Friday, March 11, 2011

Ash Wednesday

This past Wednesday, as I was wandering around New York on my way to my job, I noticed that many people had ash marking their foreheads.

Of course, my first reaction to this was, "Squee! They're all Chasidim getting married!" It's a Chasidish custom to mark the groom's head with ashes.

Upon taking a closer look, however, I realized that a lot of these people had ashes in the shape of a cross marking their forehead. At which point I realized it was Ash Wednesday, not everybody's wedding day.

In other exciting news, hamentash-packaging for former NCSY and JSU participants is just peachy.

6 comments:

Gil Student said...

I think it's a universal Jewish wedding custom, but many do it to the chasan under the chupah before the kallah walks down the aisle.

Isreview said...

"It's a Chasidish custom to mark the groom's head with ashes."

I never knew about that custom -I learn something new everyday:)
---
Daniela
http://isreview1.blogspot.com

Anonymous said...

This custom is already attested in the period of the rishonim. See, e.g., Sefer ha-Mekhtam le-R. David b. Levi (mid-thirteenth century Provence), in Ginzei Rishonim to Ta'anit, p. 278.

Shasdaf said...

amazingly when I attended a Catholic university I never noticed it (only once a classmates' conversations of what they were giving up for lent), but after that when I was at a state school, I saw professors with the ash.

Anonymous said...

ahh, chana...it required enrolling in a Jesuit Law School for this 'yeshiva bochur' to actually notice people w/smudged foreheads on that particular day.

The Cousin said...

In other exciting news, hamentash-packaging for former NCSY and JSU participants is just peachy.

Haumentashen sound much more exciting then having to sit thru discussions on Lent and how one counts the days of Lent. (The topic du jour at my office).

First time I saw the ashes was back in HS.