Ever since Madonna walked in to the Kabballah Centre,Jewish jewelrygot a huge tailwind in the fashion business. Jewish jewelry in the form of amulets, mystical whatnots, red strings, holy water containers, and a litany of pop Jewish jewelry , or more accurately pseudo-Jewish jewelry started popping up everywhere while people who have never heard of the Babylonian Talmud started becoming fans of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. It was all very strange and very confusing, and put Jewish jewelry at the forefront of cultural consciousness without warning.
This Jewish jewelry stuff all came into the market only recently.Hamsas,evil eye charms, Seal of Solomon pendants, they're all very new, if loosely based on general Semitic fashion trends in Arabia centuries ago. However, going back to the source of Jewish jewelry, one encounters a rich history replete with stories surrounding Jewish jewelry and magnificent construction tasks with precious stones and metals. One can also find tragic stories of Jewish jewelry that, if you track the redemptive process of the Jewish people, can tear your heart out.
The first story, at least that I can think of, involving Jewish jewelry way back when is Rebecca's betrothal to Isaac. Eliezer, Abraham's head of household, finds Rebecca, who graciously waters his camels, at which point he becomes convinced that she is the right woman for Isaac. He then immediately gives Rebecca two pieces of Jewish jewelry (if the Jewish people could be said to have existed yet). Two gold bracelets weighing ten shekels and one gold nose ring weighing half a shekel.
The Rabbis later analogized these pieces of Jewish jewelry to the two tablets (two bracelets) Moses brought down from Sinai, the Ten Commandments (ten shekel weight) and the half shekel silver coin every Jew had to give for the national census (half shekel weight of the nose ring). The Rabbis thereby linked Jewish prehistory with the beginning of Jewish history through Jewish jewelry.
The story of Jewish jewelry continues with all the gold and gems and precious stones that the Jews took from Egypt upon their flight from slavery into the desert and Red Sea. This Jewish jewelry served two purposes – one good, and the other very bad. On the one hand, it was used to make the Golden Calf, which was very shortly thereafter ground up into dust, thrown into water, and drunk by the Jews on Moses' order. The Jews then had to remove the remainder their Jewish jewelry on God's order in embarrassment for what they had done.
This colossal mistake was later corrected when the remainder of the Jewish jewelry was used in the construction of the Tabernacle and Aaron's High Priestly wardrobe, complete with precious gems on the breastplate and solid gold structures for the moving sanctuary.
Later in Deuteronomy, the Jews are commanded to destroy ever piece of religious jewelry they encounter that is not Jewish jewelry. All the gold they find that is used for idol worship must be destroyed. All the silver, all the stones, all of it. This is markedly different from converting Egyptian jewelry to Jewish jewelry as they had done upon leaving Egypt. Yet another indication of the Jewish people growing up and maturing on their Jewish journey of Jewish jewelry.
