Tattoo Jews Pt.3 Elvis

1) Forbidden Practices?


I started going through the list: don't eat the fruit for three days, don't eat blood, don't cut your prayer curls or your beard?
I began to think...man how relevant is this?

When I reached
19:28
Do not make gashes in your skin for the dead.

Do not make any tattoo marks on your skin. I am God.

I got chills. I had never heard this part before. I know there are different interpretation of the bible, but there is no ambiguity here.


2)Would the tattoo's text could possibly get me in trouble with the big guy?

The image that I currently want is a Basquiat Crown ( more on this in Pt.4) with the word king underneath. King was my dad's nickname. The name appeared throughout his life in several contexts. The "rabbi for hire's" eulogy at my Dad's funeral brillantly tied the King title from his birth to his death. But, KING?...too obvious. Subtlety is more my style. So, I looked to other languages. El rey, Le roi...not quite. The chinese and japanese word for king looked more elegant. I continued to search and then arrived at hebrew.

מלך

I loved it. Shortly thereafter, I began to think that this might be the word for the king of kings. You know G-d. I wanted to use the general term. I better start working on an explanation now so that I am ready on redenption day.So, I asked a friend of mine about it. Would an israeli call King Auto Parts...Melech Auto Parts. He responded with this true story.

A friend of mine walks into this falafel joint in Jerusalem. There are Elvis pictures everywhere. Early Elvis. Late Elvis. Elvis in concert. Elvis on the silver screen. There's hardly an open piece of wall space. So he asks the owner, "Mah im 'Elvis'?" What's with Elvis? Needless to say, the proprietor responds: "Elvis -- hu ha melech." Elvis -- he's the king.

Yes, melech can be all kinds of kings.

I have to think about all this for a while.

clay