Hidur Mitzvah or Exaggeration Central?
Last week, a local mini-mart went from grocery+fruit store to Tu B'shvat Higia chag la'ilanot.
Half of the store was filled with dry fruit of all shapes and colors, a full two weeks before the 15th of Shvat, and I had to go elsewhere for some products.
I don't know how Tu B'shvat worked for you, but in my days we learned about the day, sang a few songs, planted a sappling in the school yard and had some dry apricots and raisins, then went on with our lives. In Israel I learned that people had a Seder Tu B'shvat with a variety of fruits, not too overblown.
Whenever I enter the mini-mart and see the abundance of strange fruit, I'm torn between two thoughts:
1. Isn't it nice how people use giant Menorahs on Chanukah and spend loads of money on exotic dried mangoes for Tu B'shvat? Maybe we should all try to aggrandize mitzvahs!
2. Who am I kidding, Hidur Mitzvah my foot. It's Brooklyn materialism at its best, my house is more bourgeois than yours, my menorah is bigger and my Tu B'shvat fruit more expensive. My store has 300 varieties of raisins, how about yours?
Half of the store was filled with dry fruit of all shapes and colors, a full two weeks before the 15th of Shvat, and I had to go elsewhere for some products.
I don't know how Tu B'shvat worked for you, but in my days we learned about the day, sang a few songs, planted a sappling in the school yard and had some dry apricots and raisins, then went on with our lives. In Israel I learned that people had a Seder Tu B'shvat with a variety of fruits, not too overblown.
Whenever I enter the mini-mart and see the abundance of strange fruit, I'm torn between two thoughts:
1. Isn't it nice how people use giant Menorahs on Chanukah and spend loads of money on exotic dried mangoes for Tu B'shvat? Maybe we should all try to aggrandize mitzvahs!
2. Who am I kidding, Hidur Mitzvah my foot. It's Brooklyn materialism at its best, my house is more bourgeois than yours, my menorah is bigger and my Tu B'shvat fruit more expensive. My store has 300 varieties of raisins, how about yours?
posted by Goof Proofer at 10:29 AM
1 Comments:
I was in Brooklyn yesterday and on Coney Island avenue there is a Purim Megastore.
The materialism is not my problem- well yeh it is. My problem is when the Rabbis will institute some sort of statement that tels peop,le they have to do something their way- like eat a special brand of apricots or shop at the Purim store because normal costume stores are GOYISHE and therefore ASSUR - maybe we can add it to the charedi chumrah of the month club
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