Saturday 20 June 2020

Responding to a friendly greeting

I recently witnessed the following brief dialogue:

Person A to Person B: "Gut Shabbes!" [this being a traditional Sabbath greeting which originated among Yiddish-speaking members of the Eastern European Jewish diaspora and which is still used by many people today, even if they speak little or no other Yiddish].

Person B to Person A: "Can't you rid yourself of your galut attitudes and say 'Shabbat shalom'?" [the Sabbath greeting predominantly used by Hebrew speakers in Israel today].








Pirkei Avot advises us to greet other people with a friendly, smiling face (Avot 1:15) and also to greet them with joy (Avot 3:16).  If someone wishes to challenge another person's use of a friendly and harmless greeting, there is surely a better time to do so than at the moment he is receiving a friendly greeting.

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