Oy. I just stumbled onto a new measure of how difficult this summer has been.
I get statistics from WordPress, the nice people who make my blog work, and discovered that one of my old posts has been getting a lot of traffic this summer: Baruch Dayan Emet – Why Do We Bless God when Someone Dies?
It didn’t get much interest when I first posted it on December 7, 2013, only 7 views. Then it was mostly ignored until June 30 of this year, when suddenly it got 187 on-site views. It seems that when you Google “Baruch Dayan Emet” one of sites on the first page of Google is my post. Suddenly everyone needs to know what that phrase means and why we use it.
Death is persistent in the news this summer. It is with us in the news from Israel and Gaza. It is with us in the news from Missouri and Los Angeles and the Ukraine. It is with us in news about earthquakes and hurricanes. It is with us in news about murders and suicides. So Jews are saying “Baruch Dayan emet” more often, and hearers are going to the Net to find out what that means.
I think I need to post about some phrases for rejoicing, just so that those explanations are waiting for their moments, too.
Yes, it has been a difficult summer in too many ways but hope keeps floating up and we have apples and honey coming our way soon 🙂
And that is how we get from one year to the next! Thank you for that beautiful thought, Meredith.