Haimishness and Home (via www.RabbiJosh.com)

Here is a fabulous reflection — courtesy of my colleague and old college pal, Rabbi Josh Feigelson — on an op-ed by David Brooks in today’s New York Times about one of those wonderful Yiddish words, haimish:

Thanks for writing this, Josh. I love the Rambam material, the Sachs reference, the general way you focus on the metaphorical power of the mezuzah, as well as your overall echoing of Brooks’s point. Additional ideas to consider: the significance of the mezuzah davka being in the doorway, the liminal place; and the “home” metaphor in baseball.

Invoking the Yiddish word haimish (or heymish), which translates to “homey” (in the non-ghetto meaning of the word) David Brooks describes a phenomenon familiar to many of us: “Often, as we spend more on something, what we gain in privacy and elegance we lose in spontaneous sociability.” He terms this “crossing the haimish line.” Brooks describes a family vacation to Africa, and contrasts his family’s stays in simpler settings with those in more … Read More

via www.RabbiJosh.com