantage of this freedom...
...Hot tubbiddytub...
Vol. 8 • December 1982 • No. 1
