DISCUSS: AN EGG CREAM CONTAINS NEITHER EGGS NOR CREAM

The birth of our granddaughter in New York was all the excuse we needed to head Downtown and conduct “scientific research” on the quality of the pastrami, etc., at the newly reopened Second Avenue Deli, the Olympus of kosher dining. We had another good excuse: to introduce the gay couple that lives next door to the wonders of deli cuisine. “The Boys,” as we call them, happened to be in New York for a weekend of theater.

They’d never eaten heimische Jewish cooking, save the occasional dinners I’d prepared for them. It was no wonder. The Boys had grown up in tiny Seneca, South Carolina, where it was dangerous enough to be gay, not to mention falling in love with Jewish cuisine, or even finding it.
They, we commanded, had to join us for lunch at Second Avenue. On being seated, I discovered an auspicious lagniappe waiting at the table – a bowl of gribenes. Before I could explain the wonders of rendered chicken skin, The Boys had attacked the bowl and pronounced the cracklings “even better than pork rinds,” a kind of gribenes derived from pig skin. A klog!

Not I, but my pencil-thin Lady Linda ordered lunch – everything “for the table,” sharing it all until the last diner dropped. They had never tried chopped liver, so we demanded that they try chopped liver. “Mix in some gribenes!” I admonished them. “Ahhhhhhh, even better.” Then the fricassee. They recognized what they called “gizzards,” but I wouldn’t let them continue until they learned that proper people called them “pupiks.” Kishke, yes. Did the intestines bother them? Not a chance! Corned beef. Pastrami. Salami. Knobbelwurst. Potato and lokshen kugel.

At our insistence, they washed it all down with an “egg cream,” a beverage of seltzer and chocolate syrup. “Where were the eggs and cream?” they wondered. “Goyische kep! Those would be too hard to digest!”

We paid. We feared that otherwise we would be indicted for murder. All The Boys could say was, “How can we become Jewish like you?”

I asked if they’d been circumcised. They looked at me sheepishly. “Boys,” I said, “if you’re not, keep your knives at your plate. Just enjoy your gefilte fish, and you’ll be as Jewish as most Jews I know.”

SOMETIMES MORE THAN A LITTLE IS ALREADY TOO MUCH

You remember the old joke: “Where’s the best place to hide an elephant? Right out in the open.” I’ve visited New York at least 50 times since my teens, but just two weeks ago, I found the elephant right in Upper Manhattan, and it’s been there only 100 years.

Recently, Linda and I sought a breakfast place that served good smoked fish. There are plenty delis and diners in New York that serve smoked fish, but my son Googled and found only one at which smoked fish ruled by mandate. Barney Greengrass.

I felt like an idiot not knowing about the place, because Christopher Columbus dined on lox and bagels there immediately upon discovering America. Coke boasts that “It’s the real thing,” but it will not vie for Barney’s authenticity. Indeed, authenticity is the first thing that catches your eye: Roll-up windows with gilt lettering worn by decades of up-and-down. Bulk dairy products behind the counter, right from the cow, which only experienced countermen are allowed to touch.

The place is thoroughly Jewish, yet there is not one silly picture of Tevya or Yiddish admonition, "ess, ess mein kind," on the wall. Greengrass is still real after a century, not going for cheap nostalgia.

The variety of home-cured and smoked fish is exhaustive. Salmon is baked or broiled. It is smoked into lox, nova, gravlax. It is pickled with and without sour cream, fried and scrambled with eggs. Herring is pickled, schmaltz, matjes, creamed, fried. Trout. Sable. Whitefish. Kippers. Sprats. Sardines. Char. And this too: They know how to fry an egg. The bagels and bialys are superior.

Enough!

All right, they also serve Beluga caviar. But do you mean that Barney’s patrons would eat it on a bagel washed down with a glass of heise tai? At best, cruel satire.

Unlike other delis where portions are phantasmagoric, Barney’s are not huge, but appropriate. As Mama taught me, "You shouldn't see tooth-marks in the lox when you bite into a sandwich. Anything more is uberik (over the top).” Barney has taught four generations that smoked fish's virtue is in its moderation. It is a jewel from Tiffany, not the schlock you find on eBay.

THE SACRED TRADITION OF A L’CHAYIM AND CHEESEBURGER

I live within eyesight of Bob Jones University, an institution so conservative and fundamentalist Christian that it makes Presbyterians and Episcopalians look like Satmar Chasidim. Naturally, they want the rest of the world, including us, to be Christians like they are. So, my basic attitude toward them is that if they leave me alone, I will do the same for them. This I will tell you: Their integrity and ethical standards are unimpeachable, and all in all, they are the best sort of neighbors. That’s what recently led me to them.

You see, I recently catered a Kiddush-bacchanalia at my old schule. Bluntly, the regular workers in the kitchen detest me. I have my way of doing things, and they have theirs. I had a lot to do and little time to do it, so I could not afford to put up with their mishugas.

What to do? Ah, Bob Jones has a culinary arts program. In keeping with the school’s spirit, the students are neat, respectful, obedient, and their veneration of the Bible allows for no shortcuts in kashrut. I called over to the school, and what do I find? The Dean is Mark Moritz, an apostate member of our tribe from Queens.

Chef Moritz immediately dispatched four of his top students, who, by the way, worked for even less than we offered. They were wonderful, just as I had expected. They even asked to rush to the dorm to shower between cooking and serving, so they could look their best.

Well into the cooking it dawned on me that not only are Bob Jones kids not allowed to partake in alcohol; they are not even allowed to work in a place where alcohol is served. In complete honesty, I told the boys that we served thimble-sized cups of wine as part of the sacrament of Kiddush, not unlike Holy Communion (which, by the way, Bob Jones does not observe).

They were sure that it was all right, but they wanted to ask the Dean a shayleh, nonetheless. They quickly brought back the good news. It was a sacrament, so there would be no problem.

But then it dawned on me that we had a bigger problem: What about the l’chayim of schnapps that the old-timers poured each other in a corner of the social hall after the Motzi? Again, I told the boys the truth, albeit this time slightly shaded in my favor.

“Is it a sacrament?” they asked.

“Well, you might say that.” I invoked the principle of Minhag Yisrael din hu, a custom among Israel has the strength of the law. “You see,” I said, “the old-timers, especially the ones who came over from Eastern Europe, saluted each other with a little whiskey after Sabbath services to warm themselves for the long, frigid trek home. So, for the old-timers, it was a beloved sacrament, part of a consecrated heritage.

Again, the boys returned to campus to ask the shayleh. The Dean remembered from his days in Queens that the l’chayim was a venerated ritual. He quickly gave his approval.

On the morning of the Kiddush, though, the boys naturally saw a number of younger people, including yours truly, toasting a l’chayim over the ritual schnapps. They looked at me quizzically. I grinned sheepishly at them and said, “You’ve got to understand. These young men are merely carrying forth the custom ordained by their saintly elders, so that our sacred traditions will never be forgotten.”

The servers understood perfectly. When you think of it, I was probably telling the truth in spite of myself.

Now, if it were only that easy to get the Rabbonim to understand that a cheeseburger at McDonald’s is also a sacred tradition . . .

SOME DAY I'LL BE A STAR

Have I told you that you that I might become a television star? No, really, it’s true. A group of producers heard about this rabbi who loves to cook and tell stories about food. It’s me. Don’t ask me how.

The producers are a bunch of goyim who think it’s hysterical that a rabbi in the most goyische part of the country is noteworthy for cooking kosher food. They believe that the public will find the premise so entertaining that they will watch me cook and chatter on their TV screens every week.
They have already engaged a publicist and found editors and investors. They have even hired an old blues musician to play a funky “Hava Nagila” for the show’s introduction. I’d say that this was a dream come true, but all I think is that they’re crazy.

They want me to cook traditional Jewish fare: chopped liver, gefilte fish, brisket, potato kugel, but with typical “Southern style” – peppery, greasy, overcooked – just like bubbe used to make.

But, they also want me to adapt classical Southern-style cooking to the kosher kitchen. Oy, what to do? They cook their vegetables with pork fat. I’ll do mine with pastrami. They sauté potatoes in lard. I’ll use schmaltz. They fry dough and call it “hush puppies.” I’ll make them latkes.

My producers have already entered me in a Southern-style cooking contest in Vienna (pronounced “VAH-ennah”), Georgia, a place where they used to shoot Jews for recreation.

One of the entries is to be grilled pork. I told them that I would use veal. Ah, wunderbar! The other is to be “Brunswick Stew, a thick soup made of beans, corn, potatoes, and . . . squirrel. I thought and thought. Then, I had an epiphany. I made up a pot of my Brunswick Stew for the producers. They loved it! The ideal consistency and flavor, and the meat fell off the bone.

I thanked my God for having such a Yiddishe kop. For, while they were lusting over my Brunswick Stew, you and I know that I was serving them a perfect pot of my cholent.

Now, who wants my autograph?

THE TOXIC BUFFET

Anthony Bourdain is a former junkie and shikker who went on to establish some of the finest restaurants in New York. He has become my mentor and idol.

Tony also writes bluntly about the realities of the restaurant kitchen. Among his observations: Don’t order fish on Monday. It’s probably left over from Thursday. And for God’s sake, don’t eat the Sunday brunch. It’s mostly last week’s remnants prepared by indifferent cooks. Where else would you find “sirloin salad”?

What are the anti-Semitic implications? Well, we, too, have our end-of-the-week brunch buffet. It’s called Shabbos Kiddush.

Do you know where that open jar of grey gefilte fish has been over the past month, the one soaking in the iridescent juice? What about its sister, the jar of fuzzy pickled herring? Don’t forget the accompanying horseradish, originally a deep red, now puce.

Beware, too, of the once-white albacore tuna, presently a salad ringed by a crust of yellow-brown mayonnaise. Likewise the plaster-of-Paris egg salad. Or is it Ecru Play-Doh? What about the Jewish innovation, the pizza-bagel? Wasn’t the tomato sauce just a little tinny? Why is that orange juice so hinky? What are those turquoise flecks in the bagels? Likewise the cream cheese. And, when did Entenmann’s stop making that kind of cake? And that generic de-fizzed soda?

The schnapps is rarely Glenlivet; it’s three-buck chuck. In order to save space, the remnants of scotch and bourbon are often combined in one bottle, on the premise that “They’re both the same color,” as old Mr. Alembik used to muse.

Yet, after years of persecution, we Jews are a hearty sort. Just keep in mind that the last Yehudim to die are always the ones who l’chayim down half a bottle of that rot-gut schnapps each Shabbos, smoke three packs of cigarettes a day, eat all that chazerai at Kiddush, and take the leftovers home.

On second thought, Tony Bourdain, keep your cursing to yourself and go back to frying your gaufrettes. You are and always will be one goyische kop!

CHICKEN PERFUME

I can’t believe that it’s been 35 years since I began my rabbinical career just outside of Chicago. Mine was a tiny schule, actually a remodeled greasy-spoon. We served Shabbos Kiddush from the short-order counter.

We were new and few in numbers, so we did everything for ourselves: No custodian. No kitchen manager. No one to shop for us, clean the bathrooms, set up the chairs. But, we were young, and we had a lot of fun.

I was their rav, and I held on to my strict orthodoxy. My congregants were another story. No one observed kashrut, but within the walls of the synagogue, it was the strict rule. God bless them for that. No matter how obedient, though, they could never understand why Corn Flakes were kosher but Corn Flake Crumbs required a separate hechsher. If someone would explain it to me, we’d all understand.

Then there was the time that they were preparing a Shabbos dinner for the congregation. A delegation from the sisterhood was dispatched to the kosher butcher in Chicago, where they purchased a huge bag of frozen poultry and left it in the schule refrigerator to defrost.

Thursday night, I received a frantic call. “We need you to check the chicken, and it’s an emergency!”

“All right,” I told them. But, I thought, what could be wrong with a bag of kosher chicken?

Two of them appeared on my doorstep carrying the dripping bag.

“Why don’t you come in?” I offered.

“No, it’d probably be better if you came outside.”

They gingerly opened the bag. It reeked. Rancid. Putrid. Disgusting. I reeled from the stench.

“What’s your question?” I asked. “That chicken is rotten.”

“Well, that’s what we thought. But then we started wondering if that’s the way kosher chicken is supposed to smell.”

35 years have passed. The questions have gotten easier, and I have yet to be asked to poskin on a broken chicken wing. I should have become a shoemaker, but I couldn’t drive the nails straight. Instead, I heard the calling to become a rabbi, and have paid by spending decades trying to convince balabotim that kosher chicken doesn’t smell funny. Or does it?

MY HUMBLE ORIGIN: NOM DE DOODLE, CIRCA 1968

Just like my doppelganger Bart Simpson, I write it on the chalkboard a hundred times each day: “Why should the origin of “Rabbi Ribeye” matter to anyone?” Regardless . . .

“Rabbi Ribeye” did not originate for its alliteration. Nor was it intended to be my nom de plume. It is the product of 40-year-old doodling during another narcolepsy-inducing Talmud class during my yeshiva years. The late Rabbi Aaron Soloveichik would lecture for three hours on an arcane point of Jewish law. He was an absolute genius, certainly the magnitude of an Einstein. But, like most luminaries, his mind worked immeasurably faster than his gift of speech. The geniuses in the class absorbed his enlightenment, while the rest of us doodled. Had it not been for borrowing the notes of one of the geniuses, I would probably be a cable guy rather than an unemployed rabbi who fritters away his time cooking and trying to write the great American cookbook.

As I look back over yellowing notes, I remind myself that some of my doodling is actually a collection of dated anti-war shibboleths (“Dump the Hump!” – a reference to pro-war candidate Hubert Humphrey) and vain stabs at profundity. I see that I had boldly inscribed atop one page, “God Is the Ultimate Prankster!” an aphorism that I later cultivated into a theology that I called “The God of Booga-Booga.”

Call it prescience, but even in my formative years, my doodling had led me to gastronomical subjects: puns of culinary personification, people who in my imagination took on the names of favorite foods: Terry Aqui. V.L. Piccata. Cheri Coque. Biff Steaque. Coco Vann. Chuck N. Soope. Chuck and Ella King. Sam N. Salade. Every class became a new pun, a new challenge, a new doodle, a new diversion.

Across from me sat Jay Hirshman. Jay was a diligent student with a terrific work ethic, which struck me as particularly admirable since he was one of only a few classmates who came from real wealth. When my folks moved to the Coast, I spent many weekend as Jay’s guest.

His home was ruled by a wonderful live-in housekeeper of the old school. She always had a whiskey sour waiting for Jay’s dad just as he walked through the door. This was the quintessence of luxury. Friday dinner always revolved around rare, succulent . . . ribeye, another quintessential luxury relative to the meatloaf or “roasted out” (that’s what my mother called it) chicken that graced the Wilsons’ Sabbath table.

One day, as I watched Jay hunched over his Talmudic tome, my wandering memory flashed up “ribeye.” A nanosecond later, my mind refocused on those few special occasions that my mother served steak, invariably the texture of dried out liver. Thinking of the long anticipated encounter between Stanley and Livingstone, I doodled in my notebook, “Rabbi Ribeye, meat Doctor Liver!”

Now you know the origin of my 40-year-old culinary nom de plume. Its meanderings since then have been bittersweet. In 1972, the same Jay who introduced me to ribeye went off to Israel and joined the army. A training injury forced him to watch helplessly as his platoon was wiped out in the Yom Kippur War. He was never the same. A few years later, he was murdered in a holdup.

Truth be told, Jay was always singularly unimpressed by my silliness. Be that as it may, I believe that every time “Rabbi Ribeye” brings a smile to someone’s face, it is recompense for all the smiles that Jay could yet have smiled, had he only been given the inclination. As for me, despite the good humor with which the name is spoken, the edges of sweetness will forever be furrowed by a twinge of melancholy over 40-year-old reminiscences of what might have been.

DUMB SOLUTIONS TO DUMB PROBLEMS

Just got back from a Caribbean cruise. Not too shabby. The food was outstanding, and our every wish was the wait-staff’s command.

At one dinner, the fig cake was wonderful. Without asking, Alvin produced another piece. The next day, the dessert offerings were mediocre. I asked Alvin if they had any more fig cake roaming around.

“So sorry, Mr. Wilson. We throw out our leftovers every evening.”

A ton of filet mignon, a hundred gallons of milk, pitched overboard each day. Impoverished Third World people just outside the porthole. Do you see the absurdity? Poor people starve as we debate the feasibility and contingencies of ending starvation.

I might be dumb, but moving food a couple hundred yards from where it is to where it ought to be, should be a no-brainer. Maybe that’s the point.

A modest proposal: Look at every need, every looming crisis and injustice, through dumb eyes, with the social naiveté of your run-of-the-mill second grader, and think up a dumb solution. Once I had a bunch of dumb second graders in my Hebrew School. We’d raid the dumpster behind Bruegger’s each week, pick out that day’s bagel overrun, and unceremoniously drop it off at the Union Mission. Just plain dumb.

We also occasionally come across dumb adults. The restaurateurs who give their leftovers to Second Harvest and the folks who deliver Meals on Wheels are a bunch of dumbbells, too.

Think dumb along with me: There has to be some way to get that food from the Carnival Glory to impoverished islanders, if we were just dumb enough to figure it out. There should be some better way to get bagels to the homeless than second graders stealing them out of dumpsters.

Ask a dumb second grader how to stop the starvation in Myanmar. He could tell you in a second: Put the Marines in the vanguard and invade it. Set up soup kitchens and reconstruction projects until the people can get on their own feet. Damn the pigwhistle generals and their peashooter army. Just do it.

Illegal immigration? I may not know the solution, but it will start with a dumb supposition. Of this I am sure. In second grade, we learned that this is the Land of Opportunity. Then the teacher made us memorize the inscription on the Statue of Liberty, you know, “your tired, your poor, your huddled masses,” and all that.

At the nub, the desire to for people to immigrate to our soil attests that we are doing something right. I dare believe that even the vast majority of illegal immigrants do not think us to be a bunch of suckers, but a nation founded on compassion and fairness.
This is the beginning of the dumb solution: Read the Statue’s inscription and sing a stanza of America the Beautiful, just like we did in second grade. Then feel honored, damn it, that the tired and the poor wish to make a home among us, not revile in them like a hoard of invading locusts. Our disposition would be to open doors, enabling a transition, not criminalizing it.

What of the specious arguments about the “legitimacy” of immigrants in earlier generations? Only a half-truth. My grandparents were the lucky ones. They arrived just before the doors of immigration slammed shut in the early 20’s. But, I know my grandparents’ moxie. Had it been a couple of years later, if they could have figured out a way to enter the country illegally, they would have. Instead, ship after ship was turned back at port, and thousands of potential immigrants who could have been saved were forced to return, remanded a decade later to the Third Reich, instead of Land of the Free.

How will we resolve the present crisis? I’m not exactly sure, but this I believe: We will find a way, and the answer is likely to be dumb. But, as my saintly mother would say, “Only with a good spirit.” A good spirit, not a misanthropic one, will find a way.

Will dumbing-down alone cure all society’s ills? No, but the starting point must be to presuppose that we will look at the world with the naïve credulity of a second grader. We need assume that the solutions to our problems are basically no-brainers. We need sophistication only to lop off the rough edges, not undo the solutions with a bunch of phony smoke-and-mirrors. A dopey kid could tell you what to do with the Glory’s leftovers. Just ask him.

THEIR OWN SPECIAL SAUCE

Linda and I finally took our long awaited cruise to the Caribbean. Wunderbar. The cuisine? Breakfast and lunch were hardly fine dining. So what. The vaunted “around-the-clock-buffet” was mostly soft-serve ice cream and corrugated-frisbee pizza. But, the suppers were marvelous, whether you were metro-kosher or all-out treife. I did not venture into the frozen strictly kosher offerings.

The typical cruise fastidiously avoids exposing the voyagers to the native Caribbean fare. No, it’s strictly scrambled eggs for breakfast, American-style lasagna for lunch, bloody-rare filet for supper. Even the somnambulating tours point you to lunch at generic restaurants, from which the guides receive significant baksheesh. And don’t get me started about phony tequila factories. The free Anejo was too good to resist.

The guides also try to gross you out by regaling you in local custom of dining on iguana, turtle, and alligator. Nu, again, so what? After all, it “tastes like chicken” anyways. Janelle the Guide was also quick to offer that the female iguana’s soup was “very tasty.” Right, and hush puppies are really matzo balls in disguise.

The closest that I came to native food was somewhere up the Belize River. Being kashrut-virtuous that day, I noticed a putative national delicacy on the menu, a mélange of red beans and rice – and it was even vegetarian.

Really quite good. By its side was a pill cup of a yellow-gray gunk that the server presented as “special sauce.”

“And is the sauce vegetarian?” I asked.

“Oh no, mon. You better be careful of it.”

“Why?”

“It’s rendered chicken fat.”

I had traveled 1,253 miles just to be served schmaltz.

Moments earlier Danelle had told us that no Jews had lived on Belize. Wrong. I Googled and discovered that a Jewish family had lived there in the 19th century and that a Brooklyn guy had been a major landowner in the 1950’s, and was buried there. Ah, the origin of schmaltz on Belize.

After lunch, we traveled on to a Mayan village. Asking one of the women about their native food, she told me that in her town they broil iguana liver, chop it up with onions and turtle eggs, and bind it with their own “special sauce.”

Mystery solved.

“THAT MAN CALLED ME ZIPPY”

When my little Chanaleh was a toddler, she was sweet as sugar. Biologically, she was only one-quarter Yekke, but she looked like a real Deutsche Madchen – sunflower hair, creamery-butter complexion. I recently asked her if she remembered the meaning of the German “golden Suppe.” When she said that she didn’t, I thanked God that one more child had dodged ten years on Dr. Freud’s couch.

Then again, the episode of “golden Suppe” was 34 years ago, and the trauma came by way of my cartoonish friend, Stanley. He was the only American-born Yekke I knew who actually acted like a stereotypical German faux-aristocrat. At age 21, he wore a tie and vest to do his laundry. When he was introduced to you, he would click his heels like a Prussian Hauptmann. He would show his disapproval to an etiquette gaffe by muttering a deferential “We don’t.”

The only flaw in Stanley’s Teutonic propriety was that he was an inveterate moocher. Suppertime Sundays he would appear at our door, looking particularly doleful, always knowing that Shabbos leftovers awaited. Little Chanaleh would sit tableside in her highchair, as the matzo ball soup would appear.

One evening, the soup was particularly delicious. Stanley, ever the gracious guest, exclaimed, “You know what they call that wonderful soup in German? Golden Suppe!” At that, Chanaleh started to scream inconsolably. Scream and scream. “What’s wrong, Chanaleh?”

At first, she was reluctant. Then, “That man with the beard called me Zippy!” – a reference to Zippy the Chimp, a television star du jour.

“No, no, no. Stanley said “Suppe. It means “soup.” No, never, Chanaleh would never believe it. “That man called me Zippy! That man called me a monkey!”

Meanwhile, Stanley scowled and refused to apologize. After all, you know, children and all that . . .

Never again did Stanley cross our threshold. At every attempt, no matter how well rehearsed Chanaleh was, screams of “That man called me Zippy!”

One consolation: From that Sunday onward, we ate our dinner undisturbed. As for Stanley, he would take his dinner at a kosher dive called Reb’s, where they deep-fried knockwurst in rancid oil and never once served golden Suppe.

FOIE GRAS FAUX PAS

When you stop to think of it, most of the food we eat is pretty funky. Beef – muscle fiber, connective tissue, blood (let’s not kid ourselves; even kashering gets rid of only some of it) – even from lamb and veal. Babies, mind you. Organs – who knows what kind of poison has made its way through those? Chickens roll around in barnyard shmootz. Fish swim around their own waste.

But, the most disgusting is foie gras, the fancy name for goose liver. A kosher species, you say? Just broil it up, grind with onions, eggs, and a little schmaltz, and good Shabbos, right? Only if you are a culinary ignoramus who thinks that Thousand Island dressing is haute cuisine.

Foie gras producers force-feed sweet little goslings, offspring of our beloved Mother Goose, by inserting a feeding tube and swelling their liver to the size of footballs. Our lovable goslings, who would otherwise have a life expectancy of 60 years are then slaughtered. Even the pictures give you the creeps, maybe more than watching a cow being shechted, another case for vegetarianism.

Kosher foie gras? Why not treife? A clear-cut case of tza’ar ba’alei chayyim, inflicting pain on an innocent animal, n’est pas? Not so easy. One of those black-hat high-rollers from Bnai Brak, who owns controlling interest in a foie gras operation, posed the question to rabbinical authorities from – you guessed it – Bnai Brak. One of them, age 90, pronounced foie gras permissible, opining that the rule of tza’ar ba’alei chayyim is suspended when “the suffering has some tangible benefit to man.” This, of course, is tantamount to the Medellin drug cartel claiming that it is selling cocaine “only for medicinal purposes.”

Ironically, the snooty Upper West/East Side kosher-chic consumer doesn’t get much Israeli foie gras. The primary supplier of kosher foie gras to the US is France. Who would have guessed it? The same country that thinks horsemeat is a delicacy and an Erector Set project gone wrong is a wonder of the world, has us believing that livers au hepatitis are haute cuisine.

My fellow Jews, arise! Don’t be hoodwinked! Just schmeer some honest-to-goodness gehakte leber on your challah. Paris will soon start looking like Calcutta.

TASTES GREAT, LESS FILLING

My little town of Greenville has two newspapers, which is remarkable for a city that has only seven policemen (or so it sometimes feels). One paper caters to everyone who isn’t illiterate. The other is directed to the well-heeled Upper Middle Class.

When the latter started, I applied to become its food editor. They rejected my application, telling me that they were afraid that my recipes would be “too Jewish,” despite my protests that I made an award-winning lobster bisque. Instead, they hired a shiksa (politically incorrect?) whose hair was so blonde that all she missed was a dirndl.

To reassure me that they weren’t being anti-Semitic, they promised that she would include a “Jewish style” recipe during every holiday season. And, so she did: Hamantaschen for Purim. Latkes for Chanukah. Honey cake for Rosh Hashanah.

Came Pesach, a recipe for Pesachdik brisket. Now, how many ways do you know to make a Pesachdik brisket? With potatoes, carrots and prunes, onions, tomato sauce, red wine? Of all the briskets that our shayneh shiksaleh could have chosen, she honored Yom Tov with her special recipe for “brisket in beer.”

Were we in Greenville or Chelm? I penned a respectful letter to the editor trying to set the record straight about beer being “leavened.” Oh, they printed it. But what did the headline read? “Chief Rabbi Denounces Recipe as Violation of Ancient Hebrew Law.”

The response was swift and ruthless. I received mail from three community members accusing me of “stirring up anti-Semitism.” Another wrote to remind me that kashrut was, indeed, “ancient Hebrew law.” One opined, “Well, that may be your opinion, Rabbi.” The columnist herself sent me an email accusing me of being “jealous,” saying that her Jewish friends declared the recipe “simply delicious.”

From that time on, I kept my big mouth shut. That was, until she ran a recipe for pork-stuffed wonton. She was quick to remind readers “Our Jewish friends call wonton kreplach.” Local Yehudim were quick to show me the column and praise the recognition of her “Jewish friends.”

“You know, Rabbi,” one of them said, “I never thought of it until the last time I had wonton soup at Chong Wah Express. It was even better than my bubbe’s!”

WATER, COKE, OR A PESACHDIK MARTINI?

If you’re a fresser like I am, you know very well that we affluent Jews eat more like Pharaoh on Pesach than did our enslaved ancestors.

“Why is this week different from all other weeks of the year?”

. . . on every other week of the year, if we crave sweets, we eat a chocolate bar. But, on this week, we eat only kosher li-Pesach marshmallow-and-macadamia truffles bathed in real Swiss organic 83% cacao chocolate?

. . . on every other week of the year, if we want a piece of fruit, we take an apple or orange. But, on this week, we eat only imported kosher li-Pesach Barbary figs glazed in turbinado sugar.

. . . on every other week of the year, if we want to schmeer cream cheese on a cracker, we break off a piece of matzo. But, on this week, we schmeer only kosher li-Pesach bagels.

In fact, last year as I was doing my Pesach shopping, I spied a box of kosher li-Pesach bagel mix. When I thought no one was listening, I mumbled, “I can’t believe it. Now we’re ready for Moshiach to come.” A young Lubavitcher overheard me and exclaimed, “Why? Have you heard something about the Rebbe?”

My congregation in Atlanta had one Pesachdik quirk. Although it was no longer strictly orthodox, its rabbi still supervised the production of kosher li-Pesach Coca-Cola. Why? Because some 80 years ago, the schule’s orthodox rabbi was the first to ascertain that Coke was suitable for Pesach.

So, I would travel at 4:00 AM to watch bottles go round-and-round, filling up with soda and syrup on which some Chasidische rov in New York had already put his hechsher.

Then came that first fateful Pesach. The Jews of Atlanta drank Pesachdik Coca-Cola to their hearts’ content. All but the orthodox Jews, that is. When they discovered that my schule had no mechitza, they refused to drinks the beverage that was bottled under my watchful, but obviously heretical, eye.

Nebbish. You think that the tzaddikim had to suffice with drinking water? Not for long. Now Carmel makes kosher li-Pesach vodka, so they can enjoy a martini with their Seder dinner. Mah nishtanah?

OBAMA AND HIS PREACHER: REJECTING THE MESSAGE BUT NOT THE MESSENGER

In 35 years in ministry, I I have exhorted my parishioners from the pulpit some 1,855 times, excluding weddings and funerals. I’ve rallied them to observe the Sabbath and Holy Days and kosher laws, to be more compassionate and socially conscious, and to love their neighbors and their God.

I have also exhorted them about some pretty nasty, meanspirited things, too, particularly in my youth: Hate the Palestinians. Hate the Arabs. Hate Reagan. Hate the military-industrial establishment. Hate the Religious Right. Hate Falwell. Hate Jesse Jackson. Hate. Hate. Hate.

I don’t preach hate any more, having attained the years that bring the philosophical mind. But, oh, there were the days. More importantly, though, my parishioners didn’t really listen to too much of what I said, nor internalize it, nor certainly act upon it.

Looking back, that was a good thing. Ironic, then, that despite not listening to me, they by-and-large loved me. They routinely renewed my contracts, invited me to dinner, and told me that my sermons were great.

Did that make me an ineffective preacher? Probably not. It is more about the dynamics between pulpit and pew. Good preachers are expected to make incisive, even acerbic, pronouncements. They will more often be criticized for being limp-wristed than for being brusque. A preacher will more likely get fired for not visiting the sick and bereaved than he will for speaking controversially from the pulpit.

Parishioners in the pew, on the other hand, are expected to listen politely, nod appreciatively, occasionally criticize respectfully, and tell the preacher that he “really told them today!” but still take his imprecations with a grain of salt. “That’s what he’s supposed to do,” they say.

To understand the relationship between pew and pulpit is to make sense out of the relationship between Barak Obama and his rancorous pastor. Sitting in his congregation and mindlessly soaking up his preacher’s venom simply “because he said so,” is about as likely as getting my congregants sufficiently whipped up to drop a half-eaten cheeseburger.

My mean-spirited pronouncements were wrong then, and Barak’s preacher is wrong now. Somehow, though, most of our congregants stuck with us and either miraculously, or out of sheer indifference, neither of us was fired.

Perhaps Barak should have taken a posture of conscience and resigned his membership. Maybe my parishioners should have done the same. But, standing by ones preacher bespeaks a complex web of relationships that transcends his preachments, even if they are sometimes wild-eyed. Staying loyal to ones errant preacher might be about his having talked your kid out of suicide, or bailing you out when you were destitute, or saying just the right words when you were grieving, or being by your side when everyone else had rejected you, or adding to your celebration at a joyous moment in your life.

These are great reasons to remain faithful to ones preacher that might even exceed vituperative preaching. Looking back, these are why so many of my parishioners held me in respect even during my most nasty sermons. And, I would like to believe that these are the reasons that Barak stands by his preacher, but not his preachings.


Once upon a time, I took my kids to hear Louis Farrakhan speak, primarily so that they could be inoculated to hatred and anti-Semitism up close and personal. In some perverse way, we were not disappointed.

The next morning, the kids and I had breakfast at the Adams Mark, and who should be sitting alone in the next booth but Minister Farrakhan. I approached him, yarmulke on my head, and introduced myself as a local rabbi. I said that I had attended his speech the night before.

Ignoring my comment, he beckoned my kids closer, and said, “You are fine children. Remember to study well and say your prayers so that you grow to be good people,” and shook each ones hand.

I harbor no delusions. Louis Farrakhan will always be a skunk. But, for that moment, I could appreciate even from one so despicable, that being a preacher adds up to more than the pronouncements from ones pulpit.

As one truly comes to understand the complex dynamics of ministry, the idea of rejecting the message while standing by the messenger sounds less like doubletalk and more like the prudence that good judgment demands. I thank my parishioners for frequently cutting me that slack. One hopes that the same is true of Barak and his scurrilous preacher.

LUNG-AND-LIVER AS CRIME-STOPPER

A woman recently wrote me to take exception to my observation that pitcha (jellied calf’s foot) was the most disgusting of all Jewish foods. “Actually,” she wrote, “The worst is a stew made of cow’s lung and liver.”

“Lunge-und-leber?” I’d entirely forgotten. Thoughts of a steaming tureen of lunge-und-leber ironically brought back a rush of memories about one of the least detestable characters in my life, my Uncle Joe. Joe was a “lovable scoundrel.” Pa paid for a year’s tuition at the University of Chicago. But Yossel never attended a single class, out shooting craps in some Southside alleyway.

Joe was no surrogate father to me, but he coaxed me through the more robust edges of childhood. He took me to the White Sox games and bought me sports regalia and comic books. He died childless at 48 of too much rare steak and too many Lucky Strikes.

He also had his brushes with the law. Nothing violent, mind you. A little shaving of his taxes, changing a number on a check, playing loose with the books. The only victim was the IRS, so you might have even called it “naughty,” but not evil.

But Joe never spent a moment in jail. Whenever he would go astray, Pa knew just the right politician to schmeer, to keep Yossel beyond reach of the law. After all, this was Chicago.

Of course, since Yossel was basically a good Jewish boy, he would pledge to Bubbe, “Ma, if you make me a bowl of lunge-und-leber, I’ll never go wrong again.”

So Bubbe would make lunge-und-leber. The aroma was so toxic that even Amaryllis the cat would hide. Joe would bathe in the nasty stuff and sop up the gravy with chunks of challah.

His pledge, naturally, lasted three months. Then the cycle resumed: Bad check. Bail out. Promises. Lunge-und-leber. And . . .

Pa would admonish me, “Just remember that if you ever rob a bank, Bubbe will have lunge-und-leber for you.” I swore to live a life free of crime. You may be certain that with a deterrent like that, even Chicago’s meanest streets would soon become cheery and bright.

A ROCKEFELLER AT MY SEDER

Sometimes it feels like I’ve spent every day of my career apologizing for one insufficiency or another. “I’m sorry that I didn’t compliment you enough at the Sisterhood meeting.” “I’m sorry for saying that Hamas was our enemy. After all, Children of God have no enemies.” “I’m sorry for not being able to make all Yom Tovim on weekends.”

My flock rarely apologizes to me. “After all, we’re paying him.” Funny, though, that they routinely apologize for breaches of observance, especially when I have “caught them” in an infraction, forgetting that they weren’t a bunch of Satmar Chasidim.

A mother recently squirmed and apologized, telling me that my services were no longer required to officiate at her daughter’s wedding. “The kids” had decided that it would be too late to start the ceremony after Shabbos, as if I didn’t know that in June we don’t recite Havdalah until 10:00. Apology accepted.

How many times have I strolled through the supermarket and chanced upon this or that parishioner reaching for a package of ham? “It’s for an elderly neighbor,” they stammer. Apology accepted.

Then there was the time that I visited a congregant in the hospital. Immediately upon seeing me, he threw a napkin over his breakfast bacon. Seeing the fat seeping through, he sheepishly declared, “Sorry, Rabbi. Bacon. Doctor’s orders.” Apology accepted.

Looking back over my three-decade-plus career, I can think of only one transgression that really curled my tzitzis. When we moved into my first congregation, one couple was especially helpful in getting us settled in our new environs. With our thanks, we presented them with a beautiful Seder plate. They gushed with gratitude.

Months went by, and they joined us for Shabbos dinner. Again, the wife gushed, “The plate you gave us is so beautiful. And useful, too. We used it just last week.”

“In November?”

“Of course. Those little cups make it just perfect for serving Oysters Rockefeller.”

I gagged on my brisket. “Oysters Rockefeller??? Oysters Rockefeller???" I kept my mouth shut, but couldn’t help thinking, “The chutzpah! I don’t even like Oysters Rockefeller!”

DADDY, WHY AREN’T FISH-EGGS KOSHER?

You cannot escape the reality that caviar is fish eggs. Why some people find that disgusting is beyond understanding. After all, we eat chicken eggs in a hundred different ways. Yet, a chicken looks far nastier and googlier than a sleek, shiny sturgeon, salmon, or whitefish any day.

If you find fish eggs disgusting, you are mistaken, my good friend. Caviar is a supreme delight – beadlike as freshwater pearls, yielding to the caress of tongue with a beckoning “pop,” melting into a briny essence, not unlike nibbling on your lover’s, uh, belly button.

The most sensual caviars derive from the Caspian, surrounded by our enemies, Russia, Iran, and the various “stan’s.” Besides, to strictest standards of Halacha, they come from treife fish. This raises ponderous questions of divine justice in which God must perforce assume the role of bad guy.

The gentiles have discovered the only way to savor caviar: a dab atop a lightly buttered, crust-less triangle of toasted bread, and perhaps a sprinkle of finely chopped egg yolk. Purists will not quaff vodka, as alcohol numbs the taste buds. It must be served from mother-of-pearl spoons, lest a metallic taste be transferred even from the finest sterling.

Yehudim are at a disadvantage with caviar. Beluga, as I say, is treife. We are thus relegated to ball-bearing sized salmon eggs, or gravelly whitefish or mullet roe. You may purchase them online for about $100 a kilo. Did anyone ever use a kilo of mullet eggs before it spoiled?

The only time I have seen Yehudim eat caviar is as a murky layer atop a bowl of egg salad. I have no idea from whence this ignoble recipe came, but I have been proudly served it at more than one Chanukah party. Invariably, only one spoonful has been removed, after which everyone discovers that the egg salad has turned yellow-grey and that mayonnaise and mullet do not go together.

The incompatibility of Yiddishkeit and caviar remains an enigma. Why? Why? Perhaps when we line up to ask Moshiach to resolve our vexations, one of us should ask that penetrating question . . . but only after someone else demands that he ask God about declaring lobster and shrimp kosher.

“WE ANSWER TO A HIGHER AUTHORITY”

Did you know that in the US, “wiener” is slang for a man’s private parts? The wiener’s vulgarity does not stop with its name. A sage once opined that you never want to watch two things being made: politics and wieners. The wiener is made from meat of the lowest consumable level: no steaks or chateaubriand. The stuff of wieners may be ground up, but don’t look for hamburger in them.

What then? It comes from the nastiest of the cow or whatever, spongy, quivery organs, snouts, ears, entrails, you can imagine the rest. When a wiener manufacturer boasts “no artificial additives,” you wish there were; they are likely less disgusting than the natural ingredients.

A few years ago, the US media exposed the noxious contents and insanitariness of the American wiener. Hebrew National kosher sausage, however, capitalized on the scandal and actually drove many manufacturers out of business.

A deep voice on TV would read off a lengthy list of ingredients that could be unhealthy or unsanitary in treife wieners. Then, the well-dressed star would officiously hold his Hebrew National wiener-in-a-bun heavenward, as the narrator intoned, “You won’t find any of that in Hebrew National. We’re kosher. We answer to a Higher Authority.”

Oy, the poor goyim. They have no idea of what kind of “all beef” goes into Hebrew National wieners. It’s the same sludge that goes into all the others, except that it hales from kosher cows. But, ask most goyim, and they will tell you, “Kosher means pure and sanitary.” Right? Not the last time that I studied Leviticus 14 or visited my local slaughterhouse.

I guess none of that matters, because overnight Hebrew National’s market share increased tenfold, primarily by attracting the gentile palate to the kosher wiener.

Only one other “kosher style” wiener competes with Hebrew National, a venerated icon, Nathan’s. It is so popular in New York that they hold a wiener-eating contest each year that is internationally televised. Huge bulvans gobble up wiener after wiener, but the surprise winner is always a scrawny kid from Japan who weighs no more than 64 kilos.

As for me, you may bring on the sushi, and I’ll take on anyone.

OBAMA'S CANDIDACY USHERS IN A TIME FOR
AFRICAN AND JEWISH AMERICANS TO REAFFIRM COMMON GROUND

The emergence of Barack Obama as a serious presidential candidate raises again, if only by inference, the oft tenuous relations between African and Jewish Americans. While the issue may not be of widespread gravitas, it again precipitates the uncomfortable question of whether Jews and African Americans share common values or mutual distrust.

The cynic would say that the case for distrust can be easily made. Yet, the alliance between African and Jewish Americans is long, deep, and shaped by shared values and visions.

Rather than leave shared values and visions as a matter of blind, axiomatic faith, why not pause for a moment and examine the ground that African and Jewish Americans do share?

We both know the bitterness of oppression.

Negative forces are not the glue that cements lasting relationships. But one cannot deny that there must be some natural affinity between two peoples whose histories so closely parallel each other’s: enslavement, exile, ghettoization, subversion of family ties, severance from cultural identity, educational and economic disenfranchisement. African Americans and Jews share a close-up, bitter knowledge of inhumanity. Shouting matches of “who’s had it worse” demean the ravages that both our peoples have sustained. Let us acknowledge that there has been more than enough to go around.

Persecution has taught us to be more humane.

A persecuted people may learn one of two lessons from its persecution: callous cynicism or heightened compassion. All told, African Americans and Jews have chosen the latter. The ancient Hebrews were repeatedly that the ultimate lesson of bondage was kindness to the stranger in their midst. Abraham Joshua Heschel, Elie Weisel and their coreligionists cried out for social justice because a redoubled commitment to human decency is the only divinely-ordained response to the inhumanity that any one people has suffered.

Dr. King embraced would speak of the African American struggle for liberation only in the context of justice for all the oppressed. The message was overwhelmingly universalistic. Persecution has left us with the same indelible message: Pain must be replaced with compassion.

We overcome oppression through an amalgam of faith and initiative.

The loudest voices crying for social justice among African Americans and have almost invariably been ones of spiritual calling. We, more than any other people, share in the commitment that faith and determination be totally interrelated.

Neither Jews nor African Americans have ever waited helplessly until God redeemed us. Yet, neither of us has maintained that freedom could be attained solely by human devices. Divine providence is an equally crucial element of the equation. We share an abiding belief that God and humankind must work in partnership if the world is to be set on a righteous course.

Real equality comes through empowerment.

Jewish and African Americans have learned that real self-determination comes not from benevolent gifts of outsiders but from entering the mainstream through processes that make African Americans and Jews total participants in shaping social destiny and in the production and distribution of the American pie.

Jewish Americans in the first half of the 20th century and African Americans in the second have concluded that their energies must be directed to attaining the education, political influence, and economic vitality that bring true empowerment, not continued subservience.

Family and heritage are central to our destiny.

No peoples place more emphasis the family as the taproot from which our personal and communal health must emanate. Enemies always knew that the surest way to demoralize us was to subvert our families. We both know that our families are ultimate in determining whether we will flourish or deteriorate.

We have also both rejected the notion that we must renounce our own “families” to conform to the societal mainstream. To the contrary, we now know that our families are the most ennobling force at our reach.

Let’s harbor no illusions: Important issues still pull Jewish and African Americans in opposite directions. Nonetheless, if we review the values, experiences, and aspirations, that African Americans and Jews do share, we realize that substantive principles go directly to the soul of our two peoples. They form an undergirding of purpose far more enduring than grievances and flash points that tug us to opposing corners.

We could reestablish a potent force for social justice, were African and Jewish Americans to focus on the deep-seated values that we hold dear. We would recognize that our reunion is the natural conclusion to which our ideals lead.

Win or lose, if Barack’s candidacy leads us to reconciliation, then the reunion of African and Jewish Americans, as his candidacy itself, will be the sweet denouement of a hard-fought struggle that has been too long in coming.

FRIED CHICKEN MACHISMO

Ask anyone about fried chicken, and he or she will invariably answer, “The Colonel.” Long before The Colonel, deep-fried chicken was an American favorite. In fact, I have it on good authority that many plebeians of the South have never tasted any chicken other than fried – or at least none of the roasted like bubbe used to make.

But, The Colonel – a chubby old man in a white suit and schpitz-bord – turned his Kentucky Fried Chicken into an international enterprise. I guarantee that there were five KFC’s in Beijing well before the Chinese discovered Ping-Pong.

Of course, The Colonel’s fried chicken is globally treife, except for a couple of spots in Israel. Nonetheless, I have sometimes “experimented” and found it a decadent balm for the yetzer hora. The “original” recipe, in contrast to the “crunchy,” is always my choice. The breading is thick, gooey, salty. The skin oozes grease. The flesh is juicily underdone.

Now, The Colonel has fomented a revolution. Steering away from his unpretentious fried chicken, he has gotten into the business of “The Famous Bowl.” Nauseating. Noxious. Like a biblical excavation gone awry, The Famous is layer upon layer of chicken, gravy, mashed potatoes, cheese, more chicken, rice, more gravy, cole slaw, and more cheese.

Eating the toxic Famous while sitting down is sufficient to put you in life-threatening jeopardy. Machismo multiplies the danger exponentially. A “real man” will not merely order The Famous. He will dig in and eat it while speeding along at 75 miles an hour.

Unimaginable, you say. Ha. Just last week, Linda showed me an article about someone who ate The Famous as he collided with an oncoming car. The impact made him suck up his Famous so violently that surgeons were picking out shards of breading from his lungs for 18 hours.

“Let that be a lesson to you!” Linda admonishes me with the authority of a third-grade teacher. I promise her devoutly that I will never, ever again eat The Famous, especially when I am driving.

“OK, no more Famous,” I chastise myself, as I pull away from the Sun Yat Sen drive-thru, balancing a carton of lo mein on my lap and maneuvering the steering wheel with my chopsticks. I’m what you call a “real man.”

GARDEN-FRESH VEGETABLE MEDLEY

Growing up, the word “medley” had two meanings. It either meant fragments of songs strung together by a common theme, like “an Engelbert Humperdinck medley.” Or, it meant a series of similar sporting events, “a backstroke, butterfly, breaststroke medley.”

When I entered into the culinary world, “medley” took on a more dubious meaning: a vegetable medley. This is the haystack of sautéed vegetable matchsticks that resides on the dinner plate next to the blob of mashed potatoes or pasta served at weddings, Bnai Mitzvah, and “finer” restaurants.

Inevitably, there it is on the menu, next to the main course: “served with a medley of garden-fresh vegetables.” The vegetables, alas, are not garden fresh, or even distinguishable, and oh yes, they are greasy as my 1957 Volvo.

Truth: The medley is comprised of the cheapest vegetables available that week, green and red peppers, broccoli, cauliflower, zucchini, yellow squash, onions, and canned mushrooms – fried together until they resemble a pile of hemp.

Is there no end to the madness? Do what I did: Google “vegetable medley” and discover that most of them are sold to hotels and restaurants frozen in plastic bags and cardboard boxes, produced “garden fresh” in Chile by Donald Trump.

If you step up a rung on the society ladder, let’s say a Rothschild Bar Mitzvah, you will still find vegetable medley. In an attempt to impress, it will be even sicklier – spooned out by white-gloved waiters, but still a pathetic mélange of higher-classed “baby” vegetables: baby carrots, squash, asparagus, tomatoes, all seemingly plucked out of the ground prematurely by over-eager farmers, just as I impatiently did from my garden when I was a kid.

The only restaurants in my vicinity where I can procure a fresh vegetable medley are called “meat-and-three’s.” They are habituated by the working class and low-life’s. You walk down the line, and you see real carrots, squash, beans, and potatoes in different pans. You simply point, and each is presented in its own little bowl.

The ultimate wisdom proffered on vegetables was by my Yekke father-in-law. “In Deutschland,” he said, “we didn’t eat vegetables. We considered them meichel behemah (animal fodder).”

No wonder Ronald Reagan considered ketchup a vegetable.

A SPOT OF AMYLASE IN THAT HUMMUS?

Hummus is an elementary food: ground chickpeas, olive oil, garlic, pepper. It becomes a yellowish blob to be scooped up with pita. You either love it or detest its very sight.

I love hummus. Its popularity is no longer reserved for Israelis and sympathizers; it has proliferated among gentiles, too. I have even eaten it at an Irish pub.

One may purchase hummus at nearly every supermarket. The problem: Commercially-prepared hummus is so pumped with preservatives that the aficionado gags at the toxic dump it has become.

Those who really care seek out hummus that is prepared fresh daily. In my village of Greenville, it is available only at a small grocery owned by Palestinians. The proprietors treat me kindly, calling out “Raaaaaabbi!” and speaking Hebrew with me.

Recently, all that changed. I entered, and they shouted among themselves in Arabic. I looked down and realized the provocation. I had thoughtlessly chosen a tee-shirt emblazoned in Hebrew with “Hebron, Now and Forever!” This is the equivalent of a Palestinian wearing “Li-Shanah Ha-Ba’ah B’rushayim!” to Simchas Torah.

Nonetheless, I ordered my pound of hummus. Without a word, the proprietor announced that he was getting “special” hummus for me. He went to the back, and I stood on my tiptoes to peek into the kitchen, where the “special” hummus was being prepared. There was a lot of chatter in Arabic and tremendous laughter as the proprietor spat in my hummus and neatly replaced the lid. He presented it to me with great flourish.

Are Jews shrewd, or what? I told him, “On second thought, I’d like a half-pound instead of a pound.” With that, I took a fresh carton from the shelf, replaced it with the pound container, mixed it with the other tubs three or four times, so that no one could tell the “special” hummus from the others. I timidly paid my bill as they cursed at me in Arabic.

Sadly, my quandary had been resolved. I now purchase my hummus from the supermarket. I meticulously read the contents for various preservatives, knowing that I am pumping myself with carcinogens. I am extremely wary, though, if one of the additives is amylase. I think I’ll leave the basic enzyme of saliva for some other unsuspecting customer.

A KASHRUT LESSON FOR KOSHER DOGS

For 58 years, I have not owned a pet. Suddenly, I have become father to an immense fur-ball, to afford me companionship that will break the day’s monotony. I have named her “Minnie,” in memory of my aunt, who hated dogs.

Minnie is well-behaved, loving, even fairly smart. Despite her girth, Minnie is a picky eater. She hates dog food. Not long ago, the poor dog had an upset stomach. The veterinarian recommended the regimen we’d prescribe for ourselves: rice and chicken breast, both boiled. Mazal tov, the bland diet worked. Moreover, Minnie loved it so much that she refuses to eat anything else. Augmented by vitamins, she is flourishing.

What’s the rub? It’s Jewish, naturally. Simply put, kosher chicken breasts are expensive, $8 a pound, and they are so scarce that a trip to Atlanta, 140 miles away, is the only insurance that you will find them at all.

Then came my epiphany: Why does a dog require kosher chicken? Ah, and treife chicken breasts cost only $5. I ran out to buy our first package.

But wait. It’s not quite so easy. After all, serving treife in a kosher home has its unforeseen demands. Now we need a new pot, with a special lid. With what will we cut the chicken? A new knife. What about a new fork and tongs? On what will we slice the chicken? Our kosher cutting board? No, go buy a new one. We don’t want treife to spill over onto our counter, do we? Purchasing a new counter cover –custom fit – is in order. What about our sink? A new scrub brush, sponge, gloves, dishpan, and drainer. Just to play it safe, we buy a separate bottle of soap.

By the time we turn around, we have invested $200 to feed Minnie her damned chicken. She must consume 70 pounds of treife for us simply to break even. (My math may be off a little.)

Meanwhile, I am eating moldy cheese on stale bread. God looks down from heaven, not thundering in disapproval, but simply laughing at this schlemiel. In the meantime, Minnie is demanding rice pilaf. I tell her, “Not before you go to the mikvah!”

LATKE NEUROSIS

My introduction to Chanukah latkes at the tender age of three was, sadly, a less-than-joyous occasion. The Chanukah party, always hosted by Tante Leah, was a bacchanalia of yontifdik foods, a platter of her potato latkes at the center.

O how I loved those latkes. They were sodden, thick, greasy – the fantasy of a three-year-old who already weighed 33 kg. How much better could yontif be?

That was, until we made the trek home. Five minutes into the ride, my grandmother would announce, “Feh.”

“Feh, what?” my mother would ask.

At that, my grandmother would launch into her harangue. “Leah’s latkes. Feh. Spongy. Greasy. Oniony. Not like Bobbe Rochel’s. Bobbe Rochel’s were lacy and brown. Just like mine.”

This was likely the origin of the conflicts that I have borne for the last 57 years. How could I dishonor Bobbe Rochel and even my own cranky grandmother by pretending to prefer “lacy, brown” latkes, when my heart pined for “spongy, greasy” ones?

The ensuing years of my youth did not treat me much better. The first time I experienced Chanukah latkes in Talmud Torah, I knew instinctively that something was not right. They were forebodingly grey and dismal. You see, they were not of potato at all, but made from buckwheat. Buckwheat? I do not know from whence in Yehupetz Mrs. Ginsburg came, but I do know that she deserved to be suffocated in a mountain of kasha.

Tentatively, I have learned to deal with my neurosis. How do you like your latkes? Sugar? Applesauce? Cinnamon? Sour cream? I bathe mine in ketchup. As much as I can tell, I am the only member of an international cabal who likes to watch latkes bleed, not shimmer. I have met only consternation from friends and family. Too bad for them.

This, though, is my ultimate solution. A block away from my house stands a dingy goyische eatery . . . but . . . they serve wonderful “potato pancakes.” There is always a bottle of ketchup on the table. I douse them, and nobody cares. Then, my muscles bulge. I strike a valiant pose. I radiate nobility. And I say to myself, “Ah, this is how Judah Maccabee must have felt on the 25th of Kislev!”

RELIGIOUS LEADERS WHO ENDORSE CANDIDATES ARE PRACTICING PHONY RELIGION

I first singed my fingers on the volatile mixture of religion and politics about 20 years ago. Sue Myrick – a lovable, but slightly loopy, friend – was running for mayor of Charlotte. She asked to speak before my congregation, and I agreed, provided that a Q&A session would follow. We built her visit around a Sabbath dinner, assuming that it would create a relaxed, convivial atmosphere. We were, if nothing else, an overwhelmingly friendly audience.

Sue delivered some fairly cogent remarks, but the Q&A marked a disastrous turn. After fielding two creampuffs, someone asked the inevitable: “How would your religious fundamentalism be reflected in the way you conduct the comings-and-goings of the city?”Inexplicably, Sue choked up. She was obviously not angry, but hurt by the question. She began to weep, her face crossed by an expression that said, “I thought you were my friends,” and with that, her husband led her from the synagogue. Ironically, we were her friends, and despite her decompensating, which became the morning news, she won the race, and is now in her seventh term as a North Carolina Congresswoman.

That painful exchange became emblematic of what happens when religion and politics try to woo each other into going to bed, albeit one of its more bizarre examples.

The ultra-fundamentalist Dr. Bob Jones endorses the heretical Mormon, Romney, not for his relationship to God, but because he is “electable.” The equally fundamentalist Pat Robertson takes the podium with the moderate, Catholic Giuliani, because he is “electable,” despite his fealty to the Antichrist, the Pope. And, fundamentalist constituentswait breathlessly until Dobson’s endorsement is revealed.

All this gets to be pretty messy stuff. It should be jarring, even hypocritical, for men of faith to jump into the pocket of a particular candidate, putting pragmatism ahead of their beliefs, to which they purportedly pledge their highest allegiance. Jesus certainly did not ally with the Romans because they consistently won the “elections.” Nor did Christian martyrs save their lives by surrendering their beliefs to appease the infidels.

Religious leaders, those who subscribe to the teachings of the Prophets, should not support candidates, nor even become too chummy with them. They should be their adversaries, vigilant over what a candidate espouses, whenever they agree and especially when they disagree. Religion’s purpose is to raise relentless gadflies whose mission is to afflict the comfortable, not make smarmy campaign appearances.

David had his Nathan. Jeroboam had his Amos. Isaiah took on all of Judea’s bourgeois. And tell me about Jesus and the Pharisees.

Religious leaders are phony so long as they espouse fealty to one man alone, rather than the autonomy to agree, challenge, or even condemn any candidate who strays from virtue. I’d rather hear a minister caustically denounce a candidate than play kissy with him.

Has Romney or Guiliani strayed from virtue? That’s a story for another time. But the idea of a religious leader “belonging” to a candidate or vice versa, smells of religion selling out and politicians becoming even more opportunistic than they have always been.

So, religious leaders, stay true to your principles. Let the first among them be autonomy, to never fear to speak the truth, even if it means not currying political favor or being invited to officiate at Presidential prayer breakfasts.

FORCE-FED PITCHA

Have you ever tasted pitcha? Have you liked it? Ick. Have I already offended our handful of pitcha-lovers? Sorry. But show me someone who likes pitcha, and I’ll show you a person who thinks that squid ink is a delicacy. Even Google has only two entries under “pitcha,” because finding it on the Internet is like trying to find a dirty word on your spell-check.

So, what is pitcha? If we must: Split open calves’ hooves and boil them until shards of meat and grizzle can be scraped from the bones. Boil the hooves and onions/garlic, forever. Pour into a pan, and refrigerate it until slightly gelled. Stir in onions/garlic/grizzle/meat and sliced hardboiled eggs. Let it set. Voila. A quivery, granular quagmire that even Emeril would refuse. If you were really lucky, the hooves still had a tidy fringe of hair surrounding them.

In our family, pitcha was not called pitcha. We called it “fus-noga,” the bastard child of the German and Russian words for “foot.” My cousins and I dubbed it “fitch-a-noogie” which is onomatopoeia for the rumbling of ones stomach upon ingestion.

Lest you think that pitcha was the cheap eats of gypsies, tramps, and thieves, it was served on the most festive occasions. Once, I attended a reception, and a wedge of what I assumed was potato kugel appeared on my plate. I attacked it only to find that it was pitcha. I heaved it onto my pants, leaving an indelible stain.

My Aunt Leah would frequently baby-sit for me. One day she served me a bowl of iridescent pitcha. I squirmed and wailed. She tied me with a towel to the back of the chair, and force-fed me the pitcha to its slimy end. I told this to my therapist just last week. He winced. “That,” he said, “begins to explain your recurring nightmares of being trampled by cows.”

If I have offended, please know that for all I care, you may do the backstroke in a pool of the stuff. As for me, I’d rather take my chances stoking the fires of hell . . . where they would probably tie me to a chair and feed me pitcha, just out of spite.

DON’T ASK, DON’T TELL

So much angst to being a Jew. Woe particularly unto those of us who have lived with it since tender youth. At the age of 16, I traveled from my parents’ home in idyllic San Francisco to attend Yeshiva University in foreboding New York City, 4,800 km away.

I had been warned about New York – thefts, muggings, gang attacks, dangerous neighborhoods, illegal weapons, pickpockets, even gratuitous murder. What a thrill for a yeshiva-bochur to live alone in New York!

I wasn’t really all alone. I had plenty of classmates and a campus surrounded by barbed wire and armed guards. We were quickly trained that if you cared for your life, you would not walk down Audubon Street.

But, the angst of life in New York was outweighed by it being paradise for fressers. We judged the quality of any town solely by its abundance of kosher restaurants and pizza parlors. They were everywhere.

A friend and I heard that the sine qua non of kosher restaurants was Gluckstern’s. In fact, we were told that it was so terrific that there were two Gluckstern’s, one Downtown and one Uptown. Just as our longing for matzo ball soup had peaked, though, we heard murmurings that “Gluckstern’s wasn’t really kosher.” Our hearts sank. What should a frummeh yeshiva-bochur do?

We decided to take the issue to one of the rabbinical authorities at the Yeshiva. “Gluckstern’s?” he intoned. “Which Gluckstern’s? Uptown or Downtown? You know that there are two of them.”

“We know, we know.”

“Well, some say that both of them are kosher, and some say that both of them are treife. Some eat only at the Uptown one. Others eat only at the Downtown one.”

“Who’s the mashgi’ach?” we ask.

“I can’t tell you that,” the rabbi said. “I don’t want to embarrass anybody.”

“So where do you eat?”

“It’s better that I don’t tell you,” he says dismissively. “I wouldn’t want to get you confused.”

Forty years have passed, and now Second Avenue, my favorite kosher deli, has re-opened under new management. I am salivating.

Kosher? How kosher? Who’s the mashgi’ach? Would you eat there?

Nu, what do you think? Do you think I’m going to ask?

"WHENCE COME REST AND JOY?"

Not too long ago, I had to have my pills taken away. Linda took them from me because of my increasing addiction to Lortab, after I had injured my shoulder. Now, my Oxycontin, prescribed for a broken elbow, will soon be taken from me. Dependent again.

At first, they were my medications. Then they became my friends. No hallucinations, no goofiness. But, one or two before bedtime to take the edge off, ease the aches and pains of a middle-aged man, make my sleep a little deeper and more restful.

Then, never thinking about the portent of addiction, I swore that “tonight would be the last,” only to gravitate again toward the bottle. “I’m sure that by tomorrow, I won’t need it again.” When Linda hid them, I simply played hide-and-seek. What about when they run out? “Not a problem,” I deluded myself. “I’ll just stop.” Only when the now-horrifying thought of asking my doc-kids to prescribe more crept into my head, did I my conscience clutch. But, it was not addiction, I reassured myself. No. Just conscience toward my kids and their profession. Then, more panic, more dread. Stopping became a necessity, not a virtue. The pills ran out.

Since I “wasn’t addicted,” I took no counsel. I would muster the strength and simply stop. I went to bed that night at my kids home. Within an hour, the sweats soaked four tee-shirts, chills, shaking, crying, contemplating the most horrific thoughts. I woke Scott. But, I “wasn’t addicted,” so he assumed that I was dehydrated. He drove me to the ER. No, I was not dehydrated, they said. A moment later, Scott winced. “You haven’t been taking narcotics?” he asked. “I dunno, maybe I have.”

“You are going through withdrawal.” Shivering, I could no longer escape the truth. Foolishly, I drove myself home to Greenville. All to the best, Linda was away at a conference. I thought the worst was over, so I laid down, slept fitfully for a couple of minutes, awoke, and went into contortions, tossing, screaming, directing garbled prayers and epithets toward God, Kabbalistic rabbis, anyone, vowing piety, pleading for forgiveness, cursing, then begging for life. Only when I cried out for Momma was my torment exorcized. Cradle me again. Wipe my eyes. Tell me you understand. Promise me that I am safe.

How, in search of calming ones pains, might one slip so easily into darkest torment? Momma, let me be at peace. Let it not hurt anymore. Return to me the innocent sleep and dreams of childhood. “Whence comes rest? Whence comes joy?” the refrain of an old Sabbath hymn. Addiction is not in the chemicals, but in the emptiness of the soul.

Months later, I find myself struggling with Oxycontin, despite my broken elbow being long healed. An addictive personality, you say? Perhaps. Perhaps in the short-run, it simply helps me feel more restful, softer, at ease. And the short-run is sometime all you can see when the long-run seems so evasive.

Why is simply counting my blessings, of which I have so many, less than enough? Ingrate! Whiner! Pathetic! Victim! Wallowing in unjustified self-pity! You don’t even know what real pain is! From what does the emptiness in ones soul come to hunger for the momentary, futile attempt to put the heart at rest? Will Torah, or the Rebbe, the Dalai Lama, et al, allay the torment of the soul that Oxycontin cannot?

Here I am, about to have another round of my pills taken from me. This time, I know something more about handling their post-partum effects. I’m “not addicted,” remember? But, I still do not know what un-wholeness within ones self makes the brown bottle so irresistible, and perhaps – even given therapy and Torah – I never will.

“Whence come rest and joy?”

Please, Momma, please . . .

THE KOSHER OENOPHILE'S COMING OF AGE

Talk to an orthodox – or even right-leaning conservative – coreligionist, and s/he will tell you that wine, too, must be kosher. And you think, even ask, “Where’s the cheeseburger? Where’s the pork?” Fact is that if you want to be “strictly strictly,” must pass through the hands only of orthodox Jews, from juicing the grapes to double-sealing the bottles (or heating the wine to 165-190°, I know, picky-picky). This all has to do with wine’s potential for idolatrous libation or promoting unnecessary conviviality between Jews and their gentile neighbors. We are all well aware of the conviviality sparked by a shared bottle of Manischewitz.

I know what those of an upscale kosher palate would say: “That’s all yesterday’s news.” You would be right, Every Upper West Side Metrodox and Jewish gastro-journalist celebrates that one can now procure kosher dry wine with a cork (!) in the bottle.

It is true. It is true. Chateau de Fesles Bonnezeaux, Chateau Fonbadet Pauillac, Chateau Giscours Margaux, Chateau Leoville Poyferre Saint Julien ($134.99), Chateau Patris Filius (Isn’t that two-thirds of the Holy Trinity?). All kosher. All to be swirled and swizzled at equally trendy-dox kosher establishments. Not only do they come bearing corks and un-sugar-encrusted bottlenecks, but tales of international awards, too. It is a prism through which we may view the coming of age of American Jewry.

Being part of that schizoid bridge-generation, I do, however, owe a love song to those goopy, syrupy wines that were so long synonymous with kosher. Those were the wines that had an indelible influence on our earliest infancy, when the mohel administered pre-circumcision anesthesia, gauze soaked not in Bonny Doon, but in Schapiro’s Extra-Heavy Malaga. Primal nursing instinct and Chateau Schapiro soothed our castration trauma then, and we have owed it a debt of gratitude ever since.

Fond memories of childhood include eating brisket and kishke at Siegel’s, under the Lake Street El tracks in Chicago, and Mr. Siegel furtively bringing over shot glasses of Mogen David to the men of the party, a lagniappe to his “preferred” customers. I also remember the evening when I joined my folks at Siegel’s, and Mr. Siegel included me among the “preferred.” Garrison Keillor could not have written a more nostalgic coming-of-age story.

“Are you sure it was Mogen David?” you ask me. Nah. Essentially, all old-time kosher wines were interchangeable: Manischewitz, Kedem, Lipschutz, Mogen David, Schapiro’s
Each had a little edge of its own identity, to be sure. Manischewitz was first with the fruity, soda-poppy varieties – peach, strawberry, mango – quite a buzz, and cheap, too. The old Mogen David label had that loopy little picture of the Seder table, prompting the winos of bygone days to ask for “Morgan Davis, you know, the one with the guys playing poker on the label.”

The warmest spot in my heart, though, is left for Schapiro’s. There was an honest, proud wine, no apologies, no secrets. You want sweet or extra-sweet? They boldly led with their “so thick you can almost cut it with a knife” tag-line. Norman Schapiro to this day boasts that Schapiro’s is “aged for over six months” as though it were a century-old Balsamico di Modena. The taproot Shapiro’s is the musty, musky subterranean labyrinth, the cellars of Schapiro’s, a full square block right underneath the schmootz of the Lower East Side. Yes, the operation has moved Upstate, but on a Sunday, you can still meet one of the Schapiro’s at the ancestral entrance on Essex Street, enjoy a free tasting tour, and walk and inhale, the catacombs for yourself. Amazing, is it not, that even as the Lower East Side gentrifies, the vestal grotto keeps bearing its luscious fruit?

Now, our Jewish palates are more finely attuned. Our noses are better sensitized to inhale the bouquet. We know, and own, the right crystal for each Bordeaux and Merlot. We debate how “chilled” chilled should be, with Talmudic acuity. We Jews have arrived, and remarkably, our yarmulkes are still clipped to our heads. We are deservedly proud, as we have lived to witness “synthesis” become reality.

Sorry, though. I also pine for the other days. We were not so smug, nor so self-satisfied, nor so damned sure of ourselves. But, one thing was for sure: When someone raised a thimbleful of Mogen David at Siegel’s and bellowed “L’chayim!” we all knew what to answer . . . and we meant it.

HAVE A COKE AND A HECHSHER

My former hometown of Atlanta holds two matters sacred: It was burned to the ground during the Civil War. And, it is the origin of Coca-Cola.

Coca-Cola has had such tremendous impact to Atlanta that citizens refer generically to all varieties of soda pop as “Coke,” and that a huge museum is devoted to its wonders.
Naturally, Coca-Cola has its Jewish connections. What doesn’t?

Dr. Pemberton invented Coke as an elixir. Some elders claim that it contained a bit of cocaine, hence the name “Coke.” But, it was introduced as a beverage at Jacobs’ Pharmacy in Atlanta. Jacobs, as you might have surmised, was a pillar of the Jewish community.

The other Jewish connection is even more arcane. Coke created a mystique by claiming that it was made with a “secret formula” that was locked in a vault, and even Jacobs was not made privy to its contents.

When Coke went national in the 1930’s, most “frumeh Yidden,” were wary of its kashrut because of the “secret formula.” Rumor had it that the ingredient was treife glycerin.

What to do?

At that time, only one strictly orthodox Rabbi served Atlanta, Tobias Geffen. Rabbi Geffen was naturally bombarded with queries from all over the country about Coke.

But, there was a rub: Should Rabbi Geffen be told the secret formula? How could this Yiddish-speaking, Litivisher rov penetrate the goyische inner circle of the Coke hierarchy?

So the legend goes: Rabbi Geffen’s son, Louis, was an attorney. He had a colleague, Hirsch, who barely acknowledged that he was Jewish. Hirsch happened to be the counsel for Coca-Cola. Louis asked if he would approach them.

After Hirsch sensed Rabbi Geffen’s piety, he did indeed get the President of Coca Cola to personally open the vault, while Rabbi Geffen alone peeked at the formula. Ah, no glycerin, no treife. Shortly afterward, Rabbi Geffen published a responsum endorsing Coke as a kosher beverage. Oy, a simcha bei Yidden!

Meanwhile, American Jews luxuriate in Coca-Cola, smiling and belching with great gusto. How aptly does it describe us: a nation that is full of gas, water, sugar, and an enigmatic ingredient that no one will ever really understand.

JEWS AND PIZZA -- A MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION

I have yet to comprehend the American Jew’s love affair with pizza. You can’t drive through a Jewish neighborhood without passing a dozen pizzerias, three or four of them strictly kosher. I have long wondered why Orthodox Jews routinely order fauz-treife vegetarian sausage on their kosher pizzas, the quintessence of chazerai.

I assume that our obsession with pizza originated in the Hillel sandwich that we eat at the night of the Seder. Think of all the kids who demand “matzo pizza” on Pesach, a flat of matzo schemered with tomato sauce and cheese, to forestall a week without the genuine stuff. Ah, but was pesto indigenous to the Sinai Peninsula?

In Atlanta, one of the world’s finest pizzerias, Mellow Mushroom, is located right at the heart of the Judengasse. The family and I know this, because we do indulge in questionably-kosher cheese and are a little lax about items baked in a blazing-hot oven. It’s no surprise that we bump into many of our “metro-kosher” friends there. But, sometimes I also catch a glimpse of someone “really Orthodox” sneaking out with a pie, albeit with tzitzis tucked in, and women with hair shoved under a baseball cap.

Once upon a time, I enjoyed genuinely kosher pizza in Detroit. So what made this pizza “genuinely” kosher? It was all in the toppings: crumbles of gefilte fish, potato kugel, matzo balls, falafel, even cholent. No embarrassment about Jewish ethnicity here. After all, God don’t make no junk. I have yet to see a pizza crowned with blobs of pareve pitcha, and aren’t we the better for it? Oh, you’ve never had pitcha? Just think of Jell-O extracted from a calf’s foot, studded with shards of garlic and hard-boiled egg. Nummy.

To what extent will a Jew go to eat pizza? When I was a rabbi in Charlotte, the schule was situated a block away from a pizzeria. Right about Yizkor-time on Yom Kippur, half the teenagers would flee the sanctuary and congregate at the pizzeria for a slice of lunch. Finally, I could no longer restrain myself and confronted the miscreants.

“Well, Rabbi,” one of them eventually responded, “at least we didn’t have the sausage. You’re not allowed to have milk with meat, right?”

VEGETARIANISM: IT'S NOT SO EASY

How hard should it be for a Jew to become a vegetarian?

Fruits and vegetables spring forth directly from pristine earth. They are neither milchig nor fleishig, and they can’t become treife, right? Well, it’s not so easy.

I have often suggested that religious Jews become vegetarians, since they would not then have to worry about how flexible the schechita knife is, or whether the kashering salt is properly sifted. Fish should raise its own special concerns, determining whether the scales are sufficiently scaly, and whether its fins are merely legs in disguise. Dairy, too, poses its own set of problems, e.g., How close to the action did the mashgi’ach really get? Did he actually touch the udders? Or, did he merely flip the switch on the milking machine?

I say that vegetarianism is the only way to go.

Then I thought, uh, oh, not so fast. Vegetarianism, I realized, is even harder. Leafy vegetables, like lettuce and spinach, might be rife with little buggies, so each leaf need be soaked separately and washed with a soapy cloth. The buds on Brussels sprouts and asparagus are so tight that they can’t be sufficiently cleaned, even if you kashered them with steel wool. So, they are completely out. And, did you ever notice that cucumbers, apples and the like are covered with some kind of wax to make them shiny? Where did that wax come from? Tomatoes are impossible to peel, and what insecticide do they use to spray the cherries and potatoes? Do you see a hechsher on it?

What about salad dressing? It causes its own problems. You may think that one with the hechsher is pareve. Again, it’s not so easy. It could be pareve, but still manufactured on dairy equipment, and what are you going to do about that?

I bet you never thought of that.

Well, my beloved, I have a hard time believing that God is that worried about flexible schechita knives when He has to deal with nuclear war and global warming. So, go put a quarter in the pushke, say you’re sorry, and go fix yourself a sawdust sandwich. And, don’t forget to wash your hands and make a Motzi.

THE WAGES OF TRUTH TELLING

Cruise: “I want the truth!”

Nicholson: “You can’t handle the truth!”

Cruise and Nicholson’s repartee in A Few Good Men, is deliberately left unresolved. So too for the ages, a conundrum: Will we tell the truth? Can we handle the truth?

It takes tremendous self-discipline not to dance the jig when some sanctimonious snot like Senator Craig is caught with his pants down. Let’s put aside for now our delight in schadenfreude and even the intrinsic nature of the act he committed, however it not be forgotten that playing footsie in a public bathroom with someone unknown does rise to the level of a crime.

Nonetheless, this issue here is lying and hypocrisy, the typical refuges of the arrogant and the morally trapped. Lying may be an objective matter; you either did or didn’t. Hypocrisy is a tougher call, because it begs the question of judging a foe by a standard to which we ourselves might fail. That is, pointing a finger at hypocrisy may in itself be hypocritical.

Yet, we are usually well attuned when we witness hypocrisy, and not merely everyday inconsistency, even though we cannot define it. Perhaps we recognize hypocrisy because of its intimations of superiority and smugness. Perhaps it’s because we know that awareness of ones own moral turpitude should lead to introspection and humility, not condemnation of someone who has stumbled.

A hypothetical: Let’s say that one day, someone who aspires to position of public trust – political clergy, civic leadership – says forthrightly, “Ladies and gentlemen, before you go searching through my life and moral flaws, let me be upfront: Ten years ago, I had an extramarital affair. I have since led a monogamous life, with good faith to my wife, family, and community. It has not been easy to regain their trust, but gratefully, I have been forgiven by the significant people in my life.

“I put this truth before you so that there will be no sense of betrayal from my constituants down the road, and so that I might be attributed the merit of telling the truth rather than have salacious secrets forever dog me.”

Enough of the hypothetical. We reluctantly return to reality. What is the sense, beyond altruism, for an aspirant to public trust to tell the truth? At best, his/her truth-telling would be treated for a couple of weeks as an interesting novelty. Then it would certainly give way to accusations that the confession was little more than political posturing.

Finally, our penchant for the lurid would be victorious over altruism and candor. The candidate would be subjected to the same witch hunt had the indiscretion been disclosed by a yellow-dog journalist: Who was the paramour? When? Where? Microphones jammed in the faces of wife, heretofore girlfriends, hotel bellmen? The leering eye of suspicion that this confession was merely a throw-‘em-a-bone to cover up even worse peccadilloes?

Sadly, we will cynically gobble it all up. People like Senator Craig will still and always be arrogant, hypocritical liars. But, when we total up the score, what difference in the world of realpolitik does it make to tell the truth? What is it worth besides a little transitory admiration and praise for refreshing candor?

Is this about people like Senator Craig? Or is it equally about people like you and me who place so little lasting value on the truth?

We all bang our fists, from Geraldo and O’Reilly to the rest of us circling vultures, “I want the truth!” But then a craggy, cynical voice, tempered by decades of reality, upbraids us unforgivingly, “The truth? You can’t handle the truth!”

DINNER ON THE WHOLLY DAZE

After I left my congregation, I anticipated the Holy Days would be all that it had not been in three decades. Now there would be spirit-filled prayer, family together catching up on each other’s lives, unrushed Yom Tov dinners, walks in the park.

Then we received a call from nefarious Aunt Annette. She demanded, as was her style, that we join her family for Yom Tov in Washington. Furthermore, she was certain that “You would be delighted to prepare dinner, because you are such a wonderful chef.”

I gritted my teeth. But, there was no reason to argue. On Erev Yom Tov, we took that day’s only flight into Washington and arrived at 10:00 AM. Annette had already called the dinner for 20 at 6:00, just eight hours away.

I prepared most of the dinner at home and then had to figure how to schlep it to Annette’s . . . on an airplane. We loaded four insulated bags with food and worried whether security would consider the aluminum lining suspect. Ironically, they asked no questions, but they did examine my Tefillin, because the boxes seemed to contain “suspicious material.”

Arriving in Washington, we trudged with the bags to Annette’s. I had planned to adorn my Caesar salad with seared duck breast, until I discovered that the heat of Annette’s stove could barely boil an egg. “Annette, the stove doesn’t get hot!” “Oh, sweetheart, I almost never use it, because we go out to dinner so often.”

I worked along, a knife here, a peeler there, until Annette announced that the floor needed washing. So, I scrubbed it. In a delicious moment of schadenfreude, my mother-in-law slipped on the wet floor and skidded, only to be saved by her commodious derrière. Quite a sight.

Miraculously, dinner was ready at 5:45. The vultures were already circling the table, waiting. As I was showering, I heard voices behind me calling, “How much longer will you take?”

How was dinner? I don’t really know. The moment I sat down, I fell asleep in my bowl of kreplach soup. The only inkling I had was when Annette pronounced the dinner “Wonderful! It was so good, in fact,” she said, “that we must have Marc do it again next year!”