With Pesach aroung the corner - now is the time to start catching bagels.
It's probably happened to most of us.
You're out somewhere, it could be at work, a museum, a park or anywhere
else, and someone walks over and throws you a bagel. If you're lucky it
isn't frozen. Well, I'm not really talking about that kind of a bagel.
"Being Bageled" is a phrase that, while not coined by him, is becoming
popularized by Rabbi Mordechai Becher. It's basically when a person who
is not visually identifiable as being Jewish (at least in their own
eyes) says something to you so that you know that they too are Jewish.
Example: I was sitting at a real
estate closing when the buyer walked in with 4-5 additional family
members. The buyer's attorney turned to me and whispered "Oy, they
brought the gantza mishpachah!"
Rabbi Becher tells a hilarious Bagel story. He was traveling in
Budapest when a couple of tourists approached him and asked how to find
a certain marketplace. Rabbi Becher pointed the way and one of the
tourists said "Thanks a lot. You know what, we've been wandering around
for a while, we wouldn't want to be wandering around for forty years
like last time!"
Why do people bagel? Is it because
they are looking for commonality? Friendship? Something else? How do
you respond to a bagel? A shmear and some lox? A discussion of where
the person is from? Something else? Rabbi Becher says that being
bageled is siyata deshmaya (divine providence) but how we react to the
bagel is part of our "free will" and can often be quite critical.
Anybody out there have a good bagel story or some good insights on the
bagel phenomenon? Please share it with us at smarkowitz@projectinspire.com
The Power of Love
Love Your Neighbor
