Thursday, August 10, 2006

Man's Tombstone, Woman's Tombstone

Lindsey Friedman studied one of the oldest Jewish cemeteries in North America, the Shaarai Shomayim cemetery, in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, which was founded in 1747 and discovered that The Magen David was put on the men’s tombstones while a chanukiyah was put on the women’s.
Friedman said the reason was that women light candles while men are more prominent in synagogue.

King Solomon Sword

On the WWW I saw an offer to buy a gold King Solomon Sword made in Toledo, Spain.
The images on the sword included the Solomon’s seal and the Ark of the Covenant.
I liked the merchants' trial to link the sword to the famous story about the sentence of Solomon, where
Two women were fighting for a child and King Solomon, in order to find out which one was telling the truth , gave his sword to a soldier and ordered him to split the baby in two, giving one half to each of the women. The real mother begged the king not to kill the child and to give him to the other woman. In this way, King Solomon knew immediately which one was lying showing great wisdom and fairness.