Further adventures in Bekeshes and Reklach

Today we attended the funeral of a beloved friend. My husband had suggested that on the way home we would check out the Bekeshes ( long Chassidic coats) and Rekeshes ( long suit jackets) that were at Housing Works- the thrift store.

For those sharp eyed among you, yesterday I wrote the name of the garment at Beketches as it was on the website of the manufacturer.I was more familiar with the term Bekeshe and apparently that is correct as well, so i return to the more familiar pronunciation.

On our walk uptown we saw two young Chabad guys at a table in front of the subway stop encouraging women to light Shabbat candles and men to put on t'fillin.

My husband and I entered the thrift and he began trying on the coats.

He admired the fabric and the workmanship and we were both a bit freaked out at how the garment transformed my husband.

Some of the coats had frock coat like details.

I suspect that if the coats cost $10.00 my husband might have thought about purchasing one for Purim. But while $45 was a bargain for these custom made finely made coats it was too much to pay for a joke.

I did think that the Chabad young men would be interested in the coats. So after my husband and i left the thrift store I returned to the subway station and told the young men that the thrift store had about a dozen Rekeshes and Bekeshes from Fino selling for $45 and they should go into the store once they were done convincing Upper West Siders to light Shabbat candles.

They asked me if I would be lighting candles tonight. I told them that i had already baked my challah and would light candles but would not be laying t'fillin. They said that they would stop into the store and perhaps they would be wearing extra fancy duds as their own mothers lit Shabbat candles.

Shabbat shalom!

Comments

מְחַיֵּה הַמֵּתִים

וְנֶאֱמָן אַתָּה לְהַחֲיוֹת מֵתִים: בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְהֹוָה מְחַיֵּה הַמֵּתִים You are faithful to restore the dead to life. Blessed are You, Adonoy, Resurrector of the dead. That particular line is recited at every single prayer service every day three times a day, unless you use a Reform or Reconstructionist prayer book . In those liturgies instead of praising God for resurrecting the dead God is praised for giving life to all. I am enough of a modern woman, a modern thinker, to not actually believe in the actual resurrection of the dead. I don't actually expect all of the residents of the Workmen's Circle section of Mount Hebron cemetery in Queens to get up and get back to work at their sewing machines. I don't expect the young children buried here or the babies buried here to one day get up and frolic. Yet, every single time I get up to lead services I say those words about the reanimating of the dead with every fiber of my being. Yesterday, I e...

Connecting with the past

A few months ago I had a craving for my father’s chicken fricassee. If my father were still alive I would have called him up and he would have talked me through the process of making it. My father is no longer alive so I turned to my cookbooks and the recipes I found for chicken fricassee were nothing at all like the stew of chicken necks, gizzards and wings in a watery sweet and sour tomato sauce that I enjoyed as a kid. I assumed that the dish was an invention of my father’s. I then attempted to replicate the dish from my memory of it and failed. A couple of weeks ago I saw an article on the internet, and I can’t remember where, that talked about Jewish fricassee and it sounded an awful lot like the dish I was hankering after. This afternoon I went to the butcher and picked up all of the chicken elements of the dish, a couple of packages each of wings, necks and gizzards. My father never cooked directly from a cook book. He used to re...

Food friday - your grandmother's food processor

My grandmother bought my mother this wooden bowl and a chopping knife, known in Yiddish as a hock-messer, soon after my parents got married. Yes, she also got them a dairy set as well. these wooden bowls and chopping knives were a big part of food prep when I was growing up. meatloaf and meat balls were mixed in this bowl. Chopped liver was made in this bowl as well. Sundays we often made chicken salad for lunch made out of chicken left over from Shabbat chopped with vegetables and mayo. That too, was made in this bowl. When I was in college my parents got their first food processor and the chopping bowls were not used as much. Several years ago, my father asked if i would like the bowls and the hock-messers. I was happy to have them. I like the sheer physicality of chopping up a big bowl of stuff into teeny pieces. While the wooden bowls have stood up well to the years of use, the hock-messers had not. The bladed which were bolted into their handles, wobbled. The blades wouldn't ...

sarah in nyc

Search This Blog