I discovered rituals of head bowing and hands placed palm to palm in prayer when I moved to the south. I grew up outside of Chicago and such things did not occur either in my childhood home or in the synagogue my parents (intermittently) visited. No, people looked at each other when they prayed and every \u201camen\u201d was made with eyes wide open.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But here in North Carolina, I experienced a great deal of head bowing and prayerful hands. When, for example, I worked for Reed Gold Mine, a state historic site commemorating the location of the first documented discovery of gold in the United States (no, really, North Carolina was <\/em>first in this, if not first in flight), I regularly experienced both. The then manager opened our meetings with head bowing, prayerful hands, and words of blessing in Jesus\u2019 name. Never mind the separation of church and state stuff I assumed would govern a government-run site \u2013 it didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Later, as the (only) local rabbi in my southern town, I found myself regularly invited to do some version of the ubiquitous \u201cWhat is Judaism\u201d program for local religious and civic organizations. I learned to watch and listen for the words that beckoned my hands to meet and my chin to drop. Generally, this happened just before I was introduced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When I was asked to give invocations at various events where Christians not only outnumbered any other denomination, they were almost always the only denomination present (aside from me), even my own Jewishly-framed words magically produced the same response. I wore a kippah. I had the look and the task of a religious functionary. Such individuals bow their heads and place their hands together. I didn\u2019t, but everyone else did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And so I learned to understand head bowing and hands placed palm to palm as particularly Christian practices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This led to major confusion when I finally decided that texting constituted a mode of communication.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Most of the people I was texting with were (and still are) Jewish. Nevertheless, they frequently responded to my missives by sending me an emoji that featured two hands placed palm-to-palm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I was pretty sure that my correspondents were not all the products of a mass conversion induced by social media. Admittedly, I generally do my best to ignore such platforms. I have yet to rely on Facebook as a venue for sharing my life story, Twitter as a location for Pithy Thoughts I have had whilst showering, and Instagram for providing the world with pictures of my meals. Tik Tok has never even been on my radar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Recently, after receiving yet another folded-hands emoji (from a rabbi, no less), I went to my dearest friend and spouse of many decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhy are all these Jews sending me a Christian image?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAh, no,\u201d Ralf said kindly, \u201cLook it up. That emoji is often described as \u2018folded hands\u2019 which symbolize please or thank you in Japanese culture.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cLook up an emoji?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cEmojipedia,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I groaned. \u201cReally?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cReally,\u201d he said. (Ralf is also not much attracted to social media platforms. But he knows what that jazz is and does.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Indeed, he was correct. Down to the Japanese connection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Clearly, I had jumped to conclusions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I had been made curious, however, about whether there were such things as specifically Jewish<\/em> emojis. You already know there are, dear reader, because you are not, as I am, crawling into the past all the time and thinking it\u2019s better to stay there with the evils you know rather than to force yourself to face the evils that are headed at you at warp speed this very minute<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ralf encouraged me to look and see.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cGuess,\u201d I said. \u201cJewish symbols for $500!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cA building with a Magen David.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cScore: a synagogue,\u201d I muttered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cA channukiah described as a \u2018menorah,\u2019\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAnother five hundred points for Ralf!\u201d I added. \u201cAnd don\u2019t say it, \u2018cause you know it\u2019s there: the Magen David. And that\u2019s it for Jewish emojis.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n There was a long pause.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI think I need to say a prayer for the invention of new Jewish emojis,\u201d I said. I looked at Ralf. I paused meaningfully. Then I folded my hands together and bowed my head. \u201cMay the emoji makers of the world offer us Jewish emojis with the power to renew emojiland. All of it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ralf, who had Jewishly not bowed his head or put his hands together answered, \u201cAmen.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n I take this moment to apologize to my blog. It has been woefully neglected for many years, largely because of my attempts to renew the Jewish world (though not with emojis)<\/em>. I promise to visit you more often. Chag sameach!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I had been made curious, however, about whether there were such things as specifically Jewish emojis. You already know there are, dear reader, because you are not, as I am, crawling into the past all the time and thinking it\u2019s better to stay there with the evils you know rather than to force yourself to face the evils that are headed at you at warp speed this very minute.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[588,590,589],"class_list":["post-2167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-emojis","tag-magen-david","tag-menorah"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2167"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2167\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2168,"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2167\/revisions\/2168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}