Friday, November 4, 2011

Friday fish

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A good catch at the Mahane Yehuda market.
Enlarge the photo to see the expression on the poor fish's face.


While fishing for a title for this post, I remembered reading that the Bishops of England and Wales decided to re-establish the practice of fish on Fridays, effective September 16, 2011.

The Bishops said that they “wish to re-establish the practice of Friday penance in the lives of the faithful as a clear and distinctive mark of their own Catholic identity.”
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I wonder if you could call the traditional eating of gefilte fish on Friday night (Erev Shabbat) a part of our Jewish identity. hmm . . .
But I think the Bishops meant that abstaining from meat on Fridays and having fish instead is what, for many years, made Catholics feel special and set apart.
Come to think of it, the Hebrew word kadosh, holy, actually means "set apart."
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12 comments:

  1. Any way, or any day you eat them, the fishes on your photos do not look enthralled by the idea of being eaten. Well, who would?

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  2. I'm not sure what they meant, I had pizza. TGIF treat.
    It would be interesting to know exactly how many Catholics still eat fish (lean) on Fridays. Not that many, I saw an article in a Breton newspaper this week saying that with the crisis, less people are buying fish. Too expensive...

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  3. Poor fish - glad I'm a vegetarian :)

    The Catholic Herald in the UK is a very conservative magazine - it represents the belief of traditionalists that reinstating pieties and devotions from the past will somehow fix what;s wrong within our church. I think that's a forlorn hope. And we Christians are often oblivious to the Jewish roots of what we practice :(

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  4. From November 15th over here, Orthodox people will start not eating meat for the following forty days.
    For me and family, we usually try to eat as less as possible throughout the whole year.

    Please have a good start into the weekend.

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  5. Not a happy fish... but on the positive side WHAT a fish fry. hahahahaha

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  6. A worthy meditation
    rooted in basics:
    shopping, eating,
    FISH!


    ShabbatShalomAloha from Honolulu

    Comfort Spiral

    > < } } ( ° >

    ><}}(°>

    < ° ) } } > <

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  7. that big fish is HUGE...he has an anguished look...my family had fish on Fridays when I was growing up...fresh fish was excellent...however the frozen fish my Mom sometimes had to buy was AWFUL

    when I was little I used to go downtown on the bus to shop with my Grandma...the last thing she'd do is stop at the fish market and get fresh fish

    great photos of the fish Dina

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  8. I don't know if fish was ever a cheap alternative to meat, but today Atlantic salmon etc is very expensive. We eat michig every shabbat because it is more festive, has tastier mains and MUCH better sweets than meat meals. But it isn't cheap.

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  9. You say well "the poor fish's face".
    Glad I don't eat fish anymore!

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  10. Great post and interesting comments! Some fish is so good, eating it can hardly be called abstaining. But I understand the principle. Still, I think kindness and generosity will go further toward saving us than will rituals.

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  11. Ooops! I just put my comment on the wrong post. I meant to write here that it looks like a grumpy grouper.

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  12. I do not like fish, with the exception of tuna...

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