xtreme mitzvot
tie flicking
everyone knows that Maimonides says that charity is better when anonymous, but few know his top tip for making it that way. He points out that some sages would keep a coin in their tie and flick it over their shoulder as they walked down the street. Best not do this with £2 coins-could get treacherous...radical beatsthe halachah has it that playing an instrument is forbidden on shabbat. Haredi halachic guides (predictably) wish to interpret this a strictly as possible, and suggest that banging on the table (crazy niggun singing style) is like playing and instrument and therefore a no-no. However, banging a table or hitting a glass to get everyone's attention is apparently ok. So the distinction made is between creating a rhythm in a regular beat, and a non-metered noise. I therefore suggest the creation of the Society for Modernist Haredi musicians to perform free, arythmic music on friday nights. Just make sure John Cage is coming over for shabbos dinner...top tunesnext time you find yourself next to someone completely tone deaf in shul remember the wise wordsa of Menachem de Lonzano: 'He whose voice is bad and unpleasant and who cannot perform hymns according to their tunes and who cannot remember melodies, even to a man like him it is alloted to raise his voice'.on the grapevineI'd been told that Rashi's daughters wore tefillin, and so I asked a (ultraorthodox) rabbi the source for this. He grinned sheepishly. "There isn't one" he said. "We're not sure - it's a rumour". So an 800 year old rumour then. I knew that Jews had a talent for gossip but really...
