As I’m short on time and long on fatigue, I’m gonna ‘recycle’. The other night I prepared a short little speech for our ‘sheva b’rucha’ evening, but never actually got to say it, due to lack of time. I didn’t actually finish it either due to (LILA) a very busy day. So I’ll ‘say’ it here instead. Why not??

Speaking as a ‘sheva b’rucha virgin’ until a couple of hours ago I have much to learn. And I did learn, from Jude this morning, that it is customary, if not desirable, for someone to make a short speech. Normally of a religious/spiritual nature. Ah. Just a bit of a problem there. I can do football, Brexit, Anti-semitism in the Labour Party with my eyes closed. Tennis techniques, the writings of John Irving, evolutionary theory, more football, the music of Elvis Costello and how to avoid veganism at all costs. And vegans. If you want shorter subjects I can do feminism in Saudi Arabia, the high points of Arsene Wenger’s career and shortest of all: my favourite operas.

But according to the spellchecker on Microsoft, I can’t even spell ‘dvar torah’ (an ‘essay’ based on the bible). Which is indeed an appropriate metaphor for the depth of my religiosity. A word which unaccountably Microsoft is happy with.

But I do know about marriage. And I know about Jewish women. They’ve been a lifelong study. Ok Mel, Jewish woman. I’m only allowed one. And therefore would like to address the deep and profound philosophical question of whether Jewish women get the reputation they deserve. And as you’ve just married one, Josh; listen good.

Jewish woman is a much maligned and wickedly stereotyped beast. Please don’t take that word personally. F’rinstance:

No-one generally knows what the anthropic principle is but everyone’s heard its most famous paradox that if a tree falls in the forest and there’s no-one there to hear it, does it still make a sound? Well the Jewish version is equally paradoxical. If I say something and my wife’s not there to hear it, am I still wrong?

My other favourite joke:

Avram calls the surgery one morning demanding a doctor come check on his wife. Who is lying inert when the medic arrives. “I’m so sorry Mr Schwartz, but your wife has died”. Avram sighs, “thank God for that, I thought I’d gone deaf”.

Are these tales funny? If so its because they play on our stereotyped traits of ‘the jewish housewife’. The classic, mythical ‘yenta’. Mainly a residue from generations past. They get a very bad press. But so does Kim Jong Un. Donald Trump. Though that’s fake press, obviously. Theresa May. Boris. All suffer from bad press and some might say, all deserving of it. Basically, sometimes a bad press can be deserved.

But heh; we’re post millennial. We’re post-feminism. Gender roles adapt and evolve. I bake pies FFS. Doesn’t make me a yenta. It makes me ‘metrosexual’. And although religion doesn’t, can’t ‘evolve’ and is in fact the diametric opposite of evolution, being something constant and unchanging with barely a mention of any World Cup or any other cultural influence, attitudes can change.

That was it, far as it went. Maybe I’ll work out an ending, who knows.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx