On Reflection

This evening is the start of Yom Kippur and although I am certain that my usual problems with dehydration and low blood sugar levels, brought on by the long summer and exacerbated by the vicious virus that is still plaguing my body, will prevent me from fasting the whole 25 hours I will be refraining from TV, knitting and the computer until late tomorrow evening.

However, I have spent the last hour or so translating this week's drasha (sermon).

The Torah portion this week is Ha'azinu in which Moses is informed he will not entering the Promised Land. Supposedly, this is a punishment for his disobedience to G-d in the water and the rock incident.

What caught my attention as I was reading out the Hebrew version was the phrase במי מריבה- waters of contention. The phrase is used frequently in Hebrew when discussing an argument. Moreover, I know the story of the rock and the water quite well. But until now I had never connected the two

I am not quite sure why but I am always delighted when I discover the source of idioms in common use in Hebrew especially when the source is Biblical. Israelis casually pepper their conversations with these thousand-year-old phrases in a way that most English speakers do not anymore.

In the same way that many Israeli pop singers quote prayers or refer to G-d in their songs without every considering themselves an Israeli version of 'gospel' , these biblical quotes are used without any reference to whether the speaker is religious or secular or Reform.