THE SCHOOLYARD LOSER
Anyone who has lost a schoolyard fight will tell you that you don’t need to wait until adulthood to know whether you’re a “winner” or a “loser.”
Despite superior grades and victories in science fairs and essay contests, I was a loser, with Coca-Cola-bottom glasses and pudgy-face crewcut. Kids picked on me. The desperate need to assert my machismo momentarily overruled my basic nature as a crybaby. So I took the bait and always lost.
Georgie was wiry and half my size. He was adept at teasing, and I was an easy mark. One Friday on the way home from school, resplendent in my Cub Scout uniform (which made fighting a cardinal sin), Georgie picked a fight, and I obliged. In a second, he had me pinned to the ground and pummeled me, encircle by a mob of third-graders jeering, “Fight! Fight! N**ger (albeit that Georgie was Caucasian) and a white! C’mon, Georgie! Beat that white!” I cried and ran home to momma. Loser.
By fifth grade, I owned two sources of pride: an Esterbrook fountain pen, just like my dad’s, and a bright red parka. The parka made me even pudgier, but my parents reassured me that it also made me look “just like a Royal Canadian Mountie.”
On the way out to recess, Mickey grabbed the Esterbrook from me. I clumsily chased after him. But Mickey, who still dances in a Broadway chorus line, was fast and wily. He dodged and weaved as I lumbered and stumbled. Then, in a final mockery, he opened the Esterbrook’s bladder and shot black ink over my Mountie coat.
A teacher put Mickey in detention for a week and made him pay for the cleaning. His parents were smug and treated it as a rite of passage. My parents, as usual, made no waves toward them and turned their wrath toward me. My mother saw the ruined coat as the squandering of hard-earned cash and understood nothing of the shame of being the schoolyard lummox. My father, the WWII hero, lectured me on how “the best defense is to just walk away.” I was grounded for a month. Loser.
A few years went by. Another creep discovered my vulnerability and goaded me. But, this was nerdy Talmud camp, so we were all a bunch of losers. I assessed my chances with Moishe and beat him until he started gasping. Not knowing what brutality I had inflicted, I ran to the dining hall to summon the doctor, who made short shrift of the incident. “You just knocked the wind out of him,” he dismissed me. “That’s what happens when you win the fight.”
“Win the fight.” After lo the many years, the victory still feels almost Pyrrhic: You beat Moishe to a pulp, then call the doctor while Moishe gasps for breath. And now he’s a professor at NYU. Loser.
Now no longer 7 or 17, but 57, what I wouldn’t do to have my column syndicated. For years, I’ve sent off packets to various syndicates, predictably receiving no response or a generic rejection note. Once, I did receive a response: The editor told me that my style and language usage were wonderful. “But,” he wrote, “Your writing has one fatal flaw that you’ll never overcome. It is insipid to the core.”
“Insipid to the core.” “Fatal flaw.” Loser.
From that day on, I haven’t spent much time mailing off packets. I fear that the response I receive would just make me want to run home crying to momma. A column of mine might appear here and there, and that makes me happy. And when it doesn’t, I put on my white jacket and pretend that I’m a chef. I make pate de foie, Peruvian ceviche and duck prosciutto. You may not like them. But this I promise: They’ll never be insipid to the core.
So much for the schoolyard loser.
August 26, 2006
August 17, 2006
ALL THINGS CONSIDERED
Let me talk one more time about Ben and Joy’s wedding, and I promise it will be the last . . . unless you insist on seeing the pictures in my wallet.
It was a full-tilt Chasidische affair and resoundingly freilach. The only discordant note was the unanticipated Kabbalah-based distress that Meta and I faced as a divorced couple, despite decades that have transpired and our now amicable relationship. Fortunately, the issue was resolved, wounds have healed, perspectives have changed and most importantly, Ben and Joy are settling into a marriage that, please God, will last 120 years in health and happiness.
This is not a clarion call to anti-orthodox sentiment. Rather, it is about our attitude to the panorama of the Jewish experience. It is about the mandate to invoke freely the healing, conciliatory words “all things considered.”
The disposition of Lubavitch to our divorced status is patently indefensible. No Kabbalistic gymnastics or holy books could convince me otherwise. My gut reaction was of complete fire-breathing rejection. So it was, too, to the craziest outer fringe of those who believe in the Rebbe’s messianism (by the way, not including the vast majority of Lubavitchers who nonetheless believe that the Rebbe is the messiah).
But, all things considered, and these are operative words, they do magnificent work throughout the world, and not all of it is about marketing Judaism. Likewise, they and the Rebbe were there for me unconditionally in times of deep personal crisis, while colleagues that are more liberal turned their backs. And I am close enough to them to know that I have not been bamboozled.
All things considered.
I can’t see the orthodoxy of tearing toilet paper on Erev Shabbos or not shaking a woman’s hand. But I can certainly see the orthodoxy of Yeshiva University creating Einstein School of Medicine and Cordoza School of Law along with a superior rabbinical seminary.
All things considered.
Conservative Judaism? A cogent and sensible theology: God calls for each generation to engage in a tug-of-war to determine its point of equilibrium between tradition and change. Attentiveness to Halacha. Vibrancy of its services. But, then again, confusion between Halachic change to accommodate the whims of its constituencies versus responsiveness to the demands of justice and social realities. I cringe at some of its capricious changes, yet celebrate its perceptiveness of the future, not merely veneration of the past.
All things considered.
And the Reform? Feh? No. Incredible scholarship. Creative educational programming. Indignant calls for social justice. Some pundits would say that they are as “orthodox” in the Torah’s cry for social justice as the self-proclaimed “orthodox” are in their meticulous observance of ritual law. But still, they seem too easily confused between Judaism and ethical monotheism. Their Shabbat services often seem more like a hootenanny than a davenen. “Did you like my Selichot service?” a Reform colleague asked me. “It was terrific,” I answered, “but it didn’t have any Selichot prayers in it.”
All things considered.
The problem must have already vexed our European ancestors, because they had coined the Yiddishism, “yeder ainer macht Shabbos farzich alien – everyone makes his own Shabbos.”
Call me a Pollyanna. Any Jewish community should be able to lop off at least a few rough edges, not to do everything as one, but to do more things as one. Otherwise, just listen to what we are inferring about ourselves. We all have “special needs,” right? In our everyday vocabulary, to whom do we refer as having “special needs”? Children. Disabled children. And what is our highest aspiration for them? To draw them into the “mainstream.”
All things considered.
Let me talk one more time about Ben and Joy’s wedding, and I promise it will be the last . . . unless you insist on seeing the pictures in my wallet.
It was a full-tilt Chasidische affair and resoundingly freilach. The only discordant note was the unanticipated Kabbalah-based distress that Meta and I faced as a divorced couple, despite decades that have transpired and our now amicable relationship. Fortunately, the issue was resolved, wounds have healed, perspectives have changed and most importantly, Ben and Joy are settling into a marriage that, please God, will last 120 years in health and happiness.
This is not a clarion call to anti-orthodox sentiment. Rather, it is about our attitude to the panorama of the Jewish experience. It is about the mandate to invoke freely the healing, conciliatory words “all things considered.”
The disposition of Lubavitch to our divorced status is patently indefensible. No Kabbalistic gymnastics or holy books could convince me otherwise. My gut reaction was of complete fire-breathing rejection. So it was, too, to the craziest outer fringe of those who believe in the Rebbe’s messianism (by the way, not including the vast majority of Lubavitchers who nonetheless believe that the Rebbe is the messiah).
But, all things considered, and these are operative words, they do magnificent work throughout the world, and not all of it is about marketing Judaism. Likewise, they and the Rebbe were there for me unconditionally in times of deep personal crisis, while colleagues that are more liberal turned their backs. And I am close enough to them to know that I have not been bamboozled.
All things considered.
I can’t see the orthodoxy of tearing toilet paper on Erev Shabbos or not shaking a woman’s hand. But I can certainly see the orthodoxy of Yeshiva University creating Einstein School of Medicine and Cordoza School of Law along with a superior rabbinical seminary.
All things considered.
Conservative Judaism? A cogent and sensible theology: God calls for each generation to engage in a tug-of-war to determine its point of equilibrium between tradition and change. Attentiveness to Halacha. Vibrancy of its services. But, then again, confusion between Halachic change to accommodate the whims of its constituencies versus responsiveness to the demands of justice and social realities. I cringe at some of its capricious changes, yet celebrate its perceptiveness of the future, not merely veneration of the past.
All things considered.
And the Reform? Feh? No. Incredible scholarship. Creative educational programming. Indignant calls for social justice. Some pundits would say that they are as “orthodox” in the Torah’s cry for social justice as the self-proclaimed “orthodox” are in their meticulous observance of ritual law. But still, they seem too easily confused between Judaism and ethical monotheism. Their Shabbat services often seem more like a hootenanny than a davenen. “Did you like my Selichot service?” a Reform colleague asked me. “It was terrific,” I answered, “but it didn’t have any Selichot prayers in it.”
All things considered.
The problem must have already vexed our European ancestors, because they had coined the Yiddishism, “yeder ainer macht Shabbos farzich alien – everyone makes his own Shabbos.”
Call me a Pollyanna. Any Jewish community should be able to lop off at least a few rough edges, not to do everything as one, but to do more things as one. Otherwise, just listen to what we are inferring about ourselves. We all have “special needs,” right? In our everyday vocabulary, to whom do we refer as having “special needs”? Children. Disabled children. And what is our highest aspiration for them? To draw them into the “mainstream.”
All things considered.
August 16, 2006
HARRY IS STILL MEETING SALLY
During our recent visit to New York, Linda and I took the opportunity to walk around the Lower East Side. It is now a trendy area, full of bars, bistros and expensive apartments, but once it was a neighborhood full of decrepit tenements through which thousands of Jewish immigrants passed on their way to a better life in America.
Some remnants are still intact. Shmatta clothing hangs from racks in the streets. One tenement has been converted into a museum to remind us of the squalor in which our ancestors lived.
And one grimy “kosher style” delicatessen, Katz’s, remains in its original environs. One notices on entry that Katz’s origins go back at least to World War II, as a fly-specked sign declares “Send a Salami to Your Boy in the Army!” which actually rhymes in some American dialects.
Katz’s forever gained international fame about 15 years ago in a memorable film, “When Harry Met Sally.” It was the setting for Sally to prove to the doubting Harry over a pastrami sandwich that a woman can deceive a man into believing that she is having an orgasm. At the conclusion of her tawdry, and I assume, realistic display, an older woman sitting at the next table announces to a waiter, “I want whatever she’s having!”
One cannot imagine how infamous that scene has become. But, do you know what has become even more infamous? The table at which Sally performed her feat. Everyone knows precisely where it is. Do people fight over sitting there? What do you think? Do they order the pre-coital pastrami sandwich? What do you think? Do the women attempt to perform Sally’s infamous deed? I’ll let you use your imagination.
As I am nearing 60, I made the proprietor a suggestion for one more kosher-style item on his menu, small and blue. The only drawback is that it would require the presence of a doctor and pharmacist. Viagra. Now those of us sitting at the next table will again be able to proclaim to the waiter with renewed self-assurance, “I want whatever he’s having!”
During our recent visit to New York, Linda and I took the opportunity to walk around the Lower East Side. It is now a trendy area, full of bars, bistros and expensive apartments, but once it was a neighborhood full of decrepit tenements through which thousands of Jewish immigrants passed on their way to a better life in America.
Some remnants are still intact. Shmatta clothing hangs from racks in the streets. One tenement has been converted into a museum to remind us of the squalor in which our ancestors lived.
And one grimy “kosher style” delicatessen, Katz’s, remains in its original environs. One notices on entry that Katz’s origins go back at least to World War II, as a fly-specked sign declares “Send a Salami to Your Boy in the Army!” which actually rhymes in some American dialects.
Katz’s forever gained international fame about 15 years ago in a memorable film, “When Harry Met Sally.” It was the setting for Sally to prove to the doubting Harry over a pastrami sandwich that a woman can deceive a man into believing that she is having an orgasm. At the conclusion of her tawdry, and I assume, realistic display, an older woman sitting at the next table announces to a waiter, “I want whatever she’s having!”
One cannot imagine how infamous that scene has become. But, do you know what has become even more infamous? The table at which Sally performed her feat. Everyone knows precisely where it is. Do people fight over sitting there? What do you think? Do they order the pre-coital pastrami sandwich? What do you think? Do the women attempt to perform Sally’s infamous deed? I’ll let you use your imagination.
As I am nearing 60, I made the proprietor a suggestion for one more kosher-style item on his menu, small and blue. The only drawback is that it would require the presence of a doctor and pharmacist. Viagra. Now those of us sitting at the next table will again be able to proclaim to the waiter with renewed self-assurance, “I want whatever he’s having!”
August 12, 2006
THE CELLPHONE – CHASIDISM’S TRUE MORAL ENEMY
My son, albeit a modern orthodox young man, is not what you would call a Lubavitcher Chasid. Yet, he recently married a most sweet and exotically beautiful Syrian bride on the steps of 770 Eastern Parkway, the world headquarters of the Lubavitcher/Chabad Chasidim. He was regaled in full Chasidic garb, she wore a classically modest gown and thick “deck-tichel” (veil), and I even got to wear my fedora.
You must know that Benjy getting married in a Lubavitcher ceremony made me tremendously proud. I kvell. I say this neither gratuitously nor with apology. Since 16, I have been close to Chabad, and they have been a consistently positive influence in my life. The Rebbe’s divinely enlightened wisdom and guidance literally saved my life. Is the Rebbe still alive? Certainly. He lives in my soul.
Simply put, Lubavitchers are my people. Thus, my reverence does not preclude me from lighthearted laughing at some of the Chasidic communities’ idiosyncrasies. Knowing as I do the typically robust Lubavitcher sense of humor, I assume that (maybe) they would be laughing along with us.
One of the mandates of a Chasidic wedding, as you likely know, is that men and women are separated from beginning to end. This I can understand for the ceremony, as it is a sacred time of worship. I might even understand it during the smorgasbord – universally called “the sh’morg” – extravaganza, when vodka and other libations flow freely and might loosen the tongue to speak licentiously to the opposite sex.
(Let me digress for a moment and talk about this binge called “the sh’morg.” The sh’morg, not the pious words spoken to the bride and groom by the Rabbi, is the true yardstick of a bounteous wedding. The lamb-chop station. The pasta station. The stir-fry station. The sushi station. What is it about Chasidim and sushi? Once I heard a landsman in beard and payes announce that the faux crabmeat “tasted just like the real thing.” A-ha.)
End of the sh’morg. Back to the festivities.
I can even see how during the dancing the separation is justified, as skirts and tzitzis go swirling in the frenzy.
But, I will never understand why men’s and women’s dinner tables must also be separated by a nine-foot mechitza. I mean, what immorality could possibly be perpetrated by pious men and women sitting next to each other while fressing on a nine-course glatt-kosher bacchanalia? After an orgy of more faux-crabmeat, prime rib and Viennese pastry, I certainly do want to go to bed, but not with someone else’s wife, or probably even my own. And take a Tagamet first.
Let me tell you what really ought to be banned from Chasidic weddings: Cellphones. Separated as they are, cellphones are the only way that men and women are able to communicate with each other during the evening. How many times have I seen husbands and wives innocently use their cell-phones to determine when to leave the reception? Or, “Did you call the babysitter? “No, I thought that you called that babysitter.”
Cellphones for innocent purposes, you say? How do you know that Yankel or Reizel is not clandestinely calling a paramour for a tryst the next afternoon at the Pierre, and doing it under cover of the din and the raucous Chasidic music? Or that Sh’muel isn’t calling in an inside trade on a new offering of an Oriental hi-tech, Kin Ah Hora.
Please, please tell my Chasidic friends that I am just having a good time at their expense and that I need to dunk my mind in the mikvah. But, also remind them that I, like they, can always tell the difference in the look in a man’s eyes when he’s hungry for strudel or for something more toothsome.
My son, albeit a modern orthodox young man, is not what you would call a Lubavitcher Chasid. Yet, he recently married a most sweet and exotically beautiful Syrian bride on the steps of 770 Eastern Parkway, the world headquarters of the Lubavitcher/Chabad Chasidim. He was regaled in full Chasidic garb, she wore a classically modest gown and thick “deck-tichel” (veil), and I even got to wear my fedora.
You must know that Benjy getting married in a Lubavitcher ceremony made me tremendously proud. I kvell. I say this neither gratuitously nor with apology. Since 16, I have been close to Chabad, and they have been a consistently positive influence in my life. The Rebbe’s divinely enlightened wisdom and guidance literally saved my life. Is the Rebbe still alive? Certainly. He lives in my soul.
Simply put, Lubavitchers are my people. Thus, my reverence does not preclude me from lighthearted laughing at some of the Chasidic communities’ idiosyncrasies. Knowing as I do the typically robust Lubavitcher sense of humor, I assume that (maybe) they would be laughing along with us.
One of the mandates of a Chasidic wedding, as you likely know, is that men and women are separated from beginning to end. This I can understand for the ceremony, as it is a sacred time of worship. I might even understand it during the smorgasbord – universally called “the sh’morg” – extravaganza, when vodka and other libations flow freely and might loosen the tongue to speak licentiously to the opposite sex.
(Let me digress for a moment and talk about this binge called “the sh’morg.” The sh’morg, not the pious words spoken to the bride and groom by the Rabbi, is the true yardstick of a bounteous wedding. The lamb-chop station. The pasta station. The stir-fry station. The sushi station. What is it about Chasidim and sushi? Once I heard a landsman in beard and payes announce that the faux crabmeat “tasted just like the real thing.” A-ha.)
End of the sh’morg. Back to the festivities.
I can even see how during the dancing the separation is justified, as skirts and tzitzis go swirling in the frenzy.
But, I will never understand why men’s and women’s dinner tables must also be separated by a nine-foot mechitza. I mean, what immorality could possibly be perpetrated by pious men and women sitting next to each other while fressing on a nine-course glatt-kosher bacchanalia? After an orgy of more faux-crabmeat, prime rib and Viennese pastry, I certainly do want to go to bed, but not with someone else’s wife, or probably even my own. And take a Tagamet first.
Let me tell you what really ought to be banned from Chasidic weddings: Cellphones. Separated as they are, cellphones are the only way that men and women are able to communicate with each other during the evening. How many times have I seen husbands and wives innocently use their cell-phones to determine when to leave the reception? Or, “Did you call the babysitter? “No, I thought that you called that babysitter.”
Cellphones for innocent purposes, you say? How do you know that Yankel or Reizel is not clandestinely calling a paramour for a tryst the next afternoon at the Pierre, and doing it under cover of the din and the raucous Chasidic music? Or that Sh’muel isn’t calling in an inside trade on a new offering of an Oriental hi-tech, Kin Ah Hora.
Please, please tell my Chasidic friends that I am just having a good time at their expense and that I need to dunk my mind in the mikvah. But, also remind them that I, like they, can always tell the difference in the look in a man’s eyes when he’s hungry for strudel or for something more toothsome.
August 07, 2006
HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT CRABMEAT'S FAUX?
The operative word for the kashrut-observant Jew of the 21st century is “faux.” That is, we prefer to eat kosher imitations of goyische food than food that our ancestors considered “traditional.”
Where did it all start, you ask? Its origin is in the Jews’ discovery of mayonnaise. The consistency of mayonnaise is so much like faux cream that it is the only foodstuff whose hechsher specifically identifies it as “pareve,” so close is the resemblance.
My recollection of nearly 50 years ago is that pareve faux coffee-cream and butter were still miraculous to the kosher palate. Thus, on public occasions, a card was placed at each table assuring the bamboozled diners that they need not fear; the cream and butter were certified non-dairy.
We zap the clock forward to the 21st century. The kashrut-observant world is obsessed with all means of kosher faux treferai. Trust me, my travels even in the Chasidic world have taught me that Chasidim are even more zealous about faux kosher than their clean-shaven brethren.
Certain fish with fins and scales, pollock I think, is indistinguishable from crabmeat and lobster. If the factory molds it in a different shape, it becomes faux shrimp.
A fatty, tough cut of beef ironically called “plate,” when properly cured and smoked, makes for equally carcinogenic faux bacon. Through my own dabbling with veal breast, I have come to make an indistinguishable faux ham.
Attend any Chasidic wedding, and indulge yourself in a bacchanalian “sh’morg.” Kishe and knishes? I think not. Faux sushi napped in wasabi. And we all love the faux Alfredo sauce dripping down our beards as we discuss an intricate comment of Rashi on last week’s Torah portion. Then, not to be undone, we delight in our faux filet mignon oozing a pat of faux garlic butter.
This leaves me with only one dilemma: How does any pious Chasid know the taste of authentic crabmeat to be able to announce, “Ah, now that faux crabmeat tastes like the real thing!”? How does that guy in beard and payes know good faux from bad?
Please,please, help me resolve that conundrum, I’ll reward you with a pot of steaming oyster stew if you do. Faux? Only you and I will know.
The operative word for the kashrut-observant Jew of the 21st century is “faux.” That is, we prefer to eat kosher imitations of goyische food than food that our ancestors considered “traditional.”
Where did it all start, you ask? Its origin is in the Jews’ discovery of mayonnaise. The consistency of mayonnaise is so much like faux cream that it is the only foodstuff whose hechsher specifically identifies it as “pareve,” so close is the resemblance.
My recollection of nearly 50 years ago is that pareve faux coffee-cream and butter were still miraculous to the kosher palate. Thus, on public occasions, a card was placed at each table assuring the bamboozled diners that they need not fear; the cream and butter were certified non-dairy.
We zap the clock forward to the 21st century. The kashrut-observant world is obsessed with all means of kosher faux treferai. Trust me, my travels even in the Chasidic world have taught me that Chasidim are even more zealous about faux kosher than their clean-shaven brethren.
Certain fish with fins and scales, pollock I think, is indistinguishable from crabmeat and lobster. If the factory molds it in a different shape, it becomes faux shrimp.
A fatty, tough cut of beef ironically called “plate,” when properly cured and smoked, makes for equally carcinogenic faux bacon. Through my own dabbling with veal breast, I have come to make an indistinguishable faux ham.
Attend any Chasidic wedding, and indulge yourself in a bacchanalian “sh’morg.” Kishe and knishes? I think not. Faux sushi napped in wasabi. And we all love the faux Alfredo sauce dripping down our beards as we discuss an intricate comment of Rashi on last week’s Torah portion. Then, not to be undone, we delight in our faux filet mignon oozing a pat of faux garlic butter.
This leaves me with only one dilemma: How does any pious Chasid know the taste of authentic crabmeat to be able to announce, “Ah, now that faux crabmeat tastes like the real thing!”? How does that guy in beard and payes know good faux from bad?
Please,please, help me resolve that conundrum, I’ll reward you with a pot of steaming oyster stew if you do. Faux? Only you and I will know.
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