Treeft Ohn di Lecht

“The wife lighting candles was the whole G'mar Kedushas Shabbes.

The husband Treeft Ohn di Lecht so his wife could light smoothly

was the whole Hadlaka.

My father never missed a Friday,

lighting my mother's candles in advance then blowing them out so

the wicks are ready for the flame, trimming the bottoms

(of those triangular candles called trilites)

so they fitted into the candle-holder,

dripping hot wax into the candle holder so the

round candles stood steady. That's called Treefing (dripping) in Yiddish.

Turns out that's the Ikkar Mitzva.

The Izbicy explains it as because the רצון in the שימוש is

infinite, while the actual Mitzva is only as big as the person can do it.”

Reb Hershey Worch, Degel Parshas Beha’alotecha

Our candles are sanitized today,

The oil is measured into these tiny holders

The wicks burn immediately,

There is no need for “treefing”

There is no messiness

No dripping

No pools of oil around the Lichter

Even the candles burn immediately,

Like our religious practice,

It comes in tiny aliquots of Artscoll-directed unimodal

Fuzzy modern day amalgam of Ashkenzai/Litvish rules,

Accessible on line or in flashy covered

Books with literal artwork that leaves nothing to the imagination.

Reading the mourner’s guide to kaddish

One might be led to thinking

This came straight from Sinai,

These customs that emerged over centuries of mid-European cities

Synagogal handling of pogroms and Crusades,

The genre of piyutim and chronicles penned by survivors,

Is gone, (other than the Kina for the Shoah

By the Bobover Rav or Rav Schwab)

Now I can fulfill all the rules of mourning by merely

Referencing the relevant chapter

All paginated with ease in black and white

Cross referenced for all situations one might encounter during the year.

There seems to be no room for local minhag

For there is no “local” anymore

The European tapestry of communities

and their particular customs

has vanished, the Shtam-

Baum for each kehilla guarded jealously

of its own unique minhagim,

(Dad told me about the “Sheva Kehillos

surrounding Vienna, and the Shifshul,

each with different customs and slight

variations in nusach),

Yet now all are straightjacketed by Halachic practice

More so, “hashkofo” ideology,

That slippery doxological tool that has no rules

And allows for no deviance.

Orthodox Ideology determined by the Yeshiva World

or ever changing Daas Torah and give

such power to the “gedolim”

(leading to the validation of strange notions

such as anti-vaccination, in the name of Torah.)

One is labelled “apikoros” the way deviants

were labeled in communist or fascists states,

Anyone not conforming to the ideological frame

Of the dictator might be labeled

Then excommunicated.

Mostly it is key words that trigger such response

with the accuser having the faintest

understanding of the concept being discussed.

Our candles are sanitized today,

The oil is measured into these tiny holders

The wicks burn immediately,

There is no need for “treefing”

There is no messiness

No dripping

No pools of oil around the Lichter

Even the candles burn immediately