9 Things a Jewish Man Never Owns — That Americans Buy Every Month

I am Shmuel. I am an Orthodox Jew, and I have a job and a commute like you do. There are 9 things you will not find in my house, from a single kitchen sponge to a razor blade, and almost none of them are missing, because most of them are there twice. People assume a house like mine is a house of going without. It is closer to the opposite, with two sinks, two sponges, two drawers of cutlery and a handwritten scroll on 9 doorways, and the only thing my house is really short of is the weekly argument about any of it. I was about 9, and it was a Friday, and I was in a hurry, and I pulled open the nearest drawer and grabbed the first spoon my hand found. It was the wrong drawer. My grandfather got up from the table with the clock key still in his hand, took the spoon out of my fingers without a word, and put it back where it lived. Then he put my finger on the strip of coloured tape on the front of the drawer, worn soft at the corners, and tapped it twice. Decide it once, on a quiet day, and you never have to decide it in a hurry. That is what you were watching when I turned the biscuit packet over at the office tin. I was not making a decision in front of you. It was made long before I was born, and I was only reading. Every one of the 9 is a strip of tape on a drawer. What you will learn: Why my kitchen has two sinks, one red and one blue The spoon, the drawer and my grandfather's strip of tape Why I take my coffee black after a meat lunch The one thing the digestion explanation gets right The small case on 9 doorways, and the scribe who checks every letter Why my fridge stays dark on a Saturday The man who checks 35 places in one suit The one rule nobody could give me a reason for The candle search for 10 pieces of bread, and the one we lost The office birthday cake I have to say no to What two of everything takes, honestly The front-door light that goes off every Friday The biscuit tin and the packet turned over The hotel razor I left in its sleeve Three questions people want to ask and never do The last thing missing from my house #FamilyLife #Tradition #Kosher #Shabbat #Faith #Observant #Routine #Explained #Culture #Heritage