For Want of a Nail
Pen Tivokeish2010Poetry
For want of a nail the baby was lost,
For want of the baby the tzaddik was lost,
For want of the tzaddik the generation was lost,
For want of the generation the Messiah was lost,
For want of the Messiah the Kingdom was lost,
And all for the want of a lost toe nail.
Recovered from the Wayback Machine (copy of 2010-02-10). Original page in the Wayback Machine.
15 Responses
Has anyone ever tested this superstition. That is, get a pregnant lady to walk over a nail and see what happens? Seems like a pretty easy one to prove/disprove.
Does it need to be disproved, or perhaps, proven first?
lol. Very good.
Shtreimel: Nails do collect a lot of germs, especially for people who don’t use soap when washing from the toilet etc. and pregnant women have a lower immune system וכו’
Why would your low Immune system be affected by you stepping on a Toe Nail????
when I was a kid I was terrified every time I dropped a nail. Ha Ha
Traditions. Nahara, nahara, upashtai.
http://www.answering-islam.org/Books/Zwemer/Studies/chap6.htm
Para. 5-6
I suppose if it cuts into the skin….
The infinite wisdom of chazal is to be marvelled, they discovered Germ theory before anyone else.
As they say, the whole town fears a cat.
Townspeople fear the Rabbi
Rabbi fears the Rebbetzin
Rebbetzin fears mice
Mice fear a cat.
LOL, Misyavni. Love that one.
We can use this method to save on health care costs.
Instead of using all this expensive equipment doctors usually use when performing abortions, we could just have the woman walk on finger nails!
At this price we can get the abortion funding issue, out of the health care debate!
>Instead of using all this expensive equipment doctors usually use when performing abortions, we could just have the woman walk on finger nails!
LOL!
Great post, too.
Le’choireh it is referring to stepping on the nails barefoot – which would make it a medical or psychological issue and not something supernatural at all…
Shulchan Aruch says that if you take the nail out of the room in which it was cut, it can no longer hurt a fetus. This complicates things for the abortion clinics. Instead of shipping in cases of nails, they’d need to bring long-nailed people to the site.
On the other hand, there is an opinion that if you take a nail to a room which you had l’chatchilah intended to bring the nail to, it retains its abortive powers. So they could just tell the donors to clip their nails l’shem a certain clinic. Then they’d also need to hire mashgichim to ensure that the drivers don’t bring the nails into any truckstops or anything on the way to the clinic.
What happens if a woman steps on one of these offsite-clipped nails? I suppose there’d be a machlokes whether her baby will live.
btw, this halacha that nails lose their power when taken to a different room shows that there’s nothing hygiene-related about this superstition.
The infinite wisdom of “Kuni R.”!! A message from the grave!
Lol @e. @chasidkofer, then the christians and al the pro life people will also start flushing their nails in the toilet…