The Gibberish a Madrid Doctor Mutters Going Into Church Is Really Hebrew Dating Back Six Hundred Years

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While reading this week’s Torah portion of Ekev in the book of Deuteronomy, I was reminded of a conversation I once had with a friend in Israel. The friend, an Israeli physician, told me of a strange experience. He had gone to Madrid, he said, for a medical conference, in the course of which he made the acquaintance of a Spanish colleague, a Madrileño. During a break in the proceedings, his new acquaintance suggested showing him the nearby Catedral de la Almudena, the city’s largest Catholic church, to which my friend gladly agreed. As they entered the cathedral, the Spanish doctor crossed himself and muttered something under his breath. Afterwards, my friend asked him what he had said.

“Oh,” was the answer, “just some words that my family always says when we enter a church.”