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"What Shall I Wear"

From the Bible to Us"

 Celebrating Beauty

Summer 2010

Bathsheba, pharao's wife And us 

After "what shall I eat ?" the next likely question is - "what shall I wear ?"  These are the only questions asked millions of times each day since eternity.  Making ourselves beautiful or handsome has been important forever, but we are concerned only with the last  five thousand years..  God has given us some physical blessings and we have used ingenuity to make them go further.  We accentuate the positive through good tailoring and improve initial impressions through a pleasant and probably expensive odor.    In our day it means a trip to a store, but it was much more difficult four thousand years ago

Our special exhibit brings us the plants which were used to create clothing. In the colder parts of the Near East, it was easy so wrap yourself in the fur of animals or to cut their hairy fur and create wool, but such heavy garments were useless in most of the hot Near East.  Plants provided a better solution, but this was a long and difficult process.  Equally hard was coloring them appropriately.  

Perfume and simple good smelling soap also relied heavily in plants.  Although some kind of soap with plant ingredients was available even for the poor.  Perfumed soap was another matter; there plants played a major role.  The seasons in the Near East are harsh as a desicating wind sweeps in from the desert and the skin becomes brittle.  Salves, lotions from wonderful plants not only keep it from cracking, but add beauty. 

Visit the our special exhibit and discover how you and the ancient Pharaoh use the same stuff, just rebottled fancier for our time. This exhibit will be added to the normal display of biblical plants and plants with biblical names.

For further information contact Irene Jacob E-mail Jacob@Rodefshalom.org  (412) 621-6566; FAX (412) 621-5475.