[Avodah] The Origins of the Non-Jewish Custom Of 'Shlissel Challah' (Key Bread)

Micha Berger micha at aishdas.org
Tue Apr 24 06:56:44 PDT 2012


On Fri, Apr 20, 2012 at 05:51:43PM -0400, Prof. Levine wrote:
> The Origins of the Non-Jewish Custom Of 'Shlissel Challah' (Key Bread)
> by Shelomo Alfassa

His argument is quite weak. He shows how keys were sometimes made
in Xiological shapes -- crosses or in threes. He doesn't prove this
was common, or that doing so with religious intent is. He also shows
that baking bread in the shape of a cross is common, particularly for
Easter. (Which is why my children's childhoods omitted the Mother Goose
rhyme "Hot Cross Buns".) And from there leaps to Jews making challah at
a time close to Easter (the first Shabbos after Pesach) in the shape of
a key. Meanwhile, he also mentions that Jews already had a custom of
ladder-shaped challos, implies it is likely what morphed into this
custom, and yet *that* doesn't even have the two-step connection to
crosses he started out with.

He quotes me about reverse engineering a reason for a minhag, but
I never said that such things were uncommon or wrong for minhagim.
What I said was:

http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol25/v25n384.shtml#06
> On Wed, Nov 12, 2008 at 09:02:06AM +1100, Meir Rabi wrote:
>: Does this not all sound very much like reverse engineering or drawing the
>: target after having shot the arrow?

> Yes it doesa. Taamei hamitzvos are lessons drawn from halakhah -- very
> much after the arrow is shot. One doesn't darshen halakhah from the
> taam. It might be useful as a factor when choosing between two shitos or
> sevaros. But only one formal halachic process actually "shot the arrow"
> and the question is still unresolved.

I'm actually LAUDING the search for taamei hamitzvos even though they
are post-facto and didn't necessarily motivate the din. (And therefore
can't be used to modify the din.)

And <http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol28/v28n067.shtml#03> (from a
thread launched by RYL's raising the same topic last year):
> Sourdough is hard to come by this week, as it takes over a week to
> ferment. The other source of yeast frequently used before the Fleishmans
> figured out how to isolate it is barm, a sideproduct of making bear.
> But barm has more yeast and is more reactive than they were used to,
> and would make softer more floury bread than sourdough. Most metals kill
> yeast, although stainless steel doesn't. So they put a piece of metal
> into the challah to kill some of the extra yeast off.

> Then, once people did it, they reverse-engineered kavanos for the
> practice.

Here he cites a totally different theory about the origin of schlissel
challah, and passes it off as though I agreed with him!

In any case, his real campaign isn't about the title, but about the
spread of hunting for segulos to get what you want out of G-d rather
than ana avda deQBH and bitachon that what we get in response to doing
His Will is what He wants us to get.

And on that I would agree. IMHO, it is all talui on kavanah. Are you
trying to engage in theurgical magick, or is it simanei milsa, like
on RH, for the time between Chag haAsviv and Chag haQatzir, when this
year's crops start coming in and one is thinking about paranasah?

After all, the gemara says (Taanis 2b) that hashgachah WRT parnasah
is described in EY as being the fourth "mafteiach" that HQBH doesn't
share with a shaliach. And R' Yochanan (himself in "Maaravah") subsumed
parnasah under mafteiach shel geshamim. But either way the metaphor is
of a key to Hashem's otzar of parnasah. So, connecting keys to parnasah
isn't newfangled.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Today is the 15th day, which is
micha at aishdas.org        2 weeks and 1 day in/toward the omer.
http://www.aishdas.org   Chesed sheb'Tifferes: What is the Chesed in
Fax: (270) 514-1507                            harmony?



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