Keinehara!

The purpose of this blog is to hear, see, and speak no evil at the Shabbat table....please print and share...

Dedicated to the refuah sheleima (full recovery) of Akiva Aryeh ben Eliya.

This weekly Table Talk is of course all about stirring up healthy table talk.

And last week's proposal for a new Olympic medal generated even more controversy than expected - including at our own table.

Keeping to that spirit, here's something to talk about that hopefully will generate just as much passion on both sides of the proverbial aisle.

Raise your hand if you ever heard someone say, "Keinehara!"

What does it mean and when is it said?

It came up in a conversation yesterday and I realized that there's a lot of confusion around this old Jewish expression.

My Bubbe (born in Chicago in 1911) used to say it. Not often, but enough for me to ask her about it. She said that her parents would say it after saying some good news, as in, "Rachel Schwartz is engaged, keinehara!" Or, "Keinehara, Murray Goldstein won the raffle!"

Notice how in these example, the good news being reported is about someone else.

In other words, it means something like, "I do not have a begrudging eye."

What's that supposed to mean?

Maybe the person saying, "Rachel Schwartz is engaged" also has a daughter of marriageable age. So keinehara means "I'm happy for her and don't envy them."

Here's another example. Let's say Reuvain is curious how many cars Shimon owns. If he simply asks, "Hey, Shimon, how many cars do you own?" maybe he's envious, or maybe the question comes in a spirit of criticism. In that case, Shimon should probably ignore him.

But what if Reuvain has a good reason to ask? Maybe he's Shimon's insurance agent. So he says, "Shimon, how many cars do you own, keinehara?"

In other words, you can feel safe answering me because it won't cause envy.

The etymology of keinehara is "without the evil eye". The evil eye is the eye of envy.

For your table: Who's being protected by saying keinehara - the person under discussion, or the person speaking?


Shabbat Shalom


PPS -  This week's 11-minute podcast is called "Nursing Home Insurance?" and there are 10 ways to hear it:

iTunes/iPhone … YidPod … Spotify … Google Podcasts … Pocketcasts … Stitcher … Podbean … Amazon Podcasts … RSS … or just on the web.

Appreciated this Table Talk? Like it, tweet it, forward it....