© Antonio Genovia

Making love? It’s a communion with a woman. The bed is a holy table. There I find passion and purification. – Omar Sharif

Over the weekend I watched the TV mini series, The Far Pavilions, staring Ben Cross, Amy Irving, and Omar Sharif. Based on Mary Margaret Kaye’s 1978 novel of the same name, this epic romance was set in India during the British Raj or rule.

Early on in the story, the protagonist, Aston Pelham-Martyn (aka Ashok), received a gift of a mother-of-pearl charm from his childhood friend, Anjuli, a half-caste princess. Because he had nothing to offer her, he broke the trinket in half and gave her back a piece of it, promising to return one day and thus making it whole again.

The scene sparked the memory that I, too, had received half of an amulet many years ago. I rushed to my jewelry box and tucked away in a tiny velvet pouch was my part of a silver Mitzpah medallion. I could discern some of the words from Genesis on the back of it, “The Lord watch between me and thee, when we are absent one from the other.”

Receiving a Mitzpah in college was akin to a pre-engagement promise. There was an expectation that although we might go our separate ways for a time, we would one day be together again and so would the two pieces of our Mitzpah.

Unlike the characters in The Far Pavilions who, despite one obstacle after the other, succeeded in reuniting, our paths never crossed again. For me, the new-found Mitzpah now serves as a touchstone for many wonderful memories from years gone by.

My half of the Mitzpah.

Models – Lauren DiMarco & Oleg Galagan