A parable.

Jul. 5th, 2012 10:05 pm
xiphias: (Default)
[personal profile] xiphias
A man goes to his rebbe with a question:

"Rebbe, why is it that we eat kugel on Shabbos?"

"It is because the numerical value of the word 'kugel; is the same as the word 'Shabbos'." 1

The man nodded, and turned to leave, satisfied. But before he got halfway home, he stopped, thought a moment, and ran back to the rebbe.

"Rebbe -- the numerical value of 'Shabbos' is MUCH greater than the value of 'kugel'!" he said.

"So, nu, have another piece."

1 In Hebrew, each letter has a value, which is how Classical Hebrew tended to present numbers. That also means that you can add up the values of the letters in a word, to get the value of the word. And there is a common thing you do to take words of equal value, and connect them. In this case, the words are שבת, Shabbat/Shabbos (depending on accent), and קוגל, "kugel". Shin = 300, Bet = 2, Tav = 400, for a total of 602 for "Shabbat"; Kuf = 100, Vav = 6, Gimmel = 3, Lamed = 30, for a total of 139 for "kugel". Naturally, this means that you ought to have 4 13 pieces of kugel on Shabbat.

(no subject)

Date: 2012-07-06 10:32 pm (UTC)
fauxklore: (Default)
From: [personal profile] fauxklore
Actually, there is a precedent for a baked starchy dish being called a pudding in English. Namely, Yorkshire pudding, which is basically a large popover.

And then there is Indian pudding (and, as a New Englander, you may also be familiar with grape nut pudding) though that is sweetened. There's even hasty pudding which is, essentially, polenta. (Indian pudding is hasty pudding made with molasses and sweet spices added, at least in my admittedly limited experience.)

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