Our Readers Write

Mish Mish Leder

The article “Let’s Make Dried Fruit Leather” [June, p. 75] was a great source of nostalgic joy to me. As a child, I lived with my family in Haifa, Syria, now part of Israel. The population of the city consisted largely of Arabs. But in the suburbs were several colonies of Germans who had migrated to the Holy Land from the Black Forest of Germany. They were Templers who in the final surge of nineteenth century search for salvation represented the last of the spirit of the Crusaders.

Mish Mish Leder was a staple of our diet. “Mish Mish” is Arabic for apricot, and “Leder” is German for leather. Therefore, Mish Mish Leder was, as your author called it, dried fruit leather. Apricots grow on the slopes of Mt. Carmel and the fruit is gathered in early spring—the season of plenty in that area. Arabs include a dash of lemon juice rather than the cinnamon and nutmeg suggested in your article. During my childhood, no birthday party was complete without Mish Mish Leder and lemonade. It was the counterpart of ice cream and cake.

Mrs. Paul J. DeVine
La Grange Park, Illinois

“Oh East Is East …”

When Sidney Sperry began his excellent article “Hebrew Manners and Customs” [May, p. 29] with the oft-quoted passage from Rudyard Kipling—“Oh East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet”—I thought how often that particular thought, standing alone without qualification, has been used to justify human weakness and failure to bring about a meeting of mankind.

The need to understand each other’s peculiar customs and traditions is so evident, in terms of developing human understanding between nations and peoples. It is easy to cite the past to show that because of race, creed, or culture, man has not been able to agree. But what of the future? If we take the passage from Kipling and render it in its complete text and thought, we find that Kipling does qualify his thought and conveys a message of hope:

“Oh East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,

Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgment Seat;

But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,

When two strong men stand face to face, tho’ they come from the ends of the earth!”

Kipling does not intend an absolute in the phrase “never the twain shall meet.” He postulates a contingency that the meeting is possible, but only before God’s great judgment seat. When mankind can accept Christ as its Savior and live in accordance with the fullness of the gospel, we will have the two strong men Kipling refers to, and they shall meet face to face, though from different cultures or races, in true brotherhood.

R. D. Mills
Salt Lake City

Sabbath Planning

I certainly appreciated the article on the Sabbath in the June issue, “Will the Real Ox in the Mire Please Stand Up” [p. 18]. I think too many of us make too many excuses for Sunday shopping, and this is just what the greedy merchants want. The whole thing comes down to not planning ahead. This entails not just the long-range home storage program, but a temporary storage for emergencies, for weekends, for unannounced visitors, and for a restful and appropriately lived Sabbath.

Douglas Fife
San Jose, California

Moroni 8

I suppose every reader really knows for himself, but I thought I’d square the record about your typo in the June article “The Book of Mormon and My Conversion”: the letter on infant baptism is in Moroni 8, not Mormon 8. Moroni copied this letter into his own book after the death of his father. But in any case, Mormon 8 is a good chapter too, and needs all the reading it can get.

Edna K. Bush
St. Petersburg, Florida