Etymology,

like spelling,

is to me,

always a source of wonder,

and mystery.

Take, for instance, the origin of

“YALMACHA” :

“….from the ancient Hebrew for

“put on a cap!”

adapted by Yiddish speaking migrants

from the warm sands of the Middle East

to the Great Pale of Settlement,

when those hot blooded Semites

began to shiver in Russian winters chill,

they would yell to their children,

“Ya ma hat!”,

that solution to freezing originating

in the old Siberian Yak-herder proverb,

“If your toes are cold, put on a hood!”

Then, typical of Jewish pragmatism

coupled with a sense of the Divine

in every day experiences,

wisdom becomes commandment,

blessed by the Divine:

“Thou shalt cover thy head in the presence of YAHW.”

Thus, the scotch-taped yalmacha

on an old man’s bald pate

became a well known symbol

for the progeny of Israel

sitting by the gates of Jerusalem

and on the stoops of Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

(and incidentally,

for the followers of Mohammed,

cloistered French monks

and Sicilian Grand mothers

trudging to confession.)

We can only know in retrospect

how far the ripples

of a new word,

skipped across our language sea

will travel

before they arrive at a (temporary)

definition.