Guess I'm behind the curve because this is the first time I've heard of this nonsense, but if you also have not previously heard about the challah segulah here goes:
If you are baking challah between after Sh'kiya on Wednesday and before Shavuos, and are making enough to make the bracha "hafrashas challah", please email me so that you can be part of the 40 women segulah.No other explanation was given in the email, but a quick web search turned up an essay by Chabad-nik Rav Yitchak Ginsburgh, gematria extraordinaire. Apparently, the mitzvah of challah is the primary rectification for the nation of Israel abandoning the Land of Israel as a result of the sin of the spies. Since they wandered for 40 years in the desert, I guess having 40 women baking somehow helps to correct that sin. Plus, the gematria of Rachel = 40 when you use the ordinal count of each letter (there is almost always a way to get what you want with gematriot if you are creative enough!), and the mitzvah of challah relates specifically to Rachel.
The amount of superstition that has permeated mainstream RW Orthodoxy is absolutely astounding. But occasionally this obsession with segulot gives birth to a gem of an idea: Rav Ginsburgh suggests that they open up a bakery inside Rachel's tomb!
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7 comments:
Moses, I'd like mine whole wheat.
Don't you love numerology? Prove anything in three easy steps!
“Apparently, the mitzvah of challah is the primary rectification for the nation of Israel abandoning the Land of Israel as a result of the sin of the spies.”
Why does this need to be rectified? Is the sin of the spies still listed on some celestial tally sheet, and we have to generate positive credits to balance against it? If so, that was quite a sin, if we’re still making up for it after three and a half thousand years of women doing the mitzvah of challah.
"Apparently, the mitzvah of challah is the primary rectification for the nation of Israel abandoning the Land of Israel as a result of the sin of the spies."
And yet, the same people will tell you that the mitzvah of challah was given on Har Sinai, well before the sin of the spies occurred.
The Wolf
Why does this need to be rectified?Everything needs to be rectified! I mean, we're still paying for the sins of Adam & Chavah, for the Spies, for sale of Yosef, for sinas chinam of the 2nd Temple, yada yada yada. With that burden, it's no wonder we're so neurotic!
And yet, the same people will tell you that the mitzvah of challah was given on Har Sinai, well before the sin of the spies occurred.No, the Torah-true response is that these mitzvot were in force before Sinai since we know that the avot and imahot observed taryag. You're not suggesting that Rachel didn't take challah??? No cheesecake for you on yuntif!
eh. As long as I can have butter on it on Shavuot...
"Everything needs to be rectified! I mean, we're still paying for the sins of Adam & Chavah, for the Spies, for sale of Yosef, for sinas chinam of the 2nd Temple, yada yada yada."
Good point
Incidentally, the 2nd Bais Hamikdash wasn’t destroyed because of sinas chinam in some metaphysical sense that Jews hated each other and therefore God destroyed the Temple. It was destroyed by the three groups of Jews holed up in it, who, fighting the Romans and each other at the same time, set fire to it. Which makes the idea that we have to make up for it by avoiding sinas chinam to balance the Heavenly books that much worse.
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