A WORLD IN WHICH SUSIE WOULDN’T HAVE SUFFERED
Susie Schwartz did not come to school on the first day of second grade. Nor the first week. Nor the first month. “Oh, she’s moved away,” Miss Davis told us. But there was a tolling in her voice, one which years later we came to understand as pathos. How far away, we had no idea.
Little by little, a whispered rumor slipped out, that Susie was dead. An illness of which only a few of us had heard. “Cancer made her very sick, and finally, God took her away.” Away forever? Few of us had yet become cynical enough to ask how God could be so selfish. Surely, God had elderly grandparents to entertain Him, not at the cost of the life of a seven-year-old playmate.
Would God take me forever? Would it be better than opening Chanukah presents with Mommy and Daddy? Playing with my friends? No playmates? No Miss Davis? Just some far-away place, never to return. The dread of my body lowered forever into the ground?
It’s the devious nature of childhood to be able to phrase the questions of life without yet being able to comprehend the answers. We certainly did not realize that even our parents and ministers had a hard enough time answering them. True: All the theologians in the world cannot explain away the death of one innocent child.
Susie’s death set off my phobia of death, which was shortly redoubled by the picture of Pius XII lying in repose on the cover of Life – his slumbering face ghoulish blue-green tinged. Susie, too? Me? Soon? Inescapable? The patent unfairness of a child’s death? Each one of us can say that we have had our fill. My classmates Marlene from leukemia, Judie overdosing, Barry in an auto accident, God having “taken them,” when who could have used their presence more?
Ironic, or some morbid fixation that I still have my first grade class picture, and look at it – no, study it – from time to time to see Susie’s innocent smile. And likewise, Marlene, Judie, and Barry from my high school yearbook.
Over 40 years on and off in ministry, I have buried too many children – anorexia, cancer, overdoses, accidents, heart disease, congenital disorders – and reawakening each time to second-grade fears and unanswerable questions.
Then last year there was Alana. She was a toddler whom I came to know through St. Baldrick’s, raising funds for children’s cancer research. We fought with every resource to defeat the leukemia – chemo, surgery, transplant. Her parents fought, too, burdened by grief, self-doubts, fatigue, roller-coasters, and likely, too, by the most irrational feelings of guilt. Finally, her little body could take no more, and she died. Her funeral was more one of resolution, you could see, than of wailing and gnashing of teeth.
Now, you have to wonder: Wherein lies the optimism to leave you with hope and not merely morbidity? The answer is trite and simplistic, so trite and simplistic that we have yet to figure it out. The answer is resolve and resolution, not surrender to despair. A thousand theologians may not be able to explain away the death of one innocent child. But, we are obliged to explain before God how we can allow innocent children to die.
Why does God let children die? That I do not know. Why do we let children die? That I can tell you: It’s because a society of Joe Six-Packs still spends incalculably more on cigarettes and Bud than it does on cancer research. It’s because people “cannot” give as much because of the recession. Try explaining the economics of recession to a child dying of heart disease. Priorities, man, priorities.
How many more young people would contemplate dedicating their lives to research or poverty medicine or law, or fundraising, or teaching, if we had our priorities straight? Who would provide us with moral exemplars and heroic stories of self-giving for children to learn lessons of inspiration? How much more character would we inculcate into our students if we would educate them in character as much as in science and math?
It’s the stuff of which quixotic, wide-eyed optimism is made, right? Spare an entire world full of children from the doleful fate of Susie and Alana? Maybe not in our generation or the next. But, don’t say never. Spare one more child here and there, and the cumulative results will be stunning. Dare we dream . . . ? “Drop by drop,” the rabbis of old would say, “can penetrate the hardest stone. It is not for you to finish the task. But, neither are you free to desist from it.”
December 26, 2009
September 13, 2009
A NEW YEAR’S CALL: GO TEACH!
Here we stand at the eve of another Rosh Hashanah – Jewish New Year – and the introspection to which we are called by God leads me back to recollections of equal measures of elation and grief. Such is this memory:
When I was in the throes of my deepest depression, I would lie in my bed and watch reruns of Rhoda at 2:00 in the afternoon. If you know about clinical depression, we lie in bed not because we want to, but because life, as we perceive it, has left us no option.
Out of its depths, though, I took a nanosecond of faith to spend a weekend in Brooklyn, with a Chasidic friend who was an adherent of the Grand Rebbe of Lubavitch. There would be no pressure. We would stay with his parents. His father, serendipitously, was private secretary to the Rebbe. If nothing else, it would be an insight into an arcane world, surrounded by empathic people.
The Rebbe was imputed by his disciples to have supernatural powers, and to be granted an audience was regarded a metaphysical encounter. My friend’s father arranged such an encounter for me. It would take mere moments and its primary gift would be the Rebbe’s blessing, which, he assured me, contained influence above.
Whether or not you are a believer, the Rebbe radiated an aura of ethereal sunlight. But, apparently he stopped short of a blessing for me, at least in so many words. Instead, he stroked my arm, peered through crystalline eyes, and spoke to me softly: “You should teach.”
Upon my departure, my friend’s father asked almost accusatorily, “So what did the Rebbe tell you?”
“He said I should teach.”
“Did he bless you?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Listen, he blessed you. So when will you start to teach?”
I hemmed and hawed: I had no students. I had no way of getting any. I had no space. I had no energy.
“The Rebbe said you should teach!” His voice was now bellicose. He is asking me to buy into blind faith, I thought. The Rebbe communed with God. The Rebbe knew the antidote, whatever it was to be.
“What?? Where?? Whom??”
“The Rebbe said you should teach! Even if it’s one person in your bedroom! Go teach Talmud! You have a good kop (head)!”
“OK, I’ll try.”
“Don’t try! The Rebbe said you should teach!”
The conclusion to the story is eerily supernatural: At Sabbath’s end, my voicemail held a message from a rabbinical colleague from whom I hadn’t heard in ages. Just popped up out of the ether. “Please call me as soon as you can,” he said.
Anxious, I returned the call.
“My congregation is starting an adult education program, and the committee and I want to know if you’d like to teach. We’re thinking Talmud, since you have such a good kop.”
Ya gotta be kidding, I thought. This was not smoke-and-mirrors. This was the real thing. I’d had had the metaphysical encounter with a man connected by his holiness. He told me to teach, and poof, in spite of my self, I’m teaching!
Whether or not you believe in miracles, what happened in Brooklyn had at its core the message that most restores the human soul: To be healthy, we must turn our energies outward. Nothing is more uplifting to the mind, heart, and spirit than to give something precious of ourselves to others who need it – to reach out with wisdom, wherewithal, energy, compassion, empathy . . . in a word, to “teach.” And nothing is more devastating to the spirit than to implode our all our energies into ones self and preoccupations.
Good meds and psychotherapy have helped greatly. No more, thought, than the pivotal moment when I listened to Rebbe, threw depression to the wind for the quickest second, started to teach, and thereby began relearning the patterns of giving, not subsisting.
Now we celebrate a new year – a time we believe is the “Birthday of the World,” particularly the human species. For all of us, then, an occasion of rebirth, renewal. If only we could take our lives so far as to get out of bed, shut off Rhoda, and reach outward, our deadly, depressing isolation would heal, and this would become a truly blessed new year for all of creation. Now, go teach!
Here we stand at the eve of another Rosh Hashanah – Jewish New Year – and the introspection to which we are called by God leads me back to recollections of equal measures of elation and grief. Such is this memory:
When I was in the throes of my deepest depression, I would lie in my bed and watch reruns of Rhoda at 2:00 in the afternoon. If you know about clinical depression, we lie in bed not because we want to, but because life, as we perceive it, has left us no option.
Out of its depths, though, I took a nanosecond of faith to spend a weekend in Brooklyn, with a Chasidic friend who was an adherent of the Grand Rebbe of Lubavitch. There would be no pressure. We would stay with his parents. His father, serendipitously, was private secretary to the Rebbe. If nothing else, it would be an insight into an arcane world, surrounded by empathic people.
The Rebbe was imputed by his disciples to have supernatural powers, and to be granted an audience was regarded a metaphysical encounter. My friend’s father arranged such an encounter for me. It would take mere moments and its primary gift would be the Rebbe’s blessing, which, he assured me, contained influence above.
Whether or not you are a believer, the Rebbe radiated an aura of ethereal sunlight. But, apparently he stopped short of a blessing for me, at least in so many words. Instead, he stroked my arm, peered through crystalline eyes, and spoke to me softly: “You should teach.”
Upon my departure, my friend’s father asked almost accusatorily, “So what did the Rebbe tell you?”
“He said I should teach.”
“Did he bless you?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Listen, he blessed you. So when will you start to teach?”
I hemmed and hawed: I had no students. I had no way of getting any. I had no space. I had no energy.
“The Rebbe said you should teach!” His voice was now bellicose. He is asking me to buy into blind faith, I thought. The Rebbe communed with God. The Rebbe knew the antidote, whatever it was to be.
“What?? Where?? Whom??”
“The Rebbe said you should teach! Even if it’s one person in your bedroom! Go teach Talmud! You have a good kop (head)!”
“OK, I’ll try.”
“Don’t try! The Rebbe said you should teach!”
The conclusion to the story is eerily supernatural: At Sabbath’s end, my voicemail held a message from a rabbinical colleague from whom I hadn’t heard in ages. Just popped up out of the ether. “Please call me as soon as you can,” he said.
Anxious, I returned the call.
“My congregation is starting an adult education program, and the committee and I want to know if you’d like to teach. We’re thinking Talmud, since you have such a good kop.”
Ya gotta be kidding, I thought. This was not smoke-and-mirrors. This was the real thing. I’d had had the metaphysical encounter with a man connected by his holiness. He told me to teach, and poof, in spite of my self, I’m teaching!
Whether or not you believe in miracles, what happened in Brooklyn had at its core the message that most restores the human soul: To be healthy, we must turn our energies outward. Nothing is more uplifting to the mind, heart, and spirit than to give something precious of ourselves to others who need it – to reach out with wisdom, wherewithal, energy, compassion, empathy . . . in a word, to “teach.” And nothing is more devastating to the spirit than to implode our all our energies into ones self and preoccupations.
Good meds and psychotherapy have helped greatly. No more, thought, than the pivotal moment when I listened to Rebbe, threw depression to the wind for the quickest second, started to teach, and thereby began relearning the patterns of giving, not subsisting.
Now we celebrate a new year – a time we believe is the “Birthday of the World,” particularly the human species. For all of us, then, an occasion of rebirth, renewal. If only we could take our lives so far as to get out of bed, shut off Rhoda, and reach outward, our deadly, depressing isolation would heal, and this would become a truly blessed new year for all of creation. Now, go teach!
September 10, 2009
WACKY ON THE WATER
If you have nothing to write after a cruise, you know you have attained a new level of writer’s block. OK, the ports of call – Newport, Boston, Halifax – were memorable. The food, as always, defined conspicuous consumption. The service created a weeklong illusion of luxury the likes of which we rubes would never enjoy, were it not for a blitzkrieg infusion of cash.
What’s left to tell about my cruise? As a Boomer of the ‘60s, I dare not gloat too lavishly, lest I be perceived as bourgeois. But, as an almost-senior in 2009, I dare not be too critical, lest I be perceived as a cynic and a crank. So, let’s say that that it was neither an orgy of giddy abandon, nor an experience that would turn sweet cream sour.
After three cruises, I finally realized that the word that was missing from my vocabulary to describe the milieu was “wacky.” Everything you do on a cruise has a patina of “wack,” intended or not, perpetrated by crew, voyagers, or the basic ambiance.
A quick example: The after-dinner entertainment is notorious for its cheesiness. But when the show hopscotches instantaneously from a little-too-energetic medley of “Hair” to an unctuous tenor crooning a dewy-eyed rendition of “Danny Boy,” you know that we have wandered just a little too far into the Kingdom of Wack.
You know what else is wacky? The inability to divest ourselves of our cellphones when we’re upon the high seas. As we (and I mean “we,” as in “me”) draw nearer to the coast, we check our reception as frantically as a nicotine fiend grabs for his next cigarette. Why? To check our voicemail, of course. Or, to call Cousin Birdie about the food. (“Terrible . . . and such small portions!” as the Yiddish joke goes.) That, and call into the office to sweat some new crisis. And, not to be outstripped by lo-tech, checking our email is also irresistible, fetched from a place ominously called the “Internet Café.” I failed to resist for eight measly minutes, and it cost me $22.50. And, yes, the whole ship is rigged with wi-fi, so that you see folks constantly pecking away at their laptops poolside, balancing one of those frou-frou banana daiquiris in their free hand. Wacky? You tell me.
The reputed leisure of cruising is also fraught with wack. Yes, the food and portions are legendary. But, so is the pushing, shoving, and butting in the buffet line, the likes of which make Times Square feel like a croquet match. And the din? One day, a this was a mother to her daughter at 100 decibels above the madding crowd: “Did you remember to call your Cousin Sharon?? She’s having a cyst removed from her ovary.” Next day, another mother/daughter, same scenario: “I had a little headache, but at least I didn’t get diarrhea!!” And, where else can your otherwise well-behaved dinner partner get up the wack to run her finger through the majestic Baked Alaska and lick it off, just before you were going to do the same? Wacky, no?
Five years ago, after my first cruise, I wrote a piece that dripped with cynicism. Could there be that much difference in aging from 55 to 60? This time you will not hear a snide word. The voyage was just what my therapist ordered: Asian waiters dressed like Venetian gondoliers, who actually called you “Signore.” Fluffy drinks with teeny umbrellas. Bumbling magicians. The black-out Baked Alaska sparkler-lit caravan. Table talk about surgeries and scars. The Internet Café. The Brobdignian buffet, somehow always served on the “Lido Deck.” Elderly women with their wheelchairs pulled up tight to the slot machines. Having your picture taken hugging a lobster.
The profound moments of a cruise will more than identify themselves – a magnificent view, historic site, a lover’s kiss. But, whenever the profundity subsides, the real way to enjoy a cruise is to savor it through the glasses of wacky. You will be neither disappointed, nor cynical, nor bored.
So call me neither bourgeoisie nor misanthrope. I’ll stand now and forever for the appellation of “wacky.” I had this confirmed thousand-fold the moment we disembarked in New York and I was greeted by a stevedore who told me in no uncertain terms to “f*** off,” because I had chosen someone other than him.
Ah, back to terra firma and its unvarnished realities, pining for just one more frou-frou daiquiri and another day of wacky.
If you have nothing to write after a cruise, you know you have attained a new level of writer’s block. OK, the ports of call – Newport, Boston, Halifax – were memorable. The food, as always, defined conspicuous consumption. The service created a weeklong illusion of luxury the likes of which we rubes would never enjoy, were it not for a blitzkrieg infusion of cash.
What’s left to tell about my cruise? As a Boomer of the ‘60s, I dare not gloat too lavishly, lest I be perceived as bourgeois. But, as an almost-senior in 2009, I dare not be too critical, lest I be perceived as a cynic and a crank. So, let’s say that that it was neither an orgy of giddy abandon, nor an experience that would turn sweet cream sour.
After three cruises, I finally realized that the word that was missing from my vocabulary to describe the milieu was “wacky.” Everything you do on a cruise has a patina of “wack,” intended or not, perpetrated by crew, voyagers, or the basic ambiance.
A quick example: The after-dinner entertainment is notorious for its cheesiness. But when the show hopscotches instantaneously from a little-too-energetic medley of “Hair” to an unctuous tenor crooning a dewy-eyed rendition of “Danny Boy,” you know that we have wandered just a little too far into the Kingdom of Wack.
You know what else is wacky? The inability to divest ourselves of our cellphones when we’re upon the high seas. As we (and I mean “we,” as in “me”) draw nearer to the coast, we check our reception as frantically as a nicotine fiend grabs for his next cigarette. Why? To check our voicemail, of course. Or, to call Cousin Birdie about the food. (“Terrible . . . and such small portions!” as the Yiddish joke goes.) That, and call into the office to sweat some new crisis. And, not to be outstripped by lo-tech, checking our email is also irresistible, fetched from a place ominously called the “Internet Café.” I failed to resist for eight measly minutes, and it cost me $22.50. And, yes, the whole ship is rigged with wi-fi, so that you see folks constantly pecking away at their laptops poolside, balancing one of those frou-frou banana daiquiris in their free hand. Wacky? You tell me.
The reputed leisure of cruising is also fraught with wack. Yes, the food and portions are legendary. But, so is the pushing, shoving, and butting in the buffet line, the likes of which make Times Square feel like a croquet match. And the din? One day, a this was a mother to her daughter at 100 decibels above the madding crowd: “Did you remember to call your Cousin Sharon?? She’s having a cyst removed from her ovary.” Next day, another mother/daughter, same scenario: “I had a little headache, but at least I didn’t get diarrhea!!” And, where else can your otherwise well-behaved dinner partner get up the wack to run her finger through the majestic Baked Alaska and lick it off, just before you were going to do the same? Wacky, no?
Five years ago, after my first cruise, I wrote a piece that dripped with cynicism. Could there be that much difference in aging from 55 to 60? This time you will not hear a snide word. The voyage was just what my therapist ordered: Asian waiters dressed like Venetian gondoliers, who actually called you “Signore.” Fluffy drinks with teeny umbrellas. Bumbling magicians. The black-out Baked Alaska sparkler-lit caravan. Table talk about surgeries and scars. The Internet Café. The Brobdignian buffet, somehow always served on the “Lido Deck.” Elderly women with their wheelchairs pulled up tight to the slot machines. Having your picture taken hugging a lobster.
The profound moments of a cruise will more than identify themselves – a magnificent view, historic site, a lover’s kiss. But, whenever the profundity subsides, the real way to enjoy a cruise is to savor it through the glasses of wacky. You will be neither disappointed, nor cynical, nor bored.
So call me neither bourgeoisie nor misanthrope. I’ll stand now and forever for the appellation of “wacky.” I had this confirmed thousand-fold the moment we disembarked in New York and I was greeted by a stevedore who told me in no uncertain terms to “f*** off,” because I had chosen someone other than him.
Ah, back to terra firma and its unvarnished realities, pining for just one more frou-frou daiquiri and another day of wacky.
July 27, 2009
A FORTY-YEAR OLD TALE OF MY OWN “PROFILING”
At the outset, let me make clear that this is not a missive about “who’s got it worse.” The discrimination that Jews have suffered here at home, however egregious, holds no comparison to that of African Americans, from slavery, to Jim Crow, to racial profiling. As a product of the Jewish upper middle class, though, I cannot resist relating my own experience with “profiling” – at least in an attenuated sense – however like or unlike that of Henry Louis Gates.
Four decades ago, I was one of the protesters who marched through the streets of Chicago during the infamous 1968 Democratic National Convention, albeit that I was pretty clean-cut and respectful, as befitted a yeshiva bochur (orthodox Jewish seminarian). In the convention’s aftermath, I attempted to attend the equally infamous Chicago Seven trial, at which leaders of the protest were tried for everything from disturbing the peace to sedition. The mood was, as one might expect, a frenetic, highly-charged mix of courtroom angst and countercultural buffoonery.
A spectator’s seat was nearly impossible to procure, but I waited my turn and was seated for an afternoon session. I remember dressing neatly; appropriate to the behavior of a yeshiva bochur, down to the yarmulke (skullcap) I always wore back then, a mandatory sign of devotion of the orthodox Jew to the One Above.
Upon being called to order, courtroom-tension as thick as ever, a marshal pointed to my yarmulke and signaled to remove it. I moved to the aisle to explain.
“Take off the beanie.” The marshal was adamant.
“It’s not a ‘beanie.’ It’s . . . “
My explanation was cut ominously short.
“I said, take off that beanie.”
But, giving me no time to either explain or remove it, he wrenched my arm and pulled me out of the courtroom, where a marshal grabbed me under the other arm and dragged me down a hall. At this point, I remember being only too willing to walk under my own strength, but every insistence just ratcheted up the dragging.
“Should we arrest him for ‘disorderly’?” one barked at the other.
“Too much trouble,” the other answered.
With that, they threw me in an elevator and boxed me into a corner. When we got downstairs, they slammed me against a wall and threw me through the door, warning me to “Get your ass out of here, and don’t come back, or you don’t know what hell is.”
The story made a box in next morning’s Sun-Times. I heard that Abbie Hoffman, the clown-prince of the conspirators, shouted out in open court, “It’s a shondeh for the goyim (a shame for the gentiles)! They’re taking a yeshiva bochur away!” for which he was cited for contempt.
That is the kind of tale you tell your grandchildren, worn like an achievement badge or a pair of tix to Woodstock – the day that Zayde got roughed up by the cops. Can you imagine that? Zayde? Truth be told, though, except for an occasional brush with low-grade anti-Semitism, I have lived a charmed life in which the cops have been my friends and no one has demanded that I remove my “beanie.”
But my 40-year-old singular experience with thugs-at-law is also a cautionary tale. It means that estrangement from basic justice and the presumption of innocence, the violation of personal integrity and decency, are an ever-present danger to anyone who dares to be different – much more so by dint of the color of ones skin.
So you see, once upon a time, decades ago, I lost my own presumption of innocence to the profile of a timid, nerdy yeshiva bochur, just trying to explain that my “beanie” defined whom I was. Is it that too much unlike Professor Gates defining himself by the color of his skin as a source of pride, not shame nor suspicion?
At the outset, let me make clear that this is not a missive about “who’s got it worse.” The discrimination that Jews have suffered here at home, however egregious, holds no comparison to that of African Americans, from slavery, to Jim Crow, to racial profiling. As a product of the Jewish upper middle class, though, I cannot resist relating my own experience with “profiling” – at least in an attenuated sense – however like or unlike that of Henry Louis Gates.
Four decades ago, I was one of the protesters who marched through the streets of Chicago during the infamous 1968 Democratic National Convention, albeit that I was pretty clean-cut and respectful, as befitted a yeshiva bochur (orthodox Jewish seminarian). In the convention’s aftermath, I attempted to attend the equally infamous Chicago Seven trial, at which leaders of the protest were tried for everything from disturbing the peace to sedition. The mood was, as one might expect, a frenetic, highly-charged mix of courtroom angst and countercultural buffoonery.
A spectator’s seat was nearly impossible to procure, but I waited my turn and was seated for an afternoon session. I remember dressing neatly; appropriate to the behavior of a yeshiva bochur, down to the yarmulke (skullcap) I always wore back then, a mandatory sign of devotion of the orthodox Jew to the One Above.
Upon being called to order, courtroom-tension as thick as ever, a marshal pointed to my yarmulke and signaled to remove it. I moved to the aisle to explain.
“Take off the beanie.” The marshal was adamant.
“It’s not a ‘beanie.’ It’s . . . “
My explanation was cut ominously short.
“I said, take off that beanie.”
But, giving me no time to either explain or remove it, he wrenched my arm and pulled me out of the courtroom, where a marshal grabbed me under the other arm and dragged me down a hall. At this point, I remember being only too willing to walk under my own strength, but every insistence just ratcheted up the dragging.
“Should we arrest him for ‘disorderly’?” one barked at the other.
“Too much trouble,” the other answered.
With that, they threw me in an elevator and boxed me into a corner. When we got downstairs, they slammed me against a wall and threw me through the door, warning me to “Get your ass out of here, and don’t come back, or you don’t know what hell is.”
The story made a box in next morning’s Sun-Times. I heard that Abbie Hoffman, the clown-prince of the conspirators, shouted out in open court, “It’s a shondeh for the goyim (a shame for the gentiles)! They’re taking a yeshiva bochur away!” for which he was cited for contempt.
That is the kind of tale you tell your grandchildren, worn like an achievement badge or a pair of tix to Woodstock – the day that Zayde got roughed up by the cops. Can you imagine that? Zayde? Truth be told, though, except for an occasional brush with low-grade anti-Semitism, I have lived a charmed life in which the cops have been my friends and no one has demanded that I remove my “beanie.”
But my 40-year-old singular experience with thugs-at-law is also a cautionary tale. It means that estrangement from basic justice and the presumption of innocence, the violation of personal integrity and decency, are an ever-present danger to anyone who dares to be different – much more so by dint of the color of ones skin.
So you see, once upon a time, decades ago, I lost my own presumption of innocence to the profile of a timid, nerdy yeshiva bochur, just trying to explain that my “beanie” defined whom I was. Is it that too much unlike Professor Gates defining himself by the color of his skin as a source of pride, not shame nor suspicion?
July 09, 2009
INTIMATIONS OF USELESSNESS
Would you indulge me in this opportunity to wallow? I just received my Medicare card and first Social Security check. Maybe you’d wallow, too.
My mind for an eternal moment is lingering over the most irrational thoughts. So, please don’t tell me how much I still have to give to my family and friends and community. I know. Please don’t tell me how many productive years still lie ahead of me, if I would just exercise more often. I know. Please don’t tell me that, with deference to the poetry of Browning’s Rabbi Ben Ezra, “the best is yet to be, the last of life for which the first was made.” I know.
You see, I have read the word as “disabled,” but through the dyslexia of depression, I have perceived the word as “useless.”
“Useless.” In my most lachrymose times, I look at the card and check, and feelings of uselessness overwhelm me. No, I have not been able to find gainful employment for seven years. “Experts” have calculated that I had more to gain by being declared “disabled” – too bipolar to hold down a real job among real people working for a real boss meeting real deadlines.
Were I 60 and retired, people would think me lucky to have days to commune with my keyboard, the dog, and what we’ll make for dinner. How many working stiffs would doubtlessly tell me they’d love to trade places, collect their check, chuck their boss?
But I am 60 and “disabled.” I have seen and even buried those who have faced disability and mortality far younger than I. Yet, now how cannot I feel it so acutely when the disability is mine?
Here’s the real rub: I know that my existence still makes a difference. People are still touched by the things I write. I can still pull together the critical mass of good-hearted, bleeding-hearted, and discontented people to make causes happen. I can still get a yuk out of a Biblically-relevant joke that I crack at my ragtag weekly Bible class.
Yet, it’s the finality that is killing me, boys – now having been declared “disabled” by social convention. No, no, don’t you see that I am perennially 16, a silly teenager still full of puns, double-entendres, goofy voices, and practical jokes. In my mind, I am immortal. Now, I face the reality of being named elderly at age 60.
How much of a man’s worth is bound up in his employability? Worth should come from ones ethereal, spiritual majesty, brother. Tell that to your preacher, not to someone whose nose is rubbed in a Medicare claim each time he visits his doc. “Take a little nap every afternoon,” he says. I need it, he says, for all the meds I’m taking. Then go get the mail and watch the cycle revolve around another letter from the Social Security office, all the while struggling with the thought that I am still far more hippie than Yanni.
I could make a friend, call a friend, but . . . I could go to the lunch for seniors at the synagogue, but . . . So damned much apoplectic self-pity, the weight of depression. Linda knows better, God bless her. The shrink will listen impassively, so long as I can afford the faux-empathy. The meds help me avoid sleeping fitfully until 4:00.
One day, rationality will once again prevail. Promise lies ahead. I know that the best is yet to be. I will again feel it again and even preach it. It’s just that mortality means to accept that a smile can occasionally just mask the fear, and even the feelings of uselessness, announcing that one has already arrived at the “last of life” for which the first was made.
Ah, feeling better already. Excuse me while I go back for another dessert.
Would you indulge me in this opportunity to wallow? I just received my Medicare card and first Social Security check. Maybe you’d wallow, too.
My mind for an eternal moment is lingering over the most irrational thoughts. So, please don’t tell me how much I still have to give to my family and friends and community. I know. Please don’t tell me how many productive years still lie ahead of me, if I would just exercise more often. I know. Please don’t tell me that, with deference to the poetry of Browning’s Rabbi Ben Ezra, “the best is yet to be, the last of life for which the first was made.” I know.
You see, I have read the word as “disabled,” but through the dyslexia of depression, I have perceived the word as “useless.”
“Useless.” In my most lachrymose times, I look at the card and check, and feelings of uselessness overwhelm me. No, I have not been able to find gainful employment for seven years. “Experts” have calculated that I had more to gain by being declared “disabled” – too bipolar to hold down a real job among real people working for a real boss meeting real deadlines.
Were I 60 and retired, people would think me lucky to have days to commune with my keyboard, the dog, and what we’ll make for dinner. How many working stiffs would doubtlessly tell me they’d love to trade places, collect their check, chuck their boss?
But I am 60 and “disabled.” I have seen and even buried those who have faced disability and mortality far younger than I. Yet, now how cannot I feel it so acutely when the disability is mine?
Here’s the real rub: I know that my existence still makes a difference. People are still touched by the things I write. I can still pull together the critical mass of good-hearted, bleeding-hearted, and discontented people to make causes happen. I can still get a yuk out of a Biblically-relevant joke that I crack at my ragtag weekly Bible class.
Yet, it’s the finality that is killing me, boys – now having been declared “disabled” by social convention. No, no, don’t you see that I am perennially 16, a silly teenager still full of puns, double-entendres, goofy voices, and practical jokes. In my mind, I am immortal. Now, I face the reality of being named elderly at age 60.
How much of a man’s worth is bound up in his employability? Worth should come from ones ethereal, spiritual majesty, brother. Tell that to your preacher, not to someone whose nose is rubbed in a Medicare claim each time he visits his doc. “Take a little nap every afternoon,” he says. I need it, he says, for all the meds I’m taking. Then go get the mail and watch the cycle revolve around another letter from the Social Security office, all the while struggling with the thought that I am still far more hippie than Yanni.
I could make a friend, call a friend, but . . . I could go to the lunch for seniors at the synagogue, but . . . So damned much apoplectic self-pity, the weight of depression. Linda knows better, God bless her. The shrink will listen impassively, so long as I can afford the faux-empathy. The meds help me avoid sleeping fitfully until 4:00.
One day, rationality will once again prevail. Promise lies ahead. I know that the best is yet to be. I will again feel it again and even preach it. It’s just that mortality means to accept that a smile can occasionally just mask the fear, and even the feelings of uselessness, announcing that one has already arrived at the “last of life” for which the first was made.
Ah, feeling better already. Excuse me while I go back for another dessert.
June 25, 2009
FEEDING THE APPETITE FOR SCHADENFREUDE
It might be too early to write about the depths of Mark Sanford’s damnation, but it is not too soon to write about his pain, however well deserved. Paving the road to his purgatory and perdition has yet to be defined, not so much by the prospect of illegally misappropriated funds as by salacious bikini tans. Learn well, though, that the self-righteous hooting of his lynch-mob breeds its own kind of love affair. It is the affair fed by schadenfreude, the public’s insatiable appetite for the delight in another’s undoing.
Perhaps in this open and unrelenting society, comedy will always be inevitable. Winding up as one-liners in a Conan monologue or a Letterman Top Ten list has become part of the ritual of public exculpation, a flogging before the jeering throng.
Call me a sourpuss, but let me give the tawdry misdeed a different perspective: This situation is a tragedy, plain and simple, not an SNL sketch. A once-respected leader capitulated to misbegotten lust. Who knows the demons at work in his soul? Who knows the conflicts that were prey to his narcissism? All we do know is that he is already suffering all the grief he deserved and then some. He is likely to have forfeited his job, his marriage, his esteem, his authority, his ability to walk down the street without facing murmured scorn or derision.
Once, though, that society has meted out its explicit and implicit punishments, who will be there to give a modicum of solace and encouragement to a hurting, isolated, failed man who gave in to impulses that bespeak tortured unwholeness, not criminality? Who will comfort him, show him some understanding, and restore his sense of self-worth?
It will not be a psychotherapist at hundreds a session. It will, and must, be a person of exceptional compassion, tolerance, and insight. Perhaps it will be someone who has himself been humbled by scandal or impropriety, who knows the internal conflicts and lurking demons. Perhaps it will be a “wounded healer,” one who has himself gained a great ability in comprehend others' troubles thanks to the awareness of his own pain.
Having mercy on a person who has suffered undeservedly is, sadly, a rare quality in our contentious, calloused society. Granting mercy, or even understanding, to one who had done wrong and deserved punishment is even more exceptional. Yet, anyone who has been there knows that everyone needs someone by his side, someone who may loathe the sin yet acknowledge the humanity of the sinner. Those of us who have sinned, especially to the public’s derision, know only too well the paradigm of the pain, the emptiness, and if God grants us, the healing.
“Everyone needs someone,” you say? Even Hitler and child murderers and cold-blooded killers? To that, I have no rational answer, but I do have an existential one that I learned from Elie Weisel. I was privileged to have coffee with Weisel at the time that Ivan (“The Terrible”) Demjanjuk was on trial. Knowing his staunch opposition to capital punishment, I asked Weisel if his opposition extended to Demjanjuk, et al. “No,” he said. “That’s different.” He did not elaborate, and there was a note of finality to his voice. It said, “This should not require further explanation.”
I guess that there is a point of malignant depravity that moves beyond any claim to compassion or even human validation. And I guess that we must rely on some higher instinct with which God has blessed us to know where to draw the line. This, however, I do know: What Sanford did was not mass murder. Likewise 99.9 percent of the sins that feed schadenfreude-hungry audiences a steady diet of scandal, titillating innuendo, lush gossip, comedic scripts and unjustified intimations of our own moral superiority.
OK, OK, so we got a good yuk out of self-righteous public personage getting caught with his pants down. Next week another deserving candidate will be welcomed to the pop chart. But, who among us will see tragedy in another’s downfall? Who among us will be there to wipe their tears and ease their burden?
If the public has a right to the comedic dimension of human downfall and moral frailty, then let them know well enough also to see tragedy as tragedy. For, imputing only comedy to a person’s undoing is the greatest tragedy of all.
It might be too early to write about the depths of Mark Sanford’s damnation, but it is not too soon to write about his pain, however well deserved. Paving the road to his purgatory and perdition has yet to be defined, not so much by the prospect of illegally misappropriated funds as by salacious bikini tans. Learn well, though, that the self-righteous hooting of his lynch-mob breeds its own kind of love affair. It is the affair fed by schadenfreude, the public’s insatiable appetite for the delight in another’s undoing.
Perhaps in this open and unrelenting society, comedy will always be inevitable. Winding up as one-liners in a Conan monologue or a Letterman Top Ten list has become part of the ritual of public exculpation, a flogging before the jeering throng.
Call me a sourpuss, but let me give the tawdry misdeed a different perspective: This situation is a tragedy, plain and simple, not an SNL sketch. A once-respected leader capitulated to misbegotten lust. Who knows the demons at work in his soul? Who knows the conflicts that were prey to his narcissism? All we do know is that he is already suffering all the grief he deserved and then some. He is likely to have forfeited his job, his marriage, his esteem, his authority, his ability to walk down the street without facing murmured scorn or derision.
Once, though, that society has meted out its explicit and implicit punishments, who will be there to give a modicum of solace and encouragement to a hurting, isolated, failed man who gave in to impulses that bespeak tortured unwholeness, not criminality? Who will comfort him, show him some understanding, and restore his sense of self-worth?
It will not be a psychotherapist at hundreds a session. It will, and must, be a person of exceptional compassion, tolerance, and insight. Perhaps it will be someone who has himself been humbled by scandal or impropriety, who knows the internal conflicts and lurking demons. Perhaps it will be a “wounded healer,” one who has himself gained a great ability in comprehend others' troubles thanks to the awareness of his own pain.
Having mercy on a person who has suffered undeservedly is, sadly, a rare quality in our contentious, calloused society. Granting mercy, or even understanding, to one who had done wrong and deserved punishment is even more exceptional. Yet, anyone who has been there knows that everyone needs someone by his side, someone who may loathe the sin yet acknowledge the humanity of the sinner. Those of us who have sinned, especially to the public’s derision, know only too well the paradigm of the pain, the emptiness, and if God grants us, the healing.
“Everyone needs someone,” you say? Even Hitler and child murderers and cold-blooded killers? To that, I have no rational answer, but I do have an existential one that I learned from Elie Weisel. I was privileged to have coffee with Weisel at the time that Ivan (“The Terrible”) Demjanjuk was on trial. Knowing his staunch opposition to capital punishment, I asked Weisel if his opposition extended to Demjanjuk, et al. “No,” he said. “That’s different.” He did not elaborate, and there was a note of finality to his voice. It said, “This should not require further explanation.”
I guess that there is a point of malignant depravity that moves beyond any claim to compassion or even human validation. And I guess that we must rely on some higher instinct with which God has blessed us to know where to draw the line. This, however, I do know: What Sanford did was not mass murder. Likewise 99.9 percent of the sins that feed schadenfreude-hungry audiences a steady diet of scandal, titillating innuendo, lush gossip, comedic scripts and unjustified intimations of our own moral superiority.
OK, OK, so we got a good yuk out of self-righteous public personage getting caught with his pants down. Next week another deserving candidate will be welcomed to the pop chart. But, who among us will see tragedy in another’s downfall? Who among us will be there to wipe their tears and ease their burden?
If the public has a right to the comedic dimension of human downfall and moral frailty, then let them know well enough also to see tragedy as tragedy. For, imputing only comedy to a person’s undoing is the greatest tragedy of all.
June 15, 2009
THE WASTE OF A LIFETIME
What a waste of a lifetime.
People will find a thousand ways to analyze why a hateful 88-year-old man tried to shoot up a museum devoted to the lessons of man’s greatest inhumanity. We have already heard minds small and large prognosticate about the causes being in a climate of national misanthropy to Freudian traumas dating back to toilet training. I prefer the theory that sometimes evil is simply evil; it plainly transcends psychological or sociological explanation – “two parts Hitler,” my Holocaust-survivor Talmud rebbe, would call it.
In all the rightful questioning, there also resides a bitter lament – please don’t quote me out of context – that we should recite over Erik von Brunn: What a waste of a lifetime. Look at all the good that a man could have accomplished were his mind not preoccupied with hate.
He was obviously a capable man. His vituperative writings are at least intelligible, even articulate – subject, predicate, object. He knows the language that musters the rabble. He carefully thinks through his twisted slurs and paranoia. He’s not a dope. This is not some Cro-Magnon Klansman, but a hatefully intelligent man.
So I repeat, despite my own hate for him and his deed: What a waste of a lifetime. What a crooked evil that led him to the waste of others. Think: Those skills of his, were they rightfully motivated, could have written provocative essays or books, even an illustrative memoir of his apparently tormented childhood. How many people searching for meaning might he have enlightened? How much misanthropy might he have quelled? What if his advocacy were for childhood cancer or illiteracy? What a pity. What a waste of all the good he could have accomplished over 88 years.
The lament is not von Brunn’s alone. It extends to each of us. Every one of us, to a greater or lesser degree, brings some passion or skill to the table. To what good? The physician, bringing compassion to people in need, along with book-learned and clinical skills? So, too, the attorney, the accountant, the craftsman, the skilled and unskilled laborer, the homemaker, the retiree, the rambunctious teenager, the precocious child? What shall we say to defend nonsense, just-for-me-ism, couch-potato-ship, text messaging, apathy, while so much yet good begs to be done?
What a waste of a lifetime.
Once I asked a mechanic what he did for fun. “Go home and kick the **** out of my dog,” he answered. It needn’t be a mechanic, does the answer need to be so horrid, but to some greater or lesser extent, what does it mean to “kick the ****” out of ones lifetime? What a waste.
Each of us has the capacity for evil. Of this, we know only too well. For each of the impulses for evil we harbor, something humane – God or even atheism – cries out with some countervailing potential for good.
Reb Moshe Leib Sassover asserted that every human attribute, however base, could be converted into a virtuous deed. Once upon a time, Reb Moshe was taunted by a disciple to explain how atheism could become honorable. “Even that,” Reb Moshe proclaimed. “For if someone comes to you in hurt, you may not say, ‘Take your problems to God.’ No, at that moment, you must become an atheist, act as if there is no God; that there is only one force that can help this man. YOU!”
The question of whether one wastes a lifetime lived at evil or oblivion is too easily pushed off on demons like von Brunn. It could well be said of each of us who yawn at or desecrate a magnificent, but needy, world. Let not von Brunn’s epitaph become our own.
What a waste of a lifetime.
People will find a thousand ways to analyze why a hateful 88-year-old man tried to shoot up a museum devoted to the lessons of man’s greatest inhumanity. We have already heard minds small and large prognosticate about the causes being in a climate of national misanthropy to Freudian traumas dating back to toilet training. I prefer the theory that sometimes evil is simply evil; it plainly transcends psychological or sociological explanation – “two parts Hitler,” my Holocaust-survivor Talmud rebbe, would call it.
In all the rightful questioning, there also resides a bitter lament – please don’t quote me out of context – that we should recite over Erik von Brunn: What a waste of a lifetime. Look at all the good that a man could have accomplished were his mind not preoccupied with hate.
He was obviously a capable man. His vituperative writings are at least intelligible, even articulate – subject, predicate, object. He knows the language that musters the rabble. He carefully thinks through his twisted slurs and paranoia. He’s not a dope. This is not some Cro-Magnon Klansman, but a hatefully intelligent man.
So I repeat, despite my own hate for him and his deed: What a waste of a lifetime. What a crooked evil that led him to the waste of others. Think: Those skills of his, were they rightfully motivated, could have written provocative essays or books, even an illustrative memoir of his apparently tormented childhood. How many people searching for meaning might he have enlightened? How much misanthropy might he have quelled? What if his advocacy were for childhood cancer or illiteracy? What a pity. What a waste of all the good he could have accomplished over 88 years.
The lament is not von Brunn’s alone. It extends to each of us. Every one of us, to a greater or lesser degree, brings some passion or skill to the table. To what good? The physician, bringing compassion to people in need, along with book-learned and clinical skills? So, too, the attorney, the accountant, the craftsman, the skilled and unskilled laborer, the homemaker, the retiree, the rambunctious teenager, the precocious child? What shall we say to defend nonsense, just-for-me-ism, couch-potato-ship, text messaging, apathy, while so much yet good begs to be done?
What a waste of a lifetime.
Once I asked a mechanic what he did for fun. “Go home and kick the **** out of my dog,” he answered. It needn’t be a mechanic, does the answer need to be so horrid, but to some greater or lesser extent, what does it mean to “kick the ****” out of ones lifetime? What a waste.
Each of us has the capacity for evil. Of this, we know only too well. For each of the impulses for evil we harbor, something humane – God or even atheism – cries out with some countervailing potential for good.
Reb Moshe Leib Sassover asserted that every human attribute, however base, could be converted into a virtuous deed. Once upon a time, Reb Moshe was taunted by a disciple to explain how atheism could become honorable. “Even that,” Reb Moshe proclaimed. “For if someone comes to you in hurt, you may not say, ‘Take your problems to God.’ No, at that moment, you must become an atheist, act as if there is no God; that there is only one force that can help this man. YOU!”
The question of whether one wastes a lifetime lived at evil or oblivion is too easily pushed off on demons like von Brunn. It could well be said of each of us who yawn at or desecrate a magnificent, but needy, world. Let not von Brunn’s epitaph become our own.
May 01, 2009
WAS HIS VOTE WORTH IT?
I campaigned for Tony Trout. It was the first and only time I campaigned for a local candidate. I sent emails and signed petitions. I wrote him letters of encouragement throughout his rocky runs and runoffs.
Being outside his district, I could not vote for him, but I spoke, wrote, and cajoled about his worthiness and the necessity of his victory. Tony had become, even for the right-minded, the quintessential single-issue candidate. What we knew about him was that his vote would ensure that the birthday of Dr. King would be celebrated in Greenville County.
His opponent, Steve Selby, saw everything wrong, we said, and maybe weren’t far from mistaken. Little is it known, but I spent two hours in the smoke-cloying Denny’s lobbying him on the holiday issue, to no avail. His argument, as you would expect, was built around how decent people knew that Dr. King was a “womanizing communist,” as though more than a few of his own role-models were not unreconstructed sinners.
By the way, our conversation ended with him pronouncing, “Marc, I’ll miss you in heaven.” In a moment of rare genius, I responded, “Frankly, Steve, I’ve seen enough of you here on earth.”
But yes, we said, Tony was OK. Some of us knew that his motives may have been less than kosher, but for the vast majority of us, motives did not matter. We lauded him for his guts and one promise of progressivism. We got our holiday . . . and we got our Tony Trout.
Tony turned out to be the creep, after all. We snuck him into office on a single issue. Save the Dr. King issue, at least Steve Selby wasn’t a cowardly crook. Choke on the words as I may, Steve was a real straight arrow, a law-enforcement official and family man who was whistle-clean. In all, Steve may have represented by as man of ill-begotten attitude, but all be told he was honest.
How close must the ends be to the means to justify them? Reducing it to the absurd, remember the canard, that “At least he (Hitler) could get the trains to run on time.” Tony Trout is not Hitler, God forbid, but did one issue, however noble, justify not even to do a sniff-test to assess his politics, positions, and most of all, his ethical posture? Worse yet, discovering the negative, would it have even mattered? I count myself among the latter, and in retrospect, I am not proud.
This remains the dilemma: Had we to do it over again, would we have chosen the moral rectitude of a Steve Selby over a morally-bankrupt one-trick-pony? More succinctly, did one vote of a sneak and a scoundrel justify his ascent to civic leadership? Yet more succinctly, what would Dr. King have done?
I don’t know. I don’t know. If you think you do, I’ll miss you in heaven.
I campaigned for Tony Trout. It was the first and only time I campaigned for a local candidate. I sent emails and signed petitions. I wrote him letters of encouragement throughout his rocky runs and runoffs.
Being outside his district, I could not vote for him, but I spoke, wrote, and cajoled about his worthiness and the necessity of his victory. Tony had become, even for the right-minded, the quintessential single-issue candidate. What we knew about him was that his vote would ensure that the birthday of Dr. King would be celebrated in Greenville County.
His opponent, Steve Selby, saw everything wrong, we said, and maybe weren’t far from mistaken. Little is it known, but I spent two hours in the smoke-cloying Denny’s lobbying him on the holiday issue, to no avail. His argument, as you would expect, was built around how decent people knew that Dr. King was a “womanizing communist,” as though more than a few of his own role-models were not unreconstructed sinners.
By the way, our conversation ended with him pronouncing, “Marc, I’ll miss you in heaven.” In a moment of rare genius, I responded, “Frankly, Steve, I’ve seen enough of you here on earth.”
But yes, we said, Tony was OK. Some of us knew that his motives may have been less than kosher, but for the vast majority of us, motives did not matter. We lauded him for his guts and one promise of progressivism. We got our holiday . . . and we got our Tony Trout.
Tony turned out to be the creep, after all. We snuck him into office on a single issue. Save the Dr. King issue, at least Steve Selby wasn’t a cowardly crook. Choke on the words as I may, Steve was a real straight arrow, a law-enforcement official and family man who was whistle-clean. In all, Steve may have represented by as man of ill-begotten attitude, but all be told he was honest.
How close must the ends be to the means to justify them? Reducing it to the absurd, remember the canard, that “At least he (Hitler) could get the trains to run on time.” Tony Trout is not Hitler, God forbid, but did one issue, however noble, justify not even to do a sniff-test to assess his politics, positions, and most of all, his ethical posture? Worse yet, discovering the negative, would it have even mattered? I count myself among the latter, and in retrospect, I am not proud.
This remains the dilemma: Had we to do it over again, would we have chosen the moral rectitude of a Steve Selby over a morally-bankrupt one-trick-pony? More succinctly, did one vote of a sneak and a scoundrel justify his ascent to civic leadership? Yet more succinctly, what would Dr. King have done?
I don’t know. I don’t know. If you think you do, I’ll miss you in heaven.
I AM ORDAINED A HIGH PRIEST (REVISED)
I wonder whether Aaron the biblical High Priest perpetually had second-degree burns over his hands from frying up sacrifices in olive oil. Better yet, am I ordained a High Priest because of all the times I sear myself while I attempt to cook with scorching olive oil? If so, then last week I was anointed with that holy unguent and declared High Priest by a congregation of ten burly, very gentile gentiles.
The scenario: One of my Bar Mitzvah students, Jacob, is a little more eccentric than most 13-year-olds. He reviews his portion of the service with gusto only after he has spent an hour with me in the kitchen. On that momentous day, we were planning to make beef-barley soup. We were about to sauté onions in EVOO (“Extra Virgin Olive Oil,” for you who don’t watch that cutesy parakeet, Rachael Ray, chirping about it along with her dog food. Jealous? Moi?)
In an instant, flames leapt from the pot. Shoving Jacob out of the way (a good instinct), I stuck my hand in the fire (a bad instinct) and burned it to what I was sure what be a charcoal crisp. Miraculously, I escaped with only two half-inch burns.
Being a denizen of the upper middle class, our house is equipped with the biggest and most hypersensitive alarm system, which instantly alerts the fire department every time I fry an egg.
I had already well doused the fire and sufficiently attended to my burns, when a police captain banged on the front door. He apparently handled these matters because he was so anemic that he couldn’t save my labradoodle Minnie from a titmouse. I calmly told him that no other emergency services were required.
Too late. The fire department had already snaked its way down our narrow lane with its hook-and-ladder. Out of the truck leapt six sumo firefighters, oxygen tanks strapped to their backs, insisting on inspecting the house. They spied the minor burns on my hand and announced that they were obliged to have EMS come to check me out. “Not necessary,” I protested.
But, shortly thereafter, three EMTs arrived in their ambulance. They were required by law, they said, to examine me. Before I knew it, they were taking my blood pressure. Then they discovered the scar on my chest from my pacemaker. Jackpot. They demanded that I lie down and let them take an EKG – all for two half-inch burns.
By then, our kitchen was overrun by a ten men and women of emergency crews, a quorum for worship. Law required that I be taken to the hospital, they said.
So off I go in a gurney to the ER, where I was once again meticulously examined, and then waited an hour to have salve schmered on my gaping wounds. The EMTs, firefighters, and cops stood by watchfully.
Jacob, of course, was petrified. His mother had arrived to pick him up. As I was being wheeled out on the stretcher, mother and son dutifully followed behind, offering me reassurance and asking me whom they should call. An audience of curious neighbors, God bless them, gathered outside. By the time my Linda returned from the office and picked me up from the ER, our doorstep was laden with aluminum pans full of meatloaf, fried chicken, the ubiquitous tuna salad, and brownies, all gifts of goodwill from the Bob Jones families surrounding us.
Can you comprehend the significance of that momentous occasion? I had been twice anointed High Priest, once by olive oil, then by life-saving unction, in the presence of my motley, burly congregation of ten weary caregivers.
Will I burn myself again? Of course. Just that this time, I will have disconnected my fire alarm. Will my intrepid Jacob return? Of course. But only after I promise we continue our culinary adventures only if we make something innocent, like fruit salad.
No! No! Watch out for that Santoku! It might slip and cut your . . . oh, nooooo . . .
I wonder whether Aaron the biblical High Priest perpetually had second-degree burns over his hands from frying up sacrifices in olive oil. Better yet, am I ordained a High Priest because of all the times I sear myself while I attempt to cook with scorching olive oil? If so, then last week I was anointed with that holy unguent and declared High Priest by a congregation of ten burly, very gentile gentiles.
The scenario: One of my Bar Mitzvah students, Jacob, is a little more eccentric than most 13-year-olds. He reviews his portion of the service with gusto only after he has spent an hour with me in the kitchen. On that momentous day, we were planning to make beef-barley soup. We were about to sauté onions in EVOO (“Extra Virgin Olive Oil,” for you who don’t watch that cutesy parakeet, Rachael Ray, chirping about it along with her dog food. Jealous? Moi?)
In an instant, flames leapt from the pot. Shoving Jacob out of the way (a good instinct), I stuck my hand in the fire (a bad instinct) and burned it to what I was sure what be a charcoal crisp. Miraculously, I escaped with only two half-inch burns.
Being a denizen of the upper middle class, our house is equipped with the biggest and most hypersensitive alarm system, which instantly alerts the fire department every time I fry an egg.
I had already well doused the fire and sufficiently attended to my burns, when a police captain banged on the front door. He apparently handled these matters because he was so anemic that he couldn’t save my labradoodle Minnie from a titmouse. I calmly told him that no other emergency services were required.
Too late. The fire department had already snaked its way down our narrow lane with its hook-and-ladder. Out of the truck leapt six sumo firefighters, oxygen tanks strapped to their backs, insisting on inspecting the house. They spied the minor burns on my hand and announced that they were obliged to have EMS come to check me out. “Not necessary,” I protested.
But, shortly thereafter, three EMTs arrived in their ambulance. They were required by law, they said, to examine me. Before I knew it, they were taking my blood pressure. Then they discovered the scar on my chest from my pacemaker. Jackpot. They demanded that I lie down and let them take an EKG – all for two half-inch burns.
By then, our kitchen was overrun by a ten men and women of emergency crews, a quorum for worship. Law required that I be taken to the hospital, they said.
So off I go in a gurney to the ER, where I was once again meticulously examined, and then waited an hour to have salve schmered on my gaping wounds. The EMTs, firefighters, and cops stood by watchfully.
Jacob, of course, was petrified. His mother had arrived to pick him up. As I was being wheeled out on the stretcher, mother and son dutifully followed behind, offering me reassurance and asking me whom they should call. An audience of curious neighbors, God bless them, gathered outside. By the time my Linda returned from the office and picked me up from the ER, our doorstep was laden with aluminum pans full of meatloaf, fried chicken, the ubiquitous tuna salad, and brownies, all gifts of goodwill from the Bob Jones families surrounding us.
Can you comprehend the significance of that momentous occasion? I had been twice anointed High Priest, once by olive oil, then by life-saving unction, in the presence of my motley, burly congregation of ten weary caregivers.
Will I burn myself again? Of course. Just that this time, I will have disconnected my fire alarm. Will my intrepid Jacob return? Of course. But only after I promise we continue our culinary adventures only if we make something innocent, like fruit salad.
No! No! Watch out for that Santoku! It might slip and cut your . . . oh, nooooo . . .
April 22, 2009
A CAFFEINATED MEETING OF THE IN-LAWS
I have never understood why people drink decaffeinated coffee. Maybe it’s because I personally think that any coffee – even the vaunted Starbuck’s – tastes and lingers in the throat like wet cigarettes. How I know the taste and texture of wet cigarettes is simply up to ones conjecture.
What then? The only real reason that justifies drinking coffee is the, nerve-chilling amphetamine buzz one gets from drinking the stuff that’s full of caffeine – Super-Sumatra-Kenyata-Double-Deep-Dark-Roasted-Kona-Brain-Buster.
This and its cousins are brews that are not to be taken lightly. Indeed, they should be saved for special occasions when hyperkinetic attitude adjustment is the order of the day. I had one such day nearly 12 years ago that I remember with an afterglow of yet-to-be-resolved caffeine overdose.
It was the day that I drove the 90 miles from Atlanta to Macon, Georgia, to meet my soon-to-be in-laws. I knew little of them, and what I knew was dire: No, Linda and I could not sleep in the same room. No, I was not welcome at the Thanksgiving table until the engagement was “official.” What did I really do for a living? Would you please explain it again? Do people actually make money doing that?
How to confront such a dire situation? Drink coffee, plenty of it. Start drinking it before breakfast. Then, with my toast and jelly. Then, as I hit the road. Then, rolling down the highway. Then, whenever I stopped for gas – many times, of course, for we all know what coffee does to ones bladder.
Too much. By the time I got to Macon, my ears buzzed, my eyes spun, my teeth and follicles tingled, my arms and legs shook. Worst, my mind raced. The already skeptical in-laws greeted me feebly from the top of the stairs. Uncontrollably, I hailed words like bullets from a machine gun . . .
“Hello-Mom-and-Dad-I-hope-you-don’t-mind-me-calling-you-Mom-and-Dad-because-I’m-so-in-love-with-your-daughter-and-I-promise-to-make-a-good-husband-for-her-even-if-you-don’t-know-what-I do-for-a-llving-and-we-sleep-in-the-same-bedroom-and-I-really-want-to-get-to-know-you-better-because-I-know-that-you’ll-love-me-when-you-really-get-to-know-me-and-I-know-I’ll-have-made-it-when-you-invite-me-to-Thanksgiving-dinner . . . “
The in-laws were astounded. “I hope he doesn’t always talk so fast.”
“Not after he’s taken a cold shower,” Linda explained. “He’s always that way when he has too much caffeine.”
“Too much caffeine?” her mother chafed. “And here I thought it was because he wanted us to love him.”
I have never understood why people drink decaffeinated coffee. Maybe it’s because I personally think that any coffee – even the vaunted Starbuck’s – tastes and lingers in the throat like wet cigarettes. How I know the taste and texture of wet cigarettes is simply up to ones conjecture.
What then? The only real reason that justifies drinking coffee is the, nerve-chilling amphetamine buzz one gets from drinking the stuff that’s full of caffeine – Super-Sumatra-Kenyata-Double-Deep-Dark-Roasted-Kona-Brain-Buster.
This and its cousins are brews that are not to be taken lightly. Indeed, they should be saved for special occasions when hyperkinetic attitude adjustment is the order of the day. I had one such day nearly 12 years ago that I remember with an afterglow of yet-to-be-resolved caffeine overdose.
It was the day that I drove the 90 miles from Atlanta to Macon, Georgia, to meet my soon-to-be in-laws. I knew little of them, and what I knew was dire: No, Linda and I could not sleep in the same room. No, I was not welcome at the Thanksgiving table until the engagement was “official.” What did I really do for a living? Would you please explain it again? Do people actually make money doing that?
How to confront such a dire situation? Drink coffee, plenty of it. Start drinking it before breakfast. Then, with my toast and jelly. Then, as I hit the road. Then, rolling down the highway. Then, whenever I stopped for gas – many times, of course, for we all know what coffee does to ones bladder.
Too much. By the time I got to Macon, my ears buzzed, my eyes spun, my teeth and follicles tingled, my arms and legs shook. Worst, my mind raced. The already skeptical in-laws greeted me feebly from the top of the stairs. Uncontrollably, I hailed words like bullets from a machine gun . . .
“Hello-Mom-and-Dad-I-hope-you-don’t-mind-me-calling-you-Mom-and-Dad-because-I’m-so-in-love-with-your-daughter-and-I-promise-to-make-a-good-husband-for-her-even-if-you-don’t-know-what-I do-for-a-llving-and-we-sleep-in-the-same-bedroom-and-I-really-want-to-get-to-know-you-better-because-I-know-that-you’ll-love-me-when-you-really-get-to-know-me-and-I-know-I’ll-have-made-it-when-you-invite-me-to-Thanksgiving-dinner . . . “
The in-laws were astounded. “I hope he doesn’t always talk so fast.”
“Not after he’s taken a cold shower,” Linda explained. “He’s always that way when he has too much caffeine.”
“Too much caffeine?” her mother chafed. “And here I thought it was because he wanted us to love him.”
April 17, 2009
“IT FREAKS ME OUT”
How was your Seder? Mine was absolutely delightful. Imagine this: My children and grandchildren live in Atlanta, some 140 miles away from my little hamlet of Greenville. Only in my wildest dreams would I imagine celebrating the Sedarim in Atlanta, as there also resides my former wife, with whom the kids celebrate theirs.
Please know that for 18 years, life has been more unpleasant than pleasant between the two of us. Miraculously, things have changed. Perhaps it’s because of the much touted realignment of the sun. And perhaps with time she has become more forgiving of her once errant husband. All credit to her.
So, for the price of me roasting two turkeys and baking a potato kugel, and a lot of teshuvah, Linda and I are graciously welcomed at her table – and there are the kids and the grandchildren.
Nothing could possibly be better. Sophie and Simeon flawlessly recite the Four Questions. Who would expect less from a day school education at $20,000 a year. Dinner is delicious, especially the Pflaumenkuchen von Fulda. The grandchildren break our bank stealing and redeeming the afikomon.
The Seder attains its crescendo as the children gleefully sing Chad Gadyo. Everyone chants at the top of their voices but seven-year-old Sophie. She will have nothing to do with it.
“What’s wrong?” I beg her?
“Zayde,” she says, “Chad Gadyo ‘freaks me out’.” First of all, the kid gets killed. Then the dog bites the cat, and he’ll surely be put to sleep. Children shouldn’t play with fire, and oxen are scary. The shochet is murdered by the Malach Ha-Moves. HaShem is supposed to kill him, but I haven’t even ever seen HaShem. That’s why it ‘freaks me out’.”
At least, I say to myself, at age seven she has already become a philosopher, albeit a neurotic one. Finally, her five-year-old brother, a real mazik, injects a dose of reality into the situation. “You know that part about the boy’s two zuzim?” he announces. “I don’t have any money at all!”
How was your Seder? Mine was absolutely delightful. Imagine this: My children and grandchildren live in Atlanta, some 140 miles away from my little hamlet of Greenville. Only in my wildest dreams would I imagine celebrating the Sedarim in Atlanta, as there also resides my former wife, with whom the kids celebrate theirs.
Please know that for 18 years, life has been more unpleasant than pleasant between the two of us. Miraculously, things have changed. Perhaps it’s because of the much touted realignment of the sun. And perhaps with time she has become more forgiving of her once errant husband. All credit to her.
So, for the price of me roasting two turkeys and baking a potato kugel, and a lot of teshuvah, Linda and I are graciously welcomed at her table – and there are the kids and the grandchildren.
Nothing could possibly be better. Sophie and Simeon flawlessly recite the Four Questions. Who would expect less from a day school education at $20,000 a year. Dinner is delicious, especially the Pflaumenkuchen von Fulda. The grandchildren break our bank stealing and redeeming the afikomon.
The Seder attains its crescendo as the children gleefully sing Chad Gadyo. Everyone chants at the top of their voices but seven-year-old Sophie. She will have nothing to do with it.
“What’s wrong?” I beg her?
“Zayde,” she says, “Chad Gadyo ‘freaks me out’.” First of all, the kid gets killed. Then the dog bites the cat, and he’ll surely be put to sleep. Children shouldn’t play with fire, and oxen are scary. The shochet is murdered by the Malach Ha-Moves. HaShem is supposed to kill him, but I haven’t even ever seen HaShem. That’s why it ‘freaks me out’.”
At least, I say to myself, at age seven she has already become a philosopher, albeit a neurotic one. Finally, her five-year-old brother, a real mazik, injects a dose of reality into the situation. “You know that part about the boy’s two zuzim?” he announces. “I don’t have any money at all!”
April 01, 2009
KONKLET AND HAM STEAK
Well, we finally shot the pilot episode of my new cooking show, “Rabbi Ribeye.” Quite an experience: A jazz band blasted out my theme song, a bluesy version of Hava Nagila. The audience chanted, “Ra-a-a-a-b-b-i Ribeye! Ra-a-a-a-b-b-i Ribeye!” I couldn’t decide whether to preen in the pool of narcissism or just crawl in a hole.
The producer had already determined the menu. “We want it Jewish,” he said, “but not too Jewish.” Show biz. I dithered until I remembered the venerable Jewish hamburger.
In my family, we called it a “konklet,” apparently a corruption of the word “cutlet.” It’s ground beef stretched with matzo meal, grated onion, potato, and carrot, fried in schmaltz and onions.
To my surprise, the pilot was to be shot outdoors. Naturally, they did not give me a stove to cook on, but a charcoal grill. Imagine, the cast-iron skillet that I inherited from my bobbe, frying her beloved konklet on TV in front of a hundred starving goyim, while the band ground out “Erev Shel Shoshanim” to a Samba beat. And, did I tell you? The grate was tilted inward on a thirty-degree angle.
So, wearing asbestos mitts, I tended the konklet until they slid to one side, and then pitched the skillet back until they slid to the other. The results: Half burnt, half raw konklet, onions a pile of greasy coal-dust, schmaltz a grimy mauve.
Now, the final indignity – and if I am lying, take away my Cuisinart. The band leader reached into his back pocket, pulled out a ham steak, and tossed it on the grill, rubbing up against my bobbe’s skillet. “Try that!” he prated. “That wins the prize over your ‘kumquat’ any day!”
I politely brought the show to a halt, amazingly, to thunderous applause. I cringed. But, surprise, the producer was delighted. “The best!” he repeated, “The absolute best, especially the way you acted soooo surprised when Mac brought out that ham steak. You should win an Emmy just for that. The syndicators will love it!"
What did Newton Minnow call television? A “vast wasteland.” Well, tell Mr. Minnow I have good news. His wasteland is now filled with ham and konklet.
Well, we finally shot the pilot episode of my new cooking show, “Rabbi Ribeye.” Quite an experience: A jazz band blasted out my theme song, a bluesy version of Hava Nagila. The audience chanted, “Ra-a-a-a-b-b-i Ribeye! Ra-a-a-a-b-b-i Ribeye!” I couldn’t decide whether to preen in the pool of narcissism or just crawl in a hole.
The producer had already determined the menu. “We want it Jewish,” he said, “but not too Jewish.” Show biz. I dithered until I remembered the venerable Jewish hamburger.
In my family, we called it a “konklet,” apparently a corruption of the word “cutlet.” It’s ground beef stretched with matzo meal, grated onion, potato, and carrot, fried in schmaltz and onions.
To my surprise, the pilot was to be shot outdoors. Naturally, they did not give me a stove to cook on, but a charcoal grill. Imagine, the cast-iron skillet that I inherited from my bobbe, frying her beloved konklet on TV in front of a hundred starving goyim, while the band ground out “Erev Shel Shoshanim” to a Samba beat. And, did I tell you? The grate was tilted inward on a thirty-degree angle.
So, wearing asbestos mitts, I tended the konklet until they slid to one side, and then pitched the skillet back until they slid to the other. The results: Half burnt, half raw konklet, onions a pile of greasy coal-dust, schmaltz a grimy mauve.
Now, the final indignity – and if I am lying, take away my Cuisinart. The band leader reached into his back pocket, pulled out a ham steak, and tossed it on the grill, rubbing up against my bobbe’s skillet. “Try that!” he prated. “That wins the prize over your ‘kumquat’ any day!”
I politely brought the show to a halt, amazingly, to thunderous applause. I cringed. But, surprise, the producer was delighted. “The best!” he repeated, “The absolute best, especially the way you acted soooo surprised when Mac brought out that ham steak. You should win an Emmy just for that. The syndicators will love it!"
What did Newton Minnow call television? A “vast wasteland.” Well, tell Mr. Minnow I have good news. His wasteland is now filled with ham and konklet.
March 12, 2009
PEANUT MORBIDITY
When the Hebrews wandered through the wilderness, they survived on manna. American Jews survive on peanut butter. Yet, the Jewish immigrants of a few generations ago didn’t even know what peanuts were. They assumed that since they were called “nuts,” they must have grow from trees, and they dogmatically recited over them the blessing, “borei pri ha-etz,” just like a walnut or pecan.
But, George Washington Carver knew better than the rabbonim that peanuts were legumes that grew directly from the ground. Hence its proper blessing is “borei pri ha-adamah.” There was great consternation among the Jews of New York and Chicago, for the sacrilege having recited the wrong beracha for decades. Alas, nothing could be done but recite an additional Ashamnu and gargle with lye.
They should have known better, because the Americans’ favorite utilization of peanut butter is to slather it with grape jam, upon which, for reasons unknown, (here we go again!) one recites the “borei pri ha-etz,” not “borei pri ha-gafen” nor “borei pri ha-adamah,” despite it growing directly from a vine.
The iconic Elvis Presley took matters a step further and doted on sandwiches of toasted peanut butter and bananas, while a huge gold “Chai” dangled from his stumpy neck. My father, on the other hand, ate a sandwich of peanut butter, butter, and cheese every day of his adult life. They say that when he died, his arteries miraculously were not clogged, but he blew out his aorta nonetheless.
As I say, peanut butter is nothing more than gooey blasphemy.
The only honorable use of the peanut for human consumption is converting it to oil. It’s actually pretty good oil, too. You can fry almost anything in it because no matter how scalding it is, it will not decompose. But, when you stop to think of it, this, too, is more of a curse than a blessing. It refuses to go away. You can’t destroy it, no matter how hard you try, just like King Kong. Its curse will survive forever and ever.
I say that our ancestors were right the first time around. Say an extra Ashamnu and gargle with lye. But, for God’s sake, stay away from the morbid peanut. Look what happened to Elvis.
When the Hebrews wandered through the wilderness, they survived on manna. American Jews survive on peanut butter. Yet, the Jewish immigrants of a few generations ago didn’t even know what peanuts were. They assumed that since they were called “nuts,” they must have grow from trees, and they dogmatically recited over them the blessing, “borei pri ha-etz,” just like a walnut or pecan.
But, George Washington Carver knew better than the rabbonim that peanuts were legumes that grew directly from the ground. Hence its proper blessing is “borei pri ha-adamah.” There was great consternation among the Jews of New York and Chicago, for the sacrilege having recited the wrong beracha for decades. Alas, nothing could be done but recite an additional Ashamnu and gargle with lye.
They should have known better, because the Americans’ favorite utilization of peanut butter is to slather it with grape jam, upon which, for reasons unknown, (here we go again!) one recites the “borei pri ha-etz,” not “borei pri ha-gafen” nor “borei pri ha-adamah,” despite it growing directly from a vine.
The iconic Elvis Presley took matters a step further and doted on sandwiches of toasted peanut butter and bananas, while a huge gold “Chai” dangled from his stumpy neck. My father, on the other hand, ate a sandwich of peanut butter, butter, and cheese every day of his adult life. They say that when he died, his arteries miraculously were not clogged, but he blew out his aorta nonetheless.
As I say, peanut butter is nothing more than gooey blasphemy.
The only honorable use of the peanut for human consumption is converting it to oil. It’s actually pretty good oil, too. You can fry almost anything in it because no matter how scalding it is, it will not decompose. But, when you stop to think of it, this, too, is more of a curse than a blessing. It refuses to go away. You can’t destroy it, no matter how hard you try, just like King Kong. Its curse will survive forever and ever.
I say that our ancestors were right the first time around. Say an extra Ashamnu and gargle with lye. But, for God’s sake, stay away from the morbid peanut. Look what happened to Elvis.
March 04, 2009
BIBLE KIDNEY BELT
"Bible Belt."
For us liberals, the words trip off the tongue with a sneer, an epithet, a lament, an obituary for where we live. Well, let me tell you that I recently spent an evening right here in Taylors at the buckle of the Bible Belt, and I did not find the experience the fodder for cynicism whatsoever. I’m even inclined to do it again.
Some of my newfound friends who are unapologetically fundamentalist Christians are so serious about Judaism that they practice it as it was at Jesus’ time, “searching for the Hebraic roots of their faith.” These five or six families get together every Friday evening for to kindle the Sabbath lights, sanctify the wine, consecrate the bread, share a festive dinner, recite the traditional grace, and study the Torah.
That’s where I fit in. A Jewish woman regularly has her nails done by one of the group. The manicurist is always full of questions. “Why do the Jews do this? What does the Bible say about that?” The woman was typically at a loss for answers. She referred her to me.
We were soon invited to one of the group’s traditional Sabbath dinners, carefully prepared in compliance with the kosher laws: salmon, salad, rice, broccoli casserole, and in deference to the South, a Red Velvet Cake. Then we engaged in three full hours of Torah study – stimulating, reverent . . . and, no, they were quick to say, they were not damning me behind my back. That was not part of “their” doctrine, they averred.
In the course of discussion, I mentioned that I was going to the hospital the next Monday to zap a kidney stone. I’d been urinating blood for weeks, and I was routinely doubled over in pain.
“Do you mind if we pray for you?” one said. “No, of course not.” “Praying to Jesus won’t offend you?” “No, of course not.”
They did not pray one at a time, as I had expected. Instead, they beehive-buzzed around me all at once. Then, above the din I heard one pray, “May Marc be healed, but not by the hands of man!”
Well, think what you want. By the next morning, I stopped urinating blood, and by mid-afternoon, the pain was gone. Like I said, think what you want.
Monday, still in disbelief, I went to the hospital to make sure that what I felt was real. Already on my gurney in that ridiculous wisp of a gown, the doctor announced that the procedure was unnecessary, yanked the IV from my arm, and instructed me to get dressed and go home.
Hmm . . . “healed, but not by the hands of man.”
Did the episode make we want to embrace Christianity? No. But it did draw me closer to the laser-penetrating faith by which this beehive of believers lives. Could it be found in Judaism? Not in its mainstream, any more, I guess, than in mainstream Christianity.
All I do know is that I was embraced by a group of newfound friends who were neither apologetic nor restrained in offering the intensity of their spirit toward a relative stranger – me. At that point, I firmly believe that it could have risen heavenward through Jesus, Yahweh, Buddha, Krishna, or the Bab, or anyone or thing who manifests the Supreme Power.
The message: Miracles happen, sometimes even by the simple exposure to people who believe that miracles happen. It is bad theology, I know, for any parent whose child suffers from leukemia. Then, the miraculous power may be that the presence of spirit-filled people may not cure, but can heal the broken heart and the vacuousness of loss.
Otherwise, in the sagacious words of Billy Joel, I would prefer to leave a tender moment alone. I will not let your psychobabble try to explain it to me. I felt the perceptible presence of healing in that very mundane room and it healed me . . . not by the hands of man.
"Bible Belt."
For us liberals, the words trip off the tongue with a sneer, an epithet, a lament, an obituary for where we live. Well, let me tell you that I recently spent an evening right here in Taylors at the buckle of the Bible Belt, and I did not find the experience the fodder for cynicism whatsoever. I’m even inclined to do it again.
Some of my newfound friends who are unapologetically fundamentalist Christians are so serious about Judaism that they practice it as it was at Jesus’ time, “searching for the Hebraic roots of their faith.” These five or six families get together every Friday evening for to kindle the Sabbath lights, sanctify the wine, consecrate the bread, share a festive dinner, recite the traditional grace, and study the Torah.
That’s where I fit in. A Jewish woman regularly has her nails done by one of the group. The manicurist is always full of questions. “Why do the Jews do this? What does the Bible say about that?” The woman was typically at a loss for answers. She referred her to me.
We were soon invited to one of the group’s traditional Sabbath dinners, carefully prepared in compliance with the kosher laws: salmon, salad, rice, broccoli casserole, and in deference to the South, a Red Velvet Cake. Then we engaged in three full hours of Torah study – stimulating, reverent . . . and, no, they were quick to say, they were not damning me behind my back. That was not part of “their” doctrine, they averred.
In the course of discussion, I mentioned that I was going to the hospital the next Monday to zap a kidney stone. I’d been urinating blood for weeks, and I was routinely doubled over in pain.
“Do you mind if we pray for you?” one said. “No, of course not.” “Praying to Jesus won’t offend you?” “No, of course not.”
They did not pray one at a time, as I had expected. Instead, they beehive-buzzed around me all at once. Then, above the din I heard one pray, “May Marc be healed, but not by the hands of man!”
Well, think what you want. By the next morning, I stopped urinating blood, and by mid-afternoon, the pain was gone. Like I said, think what you want.
Monday, still in disbelief, I went to the hospital to make sure that what I felt was real. Already on my gurney in that ridiculous wisp of a gown, the doctor announced that the procedure was unnecessary, yanked the IV from my arm, and instructed me to get dressed and go home.
Hmm . . . “healed, but not by the hands of man.”
Did the episode make we want to embrace Christianity? No. But it did draw me closer to the laser-penetrating faith by which this beehive of believers lives. Could it be found in Judaism? Not in its mainstream, any more, I guess, than in mainstream Christianity.
All I do know is that I was embraced by a group of newfound friends who were neither apologetic nor restrained in offering the intensity of their spirit toward a relative stranger – me. At that point, I firmly believe that it could have risen heavenward through Jesus, Yahweh, Buddha, Krishna, or the Bab, or anyone or thing who manifests the Supreme Power.
The message: Miracles happen, sometimes even by the simple exposure to people who believe that miracles happen. It is bad theology, I know, for any parent whose child suffers from leukemia. Then, the miraculous power may be that the presence of spirit-filled people may not cure, but can heal the broken heart and the vacuousness of loss.
Otherwise, in the sagacious words of Billy Joel, I would prefer to leave a tender moment alone. I will not let your psychobabble try to explain it to me. I felt the perceptible presence of healing in that very mundane room and it healed me . . . not by the hands of man.
February 24, 2009
"YOU" JEWS AND YOUR FISH
America is a young country. When a Jew says that his family has been in the US for 100 years, it’s like a Jekke saying that his mishpocho has been in Frankfurt for a millennium.
When my parents and I moved to San Francisco, we discovered a pair of distant, distant relatives who established their roots there two generations before the Great Earthquake of 1906. Cousins Charles and Frances, a brother and sister, were a dotty 90-year-old couple who spent most of their time at the opera, ballet, symphony, and theater.
They were a delight to have around, as they regaled us in stories of the Great Earthquake, the graciousness of the old days among the wealthy, cultured German Jews, the charity balls with the Sutros and Fleishackers, and the arrival of the slothful Ostjuden with their Old World nonsense.
They told me, the astonished yeshiva bochur, how their Reform temple celebrated the Sabbath on Sunday, of its Quad Suite organ, and its magnificent choir resplendent with voices from the opera.
The only thing plebian about Charles and Frances was their passion for fishing. Given their love for my folks, though, they never shared the fruits of their expeditions. Then one day they appeared at the door, somewhat sheepishly, bearing a neatly wrapped package of rockfish from Half Moon Bay. They wrinkled their noses self-consciously.
As Frances presented the fish, she said in her usual genteel voice, “I don’t know too much about the kosher laws, but I know that fish have to be soaked and salted to make them acceptable. I couldn’t bear it, so I broiled one, and I couldn’t even touch it, it was so tough and salty.”
I could see that my mother was about to try to explain, but then she thought the better of it.
On went Cousin Frances: “My goodness, how long do you have to salt your beef? No wonder that Jews like ‘them’ have such high blood pressure.” There could be no doubt as to the “them” to whom she was referring. “I guess that’s why ‘you people’ are always saying how hard it is to be a Jew. How ever do you prepare your eggs?”
America is a young country. When a Jew says that his family has been in the US for 100 years, it’s like a Jekke saying that his mishpocho has been in Frankfurt for a millennium.
When my parents and I moved to San Francisco, we discovered a pair of distant, distant relatives who established their roots there two generations before the Great Earthquake of 1906. Cousins Charles and Frances, a brother and sister, were a dotty 90-year-old couple who spent most of their time at the opera, ballet, symphony, and theater.
They were a delight to have around, as they regaled us in stories of the Great Earthquake, the graciousness of the old days among the wealthy, cultured German Jews, the charity balls with the Sutros and Fleishackers, and the arrival of the slothful Ostjuden with their Old World nonsense.
They told me, the astonished yeshiva bochur, how their Reform temple celebrated the Sabbath on Sunday, of its Quad Suite organ, and its magnificent choir resplendent with voices from the opera.
The only thing plebian about Charles and Frances was their passion for fishing. Given their love for my folks, though, they never shared the fruits of their expeditions. Then one day they appeared at the door, somewhat sheepishly, bearing a neatly wrapped package of rockfish from Half Moon Bay. They wrinkled their noses self-consciously.
As Frances presented the fish, she said in her usual genteel voice, “I don’t know too much about the kosher laws, but I know that fish have to be soaked and salted to make them acceptable. I couldn’t bear it, so I broiled one, and I couldn’t even touch it, it was so tough and salty.”
I could see that my mother was about to try to explain, but then she thought the better of it.
On went Cousin Frances: “My goodness, how long do you have to salt your beef? No wonder that Jews like ‘them’ have such high blood pressure.” There could be no doubt as to the “them” to whom she was referring. “I guess that’s why ‘you people’ are always saying how hard it is to be a Jew. How ever do you prepare your eggs?”
February 14, 2009
IT MUST HAVE BEEN THE BROCCOLI CASSEROLE
Small towns like Greenville are rife with Christian fundamentalists. They assume that we know about the Torah, holidays, ceremonies, philosophy, and history. Uh-huh.
Some of them are so serious about Judaism that they practice it as it was at Jesus’ time, “searching for the Hebraic roots of their faith.” So, five or six families will get together on Friday evenings for candles, Kiddush, Motzi, Shabbat, Benschen, and Torah study.
That’s where I fit in. A local Donna Gracia regularly had her nails done by one such Judeophile, who was always full of questions. “Why do the Jews do this? What does the Bible say about that?” How many answers do you think the dowager could give her?
She referred her to her rabbi. Our invitation included traditional Shabbat dinner, tastefully kosher – salmon, salad, rice, and a miserable broccoli casserole. Then we engaged in four hours of Torah study – stimulating, reverent . . . And, no, they were quick to say, they were not damning me behind my back. That was not part of “their” doctrine.
In the course of discussion, I mentioned that I was going in to zap a kidney stone. I’d been peeing blood for weeks, and I was constantly doubled over in pain.
“Do you mind if we pray for you?” one said. “No, of course not.” “Jesus won’t offend you?” “No, of course not.”
At once, they beehive-buzzed around me. Above the din I heard one pray, “May Marc be healed, but not by the hands of man!”
Well, think what you want. By the next morning, I stopped peeing blood, and by mid-afternoon, the pain had stopped. Like I said, think what you want. It made me no surer of Jesus, but of the power of sincere faith and spirit all imploded into the one needing it most.
The next day, I went to the hospital just to make sure. Already on my gurney, the doctor announced that the procedure was unnecessary, pulled the IV from my arm, and instructed me to go home.
As I got in the car, I pronounced to Linda, “It’s a miracle!” Ever the skeptic, she declared, “No, honey, I think it was just the broccoli casserole.”
Small towns like Greenville are rife with Christian fundamentalists. They assume that we know about the Torah, holidays, ceremonies, philosophy, and history. Uh-huh.
Some of them are so serious about Judaism that they practice it as it was at Jesus’ time, “searching for the Hebraic roots of their faith.” So, five or six families will get together on Friday evenings for candles, Kiddush, Motzi, Shabbat, Benschen, and Torah study.
That’s where I fit in. A local Donna Gracia regularly had her nails done by one such Judeophile, who was always full of questions. “Why do the Jews do this? What does the Bible say about that?” How many answers do you think the dowager could give her?
She referred her to her rabbi. Our invitation included traditional Shabbat dinner, tastefully kosher – salmon, salad, rice, and a miserable broccoli casserole. Then we engaged in four hours of Torah study – stimulating, reverent . . . And, no, they were quick to say, they were not damning me behind my back. That was not part of “their” doctrine.
In the course of discussion, I mentioned that I was going in to zap a kidney stone. I’d been peeing blood for weeks, and I was constantly doubled over in pain.
“Do you mind if we pray for you?” one said. “No, of course not.” “Jesus won’t offend you?” “No, of course not.”
At once, they beehive-buzzed around me. Above the din I heard one pray, “May Marc be healed, but not by the hands of man!”
Well, think what you want. By the next morning, I stopped peeing blood, and by mid-afternoon, the pain had stopped. Like I said, think what you want. It made me no surer of Jesus, but of the power of sincere faith and spirit all imploded into the one needing it most.
The next day, I went to the hospital just to make sure. Already on my gurney, the doctor announced that the procedure was unnecessary, pulled the IV from my arm, and instructed me to go home.
As I got in the car, I pronounced to Linda, “It’s a miracle!” Ever the skeptic, she declared, “No, honey, I think it was just the broccoli casserole.”
February 10, 2009
THE KEY TO INFLUENCE: FEED THE REPORTERS FRESH SALMON
Ninety-five percent of the nation looked aghast on the contemptuousness of that shnook Blagojevich. We Chicagoans knew better. We snicker at you rubes who think that duplicity like his happens only on bad TV.
Sociology-types would trace Blagojevich’s blatant double-dealing to the fast-and-loose atmosphere set by Hizonner da Mare Richard J. Daley. They do beg comparison. No matter how much Blagojevich would have prospered financially, he would always have been a second-stringer.
Mayor Daley appeared unimpressed with money. He and his beloved Sis continued to live in the modest home Back of the (Stock) Yards, along with descendants of the other Irish immigrants. Aside from tailored suits to flatter his matzo-ball girth, he played himself as one of the people.
Sheer power was Mayor Daley’s rate of exchange, elevating the faithful everyman and humbling the disloyal bigshot. Mayor Daley was the one, after all who “found” the extra box of ballots that put JFK over the top, ensuring the presidency for a Democrat coreligionist.
Blagojevich collected his bounty in payoffs. Mayor Daley collected a court of loyalists who paid homage to his agenda, and thus themselves became rich – a judge here, an alderman there, graft, porkpie, and the cumulatively effect of minor acts of corruption.
Loyalty had its benefits for the commoner, as well. Before each election, Harry Speck appeared at our doorstep. As a kid, I thought he was some kind of important public official. Actually, he was one of Hizzoner’s precinct captains, attempting to buy voter loyalty by offering to fix any of my dad’s outstanding traffic tickets. As a law enforcement officer, my dad made quick dispatch of him.
This did not stop my dad from wrapping a $5 bill around his driver’s license, as all Chicagoans did, so when stopped by a cop, the cop smiled and told him to “be more careful the next time.”
When I got a little older, I too learned the ropes of Pax Daleyum. Once I was in a fender-bender and cited for negligence. I called my insurance man. He told me to bring $40 to traffic court and give it to his lawyer, Newberger. That’s all it would take. “What if we lose?” I sputtered like a dope.
“You won’t lose.”
Sure enough, at the appointed hour, I presented Newberger $40 in cash. When my case was called, he approached the docket. Apparently, the arresting cop had not shown up. The case was dismissed for failure to produce prosecution. $20 to Newberger, $20 to the cop. But, we didn’t lose.
Heaven forbid, though, if you were a resident of the 46th Ward, where all the anti-corruption, intellectual liberals lived. Hizzoner was the bane of their existence. He and the machine were well aware of this, hence the deepest potholes in the streets, the never-to-be-fixed broken curbs, the monthly accumulation of street-side garbage. Go ahead. Be idealistic. Just be prepared to break an axle. We, the faithful, had our potholes repaved at the first sign of spring.
The real story of Daley’s Chicago was not about retribution. Often it was the warning implicit in the humor of the mighty, like the good-natured fun he poked at the press. Once he suggested that the Department of Sanitation (!) stock the Chicago River with salmon, as it meandered between the Tribune Tower and the hideous Sun-Times building. At noontime, he said, let the City give the reporters fishing rods, provide them with open grills and plenty of cold beer. “You’d be surprised,” Hizzoner opined, “how much better your attitude would be before we held one of those 1:00 press conferences.”
This, friends, is not a Blagojevich move.
This is why, by Illinois standards, he would always be a second-stringer. He demanded money, not the power and influence that comes from people paying homage to a fearsome, yet imminently loveable, humpty-dumpty Irishman. Greedy Blagojevich would wind up in jail because he practiced slimy greed, not graciously dyeing the river green for St. Patrick’s Day.
Once-Governor Blagojevich will forever be remembered as a greasy punk. Not Hizzoner da Mare. He fixed the curbs, filled the potholes, collected the garbage, ran the CTA buses in blizzards, made a president, fed the reporters fresh salmon. Blagojevich thought it took $500,000 to become a heavy hitter. Mayor Daley had already figured out that all it took was a sawbuck wrapped around a driver’s license to buy you all the influence you needed and then some.
Ninety-five percent of the nation looked aghast on the contemptuousness of that shnook Blagojevich. We Chicagoans knew better. We snicker at you rubes who think that duplicity like his happens only on bad TV.
Sociology-types would trace Blagojevich’s blatant double-dealing to the fast-and-loose atmosphere set by Hizonner da Mare Richard J. Daley. They do beg comparison. No matter how much Blagojevich would have prospered financially, he would always have been a second-stringer.
Mayor Daley appeared unimpressed with money. He and his beloved Sis continued to live in the modest home Back of the (Stock) Yards, along with descendants of the other Irish immigrants. Aside from tailored suits to flatter his matzo-ball girth, he played himself as one of the people.
Sheer power was Mayor Daley’s rate of exchange, elevating the faithful everyman and humbling the disloyal bigshot. Mayor Daley was the one, after all who “found” the extra box of ballots that put JFK over the top, ensuring the presidency for a Democrat coreligionist.
Blagojevich collected his bounty in payoffs. Mayor Daley collected a court of loyalists who paid homage to his agenda, and thus themselves became rich – a judge here, an alderman there, graft, porkpie, and the cumulatively effect of minor acts of corruption.
Loyalty had its benefits for the commoner, as well. Before each election, Harry Speck appeared at our doorstep. As a kid, I thought he was some kind of important public official. Actually, he was one of Hizzoner’s precinct captains, attempting to buy voter loyalty by offering to fix any of my dad’s outstanding traffic tickets. As a law enforcement officer, my dad made quick dispatch of him.
This did not stop my dad from wrapping a $5 bill around his driver’s license, as all Chicagoans did, so when stopped by a cop, the cop smiled and told him to “be more careful the next time.”
When I got a little older, I too learned the ropes of Pax Daleyum. Once I was in a fender-bender and cited for negligence. I called my insurance man. He told me to bring $40 to traffic court and give it to his lawyer, Newberger. That’s all it would take. “What if we lose?” I sputtered like a dope.
“You won’t lose.”
Sure enough, at the appointed hour, I presented Newberger $40 in cash. When my case was called, he approached the docket. Apparently, the arresting cop had not shown up. The case was dismissed for failure to produce prosecution. $20 to Newberger, $20 to the cop. But, we didn’t lose.
Heaven forbid, though, if you were a resident of the 46th Ward, where all the anti-corruption, intellectual liberals lived. Hizzoner was the bane of their existence. He and the machine were well aware of this, hence the deepest potholes in the streets, the never-to-be-fixed broken curbs, the monthly accumulation of street-side garbage. Go ahead. Be idealistic. Just be prepared to break an axle. We, the faithful, had our potholes repaved at the first sign of spring.
The real story of Daley’s Chicago was not about retribution. Often it was the warning implicit in the humor of the mighty, like the good-natured fun he poked at the press. Once he suggested that the Department of Sanitation (!) stock the Chicago River with salmon, as it meandered between the Tribune Tower and the hideous Sun-Times building. At noontime, he said, let the City give the reporters fishing rods, provide them with open grills and plenty of cold beer. “You’d be surprised,” Hizzoner opined, “how much better your attitude would be before we held one of those 1:00 press conferences.”
This, friends, is not a Blagojevich move.
This is why, by Illinois standards, he would always be a second-stringer. He demanded money, not the power and influence that comes from people paying homage to a fearsome, yet imminently loveable, humpty-dumpty Irishman. Greedy Blagojevich would wind up in jail because he practiced slimy greed, not graciously dyeing the river green for St. Patrick’s Day.
Once-Governor Blagojevich will forever be remembered as a greasy punk. Not Hizzoner da Mare. He fixed the curbs, filled the potholes, collected the garbage, ran the CTA buses in blizzards, made a president, fed the reporters fresh salmon. Blagojevich thought it took $500,000 to become a heavy hitter. Mayor Daley had already figured out that all it took was a sawbuck wrapped around a driver’s license to buy you all the influence you needed and then some.
February 02, 2009
SHONDEH IS THE JEWISH CRITERION
What Bernard Madoff did, to the gentile world, was an enormous crime. To the Jew it was a “shondeh,” the harshest Yiddish word for “disgrace.” I honestly don’t know how many gentiles are saying among themselves, “There goes another money-grubbing Jew.” It doesn’t really matter. I am ashamed by Madoff not because his story might generate anti-Semitism. For a Jew to betray the heritage to which we claim to be born is a shondeh.
This I tell you: We take no glory in Bernard Madoff even when you are not around. I’ve heard no one say in the covert Greenfield’s bagel place, “Boy, he really knew how to screw those dumb goyim.” Aside from swiping millions from Jewish institutions, he grabbed money from smart Jews, and plenty of smart goyim, who trusted him. The word I hear most when you are not around is, you guessed it, shondeh.
When I moved south in 1975, I was a snotty/snooty urban damnyankee pacifist. My assumptions were built on burning crosses, fire hoses, Bull Connor, George Wallace, and slurs against Jews almost as vituperative as they were toward African Americans. (“If them G.D. Jews hadn’t gotten them ni**as so stirred up, we wouldn’t be having the problems we do today!”). I assumed that little towns were places where Jews chose to live only at their own peril, and not only because you couldn’t get a hot pastrami sandwich there.
Then I received my delicious dose of reality: I found that for every Christian who wanted to convert me, a thousand venerated me because I was a leader of the Chosen People, and another thousand were simply curious.
Listen up now, Mr. Madoff, Mr. Shondeh: The decency and respect of the Jewish storekeeper in rural Upstate is legendary: Sarlins of Liberty, Fedders of Easley, Vigodskys of Westminster, Poliakoffs of Walhalla, Karelitzs of Fountain Inn, Burgens of Seneca . . . all of them venerated as saints – extending credit at no interest, building the community, stimulating education, leading in patriotism and civic organizations, charity without question from the cash register, often the only ones who were helpful to minorities.
Ask our anchorman Michael Cogdill. He will tell you that he was set on his direction of prominence by the Jewish storekeeper in his little town in North Carolina, who brought him into his home as if he were his own child.
No, they could not all have been saints 24-7. But, this I will tell you: They were not shondeh Jews, either. When I meet someone from Liberty and ask him if he knew the Sarlins, he always regales me of some act of kindness that they bestowed. I chalk another one up for not being a shondeh, but for being an exemplary member of the Chosen People. And Jerry Fedder? Not a “shyster Jew-lawyer,” but an honest man who never played fast and loose with the truth. And I chalk another one up for being one of the Chosen People, not a double-talking shondeh.
Ralph, Jerry, et al, did not do it to impress. Of this, I am sure. They had good mommas and poppas, who in turn had good mommas and poppas. They were quite sure of their chosen-ness without a scintilla of false pride.
Yes, there is a downside to being a member of a Chosen People. When you tarnish your chosen-ness, you are not just a crook or a thief. You are a shondeh. I am consistently surrounded by people who rightfully wear their chosen-ness with distinction. Jerry and Ralph, may he rest in peace, and the others, have set a backdrop of stiff comparison. When I do something wrong, I know full-well that it is a shondeh, not merely an oops or oversight. Where was Bernard Madoff’s armor to ward off shondeh? Where were the “Jerry and Ralph” in his life? Where did he lose it?
This is the sobering truth whether you and I accept it or not: When a Jew steals, it is not the same as when a gentile steals. He’s not a bad boy with his hand stuck in the cookie jar. He is a shondeh, a shondeh.
What Bernard Madoff did, to the gentile world, was an enormous crime. To the Jew it was a “shondeh,” the harshest Yiddish word for “disgrace.” I honestly don’t know how many gentiles are saying among themselves, “There goes another money-grubbing Jew.” It doesn’t really matter. I am ashamed by Madoff not because his story might generate anti-Semitism. For a Jew to betray the heritage to which we claim to be born is a shondeh.
This I tell you: We take no glory in Bernard Madoff even when you are not around. I’ve heard no one say in the covert Greenfield’s bagel place, “Boy, he really knew how to screw those dumb goyim.” Aside from swiping millions from Jewish institutions, he grabbed money from smart Jews, and plenty of smart goyim, who trusted him. The word I hear most when you are not around is, you guessed it, shondeh.
When I moved south in 1975, I was a snotty/snooty urban damnyankee pacifist. My assumptions were built on burning crosses, fire hoses, Bull Connor, George Wallace, and slurs against Jews almost as vituperative as they were toward African Americans. (“If them G.D. Jews hadn’t gotten them ni**as so stirred up, we wouldn’t be having the problems we do today!”). I assumed that little towns were places where Jews chose to live only at their own peril, and not only because you couldn’t get a hot pastrami sandwich there.
Then I received my delicious dose of reality: I found that for every Christian who wanted to convert me, a thousand venerated me because I was a leader of the Chosen People, and another thousand were simply curious.
Listen up now, Mr. Madoff, Mr. Shondeh: The decency and respect of the Jewish storekeeper in rural Upstate is legendary: Sarlins of Liberty, Fedders of Easley, Vigodskys of Westminster, Poliakoffs of Walhalla, Karelitzs of Fountain Inn, Burgens of Seneca . . . all of them venerated as saints – extending credit at no interest, building the community, stimulating education, leading in patriotism and civic organizations, charity without question from the cash register, often the only ones who were helpful to minorities.
Ask our anchorman Michael Cogdill. He will tell you that he was set on his direction of prominence by the Jewish storekeeper in his little town in North Carolina, who brought him into his home as if he were his own child.
No, they could not all have been saints 24-7. But, this I will tell you: They were not shondeh Jews, either. When I meet someone from Liberty and ask him if he knew the Sarlins, he always regales me of some act of kindness that they bestowed. I chalk another one up for not being a shondeh, but for being an exemplary member of the Chosen People. And Jerry Fedder? Not a “shyster Jew-lawyer,” but an honest man who never played fast and loose with the truth. And I chalk another one up for being one of the Chosen People, not a double-talking shondeh.
Ralph, Jerry, et al, did not do it to impress. Of this, I am sure. They had good mommas and poppas, who in turn had good mommas and poppas. They were quite sure of their chosen-ness without a scintilla of false pride.
Yes, there is a downside to being a member of a Chosen People. When you tarnish your chosen-ness, you are not just a crook or a thief. You are a shondeh. I am consistently surrounded by people who rightfully wear their chosen-ness with distinction. Jerry and Ralph, may he rest in peace, and the others, have set a backdrop of stiff comparison. When I do something wrong, I know full-well that it is a shondeh, not merely an oops or oversight. Where was Bernard Madoff’s armor to ward off shondeh? Where were the “Jerry and Ralph” in his life? Where did he lose it?
This is the sobering truth whether you and I accept it or not: When a Jew steals, it is not the same as when a gentile steals. He’s not a bad boy with his hand stuck in the cookie jar. He is a shondeh, a shondeh.
January 29, 2009
CHOLOV STARBUCKS
I’ve gone to Starbucks from Montreal to Port au Prince, but I never drink coffee there. Coffee gives me a tummy ache. But they do have a wonderful lemonade slush in which I could bathe when it is -30º outside. Their apple fritter is also nonpareil. The only reason that astronomers are interested in life on other planets is to see if it’s feasible to set up a Starbucks there, one per block, one per supermarket, one within each Starbucks.
In all my years of being a Starbucks devotee, the only item they’ve lacked is one accommodation for the (very) religious Jew. By a treaty signed in Liadi, Lubavitchers will drink a cup of black coffee in a Starbucks. Black, because they will whiten their coffee exclusively with Cholov Yisroel, milk/cream prepared from exclusively Jewish sources, under rabbinical supervision.
This has not fazed Starbucks from having planted themselves in orthodox communities. Ben, my Lubavitcher son, lives right across from one. One recent Sunday morning we repaired to the Starbucks to avoid a crying baby and shrill mother-in-law as we worked on his resume. I ordered my customary lemonade slushy, and Ben a Venti black coffee.
“Ben drinks black coffee?” I contemplated. This is a guy who doesn’t drink Coke without two extra tablespoons of sugar. Meanwhile, we found a table. He opened his laptop. He reached into his backpack. He removed a Zip-Loc bag that contained a white liquid. He whitened his coffee with it.
“I guess that’s Cholov Yisroel that you brought from home,” I wondered aloud. “What a novel way to park your cow at Starbucks!”
For a moment I thought, “What a mishugas.” The next moment I thought, “Well, maybe this is a way to protect the integrity of Judaism.” Finally, I came to a compromise. Neither mishugas nor mitzvah, but a fascinating social commentary: a perfect, if slightly goofy, amalgam of the very symbol of the contemporary American lifestyle, Starbucks, with a custom so esoteric and medieval that 99 percent of American Jews have never heard of it.
Not too shabby. This is America, Columbus’s Medinah, the Land of Opportunity, yes, even the opportunity to have your milk and Starbucks, too.
Leiben zol Columbus!
I’ve gone to Starbucks from Montreal to Port au Prince, but I never drink coffee there. Coffee gives me a tummy ache. But they do have a wonderful lemonade slush in which I could bathe when it is -30º outside. Their apple fritter is also nonpareil. The only reason that astronomers are interested in life on other planets is to see if it’s feasible to set up a Starbucks there, one per block, one per supermarket, one within each Starbucks.
In all my years of being a Starbucks devotee, the only item they’ve lacked is one accommodation for the (very) religious Jew. By a treaty signed in Liadi, Lubavitchers will drink a cup of black coffee in a Starbucks. Black, because they will whiten their coffee exclusively with Cholov Yisroel, milk/cream prepared from exclusively Jewish sources, under rabbinical supervision.
This has not fazed Starbucks from having planted themselves in orthodox communities. Ben, my Lubavitcher son, lives right across from one. One recent Sunday morning we repaired to the Starbucks to avoid a crying baby and shrill mother-in-law as we worked on his resume. I ordered my customary lemonade slushy, and Ben a Venti black coffee.
“Ben drinks black coffee?” I contemplated. This is a guy who doesn’t drink Coke without two extra tablespoons of sugar. Meanwhile, we found a table. He opened his laptop. He reached into his backpack. He removed a Zip-Loc bag that contained a white liquid. He whitened his coffee with it.
“I guess that’s Cholov Yisroel that you brought from home,” I wondered aloud. “What a novel way to park your cow at Starbucks!”
For a moment I thought, “What a mishugas.” The next moment I thought, “Well, maybe this is a way to protect the integrity of Judaism.” Finally, I came to a compromise. Neither mishugas nor mitzvah, but a fascinating social commentary: a perfect, if slightly goofy, amalgam of the very symbol of the contemporary American lifestyle, Starbucks, with a custom so esoteric and medieval that 99 percent of American Jews have never heard of it.
Not too shabby. This is America, Columbus’s Medinah, the Land of Opportunity, yes, even the opportunity to have your milk and Starbucks, too.
Leiben zol Columbus!
January 26, 2009
KASHRUT IN THE GRASS
I’ve always assumed that Jewish people did not choose hunting as a sport. Inflicting pain for recreation is forbidden. And besides, when you punch a hole in an animal and it dies, no question that it’s treife.
All of my assumption went sour when I paid a visit to the Ginsburg’s. Racks upon racks of spiffy-polished shotguns on display in the den, set upon set of antlers tastefully mounted on the living-room walls, booty from family hunting expeditions.
“So, I guess you do a lot of hunting,” I observed like a dumbbell.
“We go out early Saturday mornings so I can teach the boy the finer points of dropping a deer, you know, setting up the platform, making the right kinds of calls, where to spray the urine to attract the young’uns.” No, I didn’t know. “Rabbi Schwartz (the local Lubavitcher) told us that it was OK to hunt on Shabbos so long as we ‘field-kashered’ whatever we shot.”
I admit that I had never, even in Yeshiva, heard the phrase “field-kashered.” “Tell me how you field-kasher a deer?” I didn’t have to feign ignorance.
“Rabbi Schwartz said that so long as we slit the deer with a specially sharpened knife to let the blood drain, it was kosher.”
“I don’t think so,” I mumbled. I didn’t take the issue any further, so as not to impugn the credibility of my Lubavitcher friend.
Naturally, I promptly called Rabbi Schwartz to inform him that he had been cited as the authority that permitted hunting on Shabbos, so long as the prey had been field-kashered. “You’re kidding,” he said. “He may be an incredible sportsman, but an even better pathological liar.”
“How could we take care of this?” we looked at each other. We agreed that first we had to get him back into schule. “Ah,” Schwartz had an epiphany. “Get a spray-bottle, fill it with you-know-what, and give a couple of schpritzes around the doorway; it’s irresistible.”
“But once he gets inside, what do we do to make an impression on him?”
“Don’t worry,” the Lubavitcher averred. “He won’t get too far. Once he gets inside, we’ll just have to field-kasher him. After all, it is Shabbos.”
I’ve always assumed that Jewish people did not choose hunting as a sport. Inflicting pain for recreation is forbidden. And besides, when you punch a hole in an animal and it dies, no question that it’s treife.
All of my assumption went sour when I paid a visit to the Ginsburg’s. Racks upon racks of spiffy-polished shotguns on display in the den, set upon set of antlers tastefully mounted on the living-room walls, booty from family hunting expeditions.
“So, I guess you do a lot of hunting,” I observed like a dumbbell.
“We go out early Saturday mornings so I can teach the boy the finer points of dropping a deer, you know, setting up the platform, making the right kinds of calls, where to spray the urine to attract the young’uns.” No, I didn’t know. “Rabbi Schwartz (the local Lubavitcher) told us that it was OK to hunt on Shabbos so long as we ‘field-kashered’ whatever we shot.”
I admit that I had never, even in Yeshiva, heard the phrase “field-kashered.” “Tell me how you field-kasher a deer?” I didn’t have to feign ignorance.
“Rabbi Schwartz said that so long as we slit the deer with a specially sharpened knife to let the blood drain, it was kosher.”
“I don’t think so,” I mumbled. I didn’t take the issue any further, so as not to impugn the credibility of my Lubavitcher friend.
Naturally, I promptly called Rabbi Schwartz to inform him that he had been cited as the authority that permitted hunting on Shabbos, so long as the prey had been field-kashered. “You’re kidding,” he said. “He may be an incredible sportsman, but an even better pathological liar.”
“How could we take care of this?” we looked at each other. We agreed that first we had to get him back into schule. “Ah,” Schwartz had an epiphany. “Get a spray-bottle, fill it with you-know-what, and give a couple of schpritzes around the doorway; it’s irresistible.”
“But once he gets inside, what do we do to make an impression on him?”
“Don’t worry,” the Lubavitcher averred. “He won’t get too far. Once he gets inside, we’ll just have to field-kasher him. After all, it is Shabbos.”
January 05, 2009
A LITTLE COLOR ON THE PLATE
Once upon a time, my secretary and I would lunch at a mediocre Chinese buffet. When we’d come to the end of the line, she’d examine my plate and glower. This was my cue to return to the buffet and retrieve a spear of broccoli.
This was more a culinary issue than a health concern. You eat with your eyes before your palate. A plate has to have a little green on it. Rice, chicken, potato kugel, brisket, naked on a plate, bode of dreariness. A touch of color around the edge? Vivid. A hint of springtime. A stroll in the park. An intimation of youth. Just ask Dr. Phil or my secretary.
Even the best colorful intentions go awry when they turn obsessive. Example: At dinner on the weekend of an interview, I was presented a plate of the balaboste’s specialty, gefilte fish napped in aspic of raspberry Jell-O flecked with horseradish. “Doesn’t the color add a pretty touch?” she gloated.
Then there was my ditzy former sister-in-law. She thought that her chicken soup looked a little listless. So, she added in half a bottle of yellow food coloring. You’ve probably figured out that a perfectly tasty broth turned into a radiant pot of “pea” soup.
My winner of the color wars is not among Yehudim, but yokels. Traveling the rural South, I stopped at a country store for a Coke. If you’ve ever been in one, you’ll always see a five-gallon jar of pickles on the counter. Strange, I thought. I’ve never seen pickles that were dirty mauve.
“What kind of pickles are those?” I pointed.
“Why don’t you try one?” answered the balabos. “It’s on me.”
I reluctantly agreed to taste a nub.
I gagged. “Now will you tell me what they are?”
“Around here we eat our pickles purple,” he proudly announced. “After they’re just right, we soak ‘em in Kool-Aid for about two weeks.”
“They taste even better when you eat them with one of those pickled eggs,” pointing to the pink-stained ovals on the other counter.
I offered him a blessing and paid for my Twinkie, hopping into my Volvo, and praising God that the worst I’d had to eat until then was my Aunt Leah’s pitcha.
Once upon a time, my secretary and I would lunch at a mediocre Chinese buffet. When we’d come to the end of the line, she’d examine my plate and glower. This was my cue to return to the buffet and retrieve a spear of broccoli.
This was more a culinary issue than a health concern. You eat with your eyes before your palate. A plate has to have a little green on it. Rice, chicken, potato kugel, brisket, naked on a plate, bode of dreariness. A touch of color around the edge? Vivid. A hint of springtime. A stroll in the park. An intimation of youth. Just ask Dr. Phil or my secretary.
Even the best colorful intentions go awry when they turn obsessive. Example: At dinner on the weekend of an interview, I was presented a plate of the balaboste’s specialty, gefilte fish napped in aspic of raspberry Jell-O flecked with horseradish. “Doesn’t the color add a pretty touch?” she gloated.
Then there was my ditzy former sister-in-law. She thought that her chicken soup looked a little listless. So, she added in half a bottle of yellow food coloring. You’ve probably figured out that a perfectly tasty broth turned into a radiant pot of “pea” soup.
My winner of the color wars is not among Yehudim, but yokels. Traveling the rural South, I stopped at a country store for a Coke. If you’ve ever been in one, you’ll always see a five-gallon jar of pickles on the counter. Strange, I thought. I’ve never seen pickles that were dirty mauve.
“What kind of pickles are those?” I pointed.
“Why don’t you try one?” answered the balabos. “It’s on me.”
I reluctantly agreed to taste a nub.
I gagged. “Now will you tell me what they are?”
“Around here we eat our pickles purple,” he proudly announced. “After they’re just right, we soak ‘em in Kool-Aid for about two weeks.”
“They taste even better when you eat them with one of those pickled eggs,” pointing to the pink-stained ovals on the other counter.
I offered him a blessing and paid for my Twinkie, hopping into my Volvo, and praising God that the worst I’d had to eat until then was my Aunt Leah’s pitcha.
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