Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2021 August 21

= August 21 =

Any idea what religious rite is this?
Please see the video on the Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/whatsapvideo1/posts/110947124230363 I don't know if those comments there are appropriate or hateful. I just want to know, what order and what sort of rite it is/it belongs to. Can somebody please help?
 * Sorry you haven't had a reply. I myself have always refused to have anything to do with Facebook, so I can't help, but I presume other editors here have looked and don't know.
 * Is it possible for you to either (a) link to something similar on a non-Facebook site, accessible without having to be assimilated by the Borg join anything, or (b) describe some significant details? {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.121.162.207 (talk) 12:50, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
 * The (English-language) caption in the posting calls it "the rakiya of the Jews". Hebrew rāqîa means firmament, but I don't know if this is meant to be Hebrew or Arabic; the poster usually uses Arabic captions. The video is a repost of a TikTok originally posted, apparently, by someone with the handle sayco.yt, so perhaps based in Mayotte. In the video we see what appears to be a rabbi perform a ritual washing to a young woman dressed in a T-shirt and Adidas sweatpants, in which he first sprinkles her head and then reaches with one hand under her T-shirt and touches her breasts.  --Lambiam 07:12, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Ah, the ritual copping of the feel. Clarityfiend (talk) 04:06, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes, I think the underlying point here is that this may not be a genuine ritual at all, just something that is being done by the rabbi for his own gratification. --Viennese Waltz 12:32, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

Loss-exchange ratios, again
In Operation Iraqi Freedom, who had the higher loss exchange ratio (not counting civilian losses, whether intentional or accidental, as enemy losses) -- regular US military units or the various private military companies brought in to reinforce them? 2601:646:8A81:6070:C85A:B00B:A43:E25C (talk) 11:43, 21 August 2021 (UTC)


 * I think the idea of body counts was discredited after the Vietnam War. But if anybody has made a tally, they seem to have thought better of publishing it on the internet, as far as I can tell. Alansplodge (talk) 21:43, 24 August 2021 (UTC)