In Vitro Challah–ization

Yikes! There goes another pan clunking from the cabinet, I can hear them from upstairs…. now my wife is muttering something inaudible, she is not happy with the whole situation. I mean, it does border on insanity. But how can you refuse a plea from a friend…

And, we are really not the types to do the extra cooking, especially challah, we usually just buy it from the store; but the hysteria in that woman’s voice, the needy eyes, it’s enough to send chills down my spine, the way she extracted my wife’s promise.

“It can only work if there are forty”, she begged, “you have to tell me for sure, because I need forty.”

She stated it with the poised confidence of the devout. Neither hint of doubt nor measure of thought graced her countenance as she called upon us.

It was simple to her. Someone had backed out, and the segulah said that forty couples making challah are necessary for her friend to get pregnant, now she needed one more.

Imagine me, here I had been thinking of myself as properly educated in the matters of birds and bees, and low and behold, it doesn’t take two to tango, but forty to braid.

Hand your reason over to religion and watch your sanity slip through your fingers