TICHEL TYING

Ruthie Fogelman teaches Joy to Tie Tichels

Old City, Jerusalem, October 1997

Ten Years Later ~ Tichel Tying

  dedicated to Ruthie in the Old City

- Joy Krauthammer

  

How your "purple friend," me, laughed with glee

as you taught me to tie and wrap

pretty colorful tichels / scarves

around my uncovered head

and not just wear any old shmatah.

  

So I could be tzniut / modest

because then-- I was a "married woman"

in the Holy Land.

Transformed, I turned into a hip, tichel-tied modest woman

by my friend Ruthie in the Old City.

  

Looking "single" with uncovered head,

and my then dark wavy hair framing my face,

not today's silver locks,

I did not desire

Israeli men's reputed advances.

I would look married!

  

Now I am advised that I have become "single."

I won't use the "w" word

(sounds like a red-belly black spider).

"In transition" sounds good.

  

Studying Torah hours a day,

"married to G*d," is what I safely say

when questioned

about my marital status.

I'm not ready to play.

  

I need to return for another lesson,

"Return to the Land of My Soul,"

as my Rebbes Shlomo and David sang,

both of blessed memory.

But, oh, I am no longer married.

  

I still cover my head in shul,

so will take from you,

my friend, my holy purple-loving soul sister, Ruthie,

another tichel teaching

with multi-layers and creative hippie fringe,

and keep uplifted, to the top of my head,

my kedusha / holiness

as I did when

we first tied tichels
exactly ten years ago.

   ~ ~ ~