Bagels at Costco

by Rabbi Koval

Have you ever been "bageled"?  What is this "bagel" verb?  Check out
Ruchi's latest blog post!  Personally, I love bageling almost as much as I love getting bageled.
It's a spiritual experience for me to see latent Jewish pride finding expression!

Coming out of the restroom at Costco the other week, I looked around for a quiet corner to recite the "asher yatzar" prayer. ("Asher yatzar" is a short blessing traditionally recited when a Jew comes out of the restroom. It's an opportunity to thank G-d for our healthy,
functioning bodies, as well as a time to pray on behalf of someone who is ill and is in need of a recovery.)  

 

Although I'm proud to wear my religion on my... er, head, saying blessings out loud in a public
place violates my principle of separation of church and shopping.  (It's simply to hard for me to
concentrate on praying with passion in public.)  I found my corner in a Costco loading dock and started winding up for the prayer. That was when it happened:  an older man that I hadn't
noticed expressed his Jewish pride with a hearty Yiddish welcome of "zei gezunt" (be well!).

I had just been bageled. 

 

So, instead of feeling the need to excuse myself and look for a new corner, I introduced myself to Bob, and asked him if wanted to have the mitzvah of answering "amen" to a blessing.  Not only did he agree and gave me a hearty amen right there in loading dock, but we met again in the snack aisle 10 minutes later.  He works for the food service company that Costco hires to share food samples with the shoppers.  As soon as I saw him manning a food sample station from a distance, I said to myself, I'll bet you that the food station he's manning is serving kosher food.  It was!   I just knew it - One mitzvah leads to another. It's what the mishnah in Pirkei Avot (Ethics of the Fathers) refers to as the mitzvah snowball effect, bringing spiritual light, holiness and blessing in its wake.  It was popcorn with the O-U kosher symbol.  We did the blessing/amen combo thing again in the snack aisle! 

I recently read a wonderful essay by one Rabbi Eli Mansour on the importance and impact of saying "amen".  He writes, "The great Kabbalist known as the Shaloh Hakadosh writes that if a person listens to the blessings that people say and answers 'amen' with kavanah (devotion), it causes a great wave of holy energy in heaven and brings down to our world much 'shefa.' (Shefa is abundance and blessing.)  The Zohar [primary kabbalistic text] explains shefa as a pipeline through which all blessings come through, down to planet earth, but you have to open up the pipeline, and that answering 'amen' to blessings is that key to open the pipeline." 

 

 One important lesson that this story taught me is that if we keep our eyes open to G-d's guiding hand and divine light, we'll find it everywhere.  Even in the aisles of Costco.  Well, for starters, at least in the loading dock..