Mazel
tov!
Everyone,
Jew and gentile, has heard this phrase.
We take it to mean, ‘Well done!”
Or “congratulations!” Actually,
mazel tov means “good luck.”
The
words are meant to ward of the “evil eye.”
Ok, say something good happens to you.
If someone comes up and says, “What a wonderful thing to happened to
you” (i.e. I am envious and it should have happened to a nicer person) they
would be putting the “evil eye” on you, this is wishing something bad.
Another
generation may remember saying “kayna hara” after hearing good news, which are
words to chase away and bad wishes or spirits.
Going back another generation, some will even remember spitting over
their shoulder when something good was spoken to chase away a possible curse.
“Mazel
tov” – good luck -- was originally a way to disrupt the pathway of the evil
eye.
Going
back even further in time, “mazel” was how the star lined up. “Mazalot” means constellations. In Israel there are star charts of the floors
of some synagogues. Astronomy was an
important way to chart of the passage of time. One scholar, Rabbi Shmuel was said to be more
familiar with the pathways of the stars than the streets of the city where he
lived.
Going
back millennia, mazel tov indicates a wish for the stars to align in a
favorable pattern to bring about a good outcome.
A
Time Anomaly
Moses dispatched twelve spies
to determine the viability of the Land.
Tisha B’Av (forty days later)
the Jews deny their heritage in fright and refuse to enter the Land. They are sentenced to forty years of
wandering.
The first Temple was
destroyed on the same date.
The Second Temple was
destroyed on the same date.
The Judean revolt was quashed
leading to 2,000 years of exile.
Ferdinand and Isabella
expelled all Jews from Spain.
So,
is Tisha B’Av fated to be a day of darkness and excruciating pain? We will fast and read Lamentations on this
date. Is the ninth of Av cursed?
Is
there such a thing as good or bad luck?
Are things fated by the universe and therefore we are trapped?
I remember
my father telling me when I was saddened to hear about all the tragedies on
Tisha B’Av. He soothed my anxiety by
telling me that the Mashiah would be born on this day.
Maybe
we can change our ill fortune; God has not written our lives before they have
been lived.
We
are not as stuck as we feel.
We
are not fated or slated for anything but are ever free to choose our own
destiny.
In the seventeenth century Italian violinists
kept toads in their violin cases. Before a concert they would pull
out their toad and stroke it for good luck. Centuries later it was
discovered by herpetologists that toads
secrete alkaloids that dry out skin.
Toads actually helped them play better because they fingers did not
stick to the strings!
Maybe
there is no mazel tov: there are only the results of our efforts.
