Friday, August 2, 2013

Mountains from Molehills

Rabbi Yisroel Reisman once mentioned the current age of over-analyzation. For an example, he brought a personal story which would have rather explosive consequences nowadays.

When he was engaged, his father-in-law bought him a tallis. Looking about the house, he came upon an empty box to send it over to his son-in-law.

The box, regrettably . . . originally contained underwear. The logo said as much.

What would occur, Rabbi Reisman asked the chuckling audience, if such a thing happened today?

I am a self-confessed ruminator. 

After a date? Oh ho. What did he mean by that? Does it mean he has bodies in his basement? Did I say the right thing? Will he want to see me again after I said that?

I simply read too much into every situation, and I have to be able to move on. 

Rabbi Reisman was advocating the ability to put certain matters and taavos behind us and stepping forward. In Hungarian there is a saying called "show-let" (sólet is actually the term used for cholent, but it has more than one connotation).

It translates as, "To become salt," à la the wife of Lot. Meaning, don't look back.   
http://unmitigatedword.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/pillar_of_salt.jpg

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

While things may be over analyzed at times, I think very often they are worthy of consideration. While I was engaged, my then fiance sent me a rather lousy (lousy doesn't even begin to describe it) birthday gift. It was ugly, cheap and literally garbage. It made me wonder what the thought process behind it was -if any. I came to realize there probably wasn't, and it was just her lack of experience at buying gifts for guys. Later on though, when it came to calling things off, that was something that was in the back of my mind.

Mighty Garnel Ironheart said...

That's why I'd search behind the back of the mall and look for castaway boxes from the expensive jewellery stores!

Anonymous said...

Off topic: the bloomberg businessweek magazine has a weekly feature called "what i wear to work". This weeks featured a girl who is 6 foot 6 which made me think of this blog. She has the perfect job for a girl her height, though; she is the games operations manager for the golden state warriors :-)

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-07-01/what-i-wear-to-work-golden-state-warriors-alicia-jay

Princess Lea said...

Prof: If that was the only isolated incident, then yes, it wouldn't have been the cause of anything. But if the situation is shot to hell, then it can be seen as a proof among many.

Oh, and thanks for the link. I'm not THAT tall, at least! :)

MGI: Considering how Tiffany's costs a fortune for silver yet still has a "name," the least they can do is cough up a box!