For the Birds

The purpose of this blog is to spark some twitter at the Shabbat table. Please print and share (+ like it, tweet it, forward).

Try asking this show-stopper at your table: What's the first day of the week?

If anyone says Monday, ask them: so what day of the week is Shabbat?

Does everyone knows that Shabbat is the seventh day of the week?

But then we're back to square one. How can Monday be Day 1 and Saturday be Day 7?

Maybe we got it all wrong? How do we know when is the seventh day? Maybe it's Sunday? Maybe it's Tuesday? Is there a missing day?

The answer is related to a little-known custom related to birds.

Once a year, on a Friday afternoon, there is a custom to throw bread crumbs to the birds.

We do this the week of Parashat Bishalach - this week's Torah chapter.

The origin of the custom is related to this day-of-the-week puzzle.

In the Exodus, after crossing the Reed Sea, the Israelites find themselves free but hungry.

They complain to Moshe (Moses), he complains to God, God says, no problem, tomorrow I'll send you some miracle food.

(Not to be confused with miracle fruit.)

In the morning they find this magical food on the ground. Mah zeh? - What's this? So they called it mahn.

Then Moshe tells them, you're going to have to collect it and use it up every day.

On the fifth day, Moshe tells them: Tomorrow, Day 6, I want everyone to collect double. That way on the seventh day (Shabbat) you won't have to go to work. "And don't bother going out on Shabbat because there won't be any mahn on the ground."

So the story goes that everyone followed the directions and collected double on Friday.

But some trouble-makers threw some of their mahn on the ground Friday afternoon. They wanted to make Moses look like a liar.

But the birds took care of the problem.

They came in and ate all those crumbs of mahn. Moshe's (and God's) reputation was safe.

So to honor the birds, we throw them some bread crumbs before this parsha every year.

Which leads to Question #2 for your table: Collecting a bit of miracle-food doesn't sound that hard, in fact it sounds like a good bit of exercise. Why take a day off? Even more important: why enforce it?


Shabbat Shalom

PS - The coming Tuesday night/Wednesday 4th Day is Tubishvat - the fruity holiday.

PS - I recently learned that Quakers have a custom of calling the days by their Biblical names only, avoiding the pagan names of Sunday, Monday, etc. So today isn't Friday, it's the sixth day. In fact, this is how Israelis speak.

 

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