O Chanukah

December 10, 2001-Holiday of Joy?

Last night was the Jewish community Chanukah celebration in the park. The orthodox congregation puts it on even though it’s billed as a “community” event. I suppose the community aspect of it comes from the presence of “his worship” the mayor, the deputy mayor, & the councilman. Neither our temple nor our officers has ever been recognized at the event as part of the community. David felt he had to be there to represent our congregation. The general take on things was that Rabbi Gurevitch, the orthodox (Chabad) rabbi, wouldn’t acknowledge the presence of a progressive rabbi. His people don’t even consider progressive rabbis worthy of the title. We were wrong. We were asked to sit in the reserve seats & David was introduced as the newly elected rabbi of Temple Shalom. The people from our congregation who were there felt good about it. It was the correct & courteous thing for the other congregation to do, but the orthodox rabbi would not do the introduction.

A young boy was the MC. He did a good job of keeping the speakers on their toes & the crowd laughing. His best introduction was of the councilman, Max Christmas. The MC said it was our unique pleasure to be able to have Christmas at our Chanukah celebration.

The highlight of the evening was the lighting of the first light of a huge menorah. The mayor & Rabbi Gurevitch rode to the top of the menorah in a cherry picker. There were lanterns affixed to two arms of the candelabra. The mayor lit the first light, the shamus, (guardian light used to kindle the other lights) & the rabbi lit the other one. Blessings were said & the festivities began.

There were hot dogs, falafel, & kosher fairy floss. I know that I’ve translated “fairy floss” as being what we call cotton candy, but why would they need to promote it as kosher? What about sugar & air isn’t kosher? They had all the condiments that go with hot dogs, except that the ketchup & mustard didn’t bare any markings of being kosher. This is most commonly shown by the letter “U” or “K” on the product. It really didn’t matter to me since the kosher hot dogs down under bare no resemblance to any self-respecting kosher hot dog I’ve ever eaten. There were some amusement type rides but the promise of a mechanical bull from the USA never materialized.

When we got home we lit our own borrowed menorah, said the blessings, & didn’t know what to do. We wanted to call home, but it wasn’t Chanukah there yet.

You Retired Beacause?

We were awakened shortly after 6:30AM, by a call from the wife of a man who is gravely ill. David visited at his home yesterday, but his wife called to tell him that the man had been taken to hospital. That’s one thing different here. People call early. In Akron, they usually waited until after 8AM. David stayed up & just went to the hospital before heading for the office. When he came home for lunch, he was beat. He’s worried the man will die & we won’t be able to go on our Frasier Island trip next Sunday. If he dies while we’re gone, there are people here who can do the funeral.

I keep reminding him this is one reason he retired. Another reason was the early morning call. Another reason is having to meet with kids preparing for bar/bat mitzvahs. Another reason is hoping he will have the right words to say when someone is in crisis. Another reason is having to go to meetings & pretend to be interested in insipid discussions. I could go on, but I think you’ve all heard me rant.

David has taken a very part time trade-off position here & put his unique signature on it.. He’s made it his own by involving his heart & soul in this place & these people. He can no more detach emotionally from them than he can breathe under water. Daniel once said he didn’t want to be a workaholic like his Dad. David’s answer was that he wasn’t a workaholic. He simply worked until the job was done. With this kind of job, there’s always something else to do: always one more person in need & one more to pacify & one more meeting to endure. So, at 3:30PM, he took his exhausted self back to the office. At 5:30PM, he will schlep to the beach for a conversion. You guessed it. The orthodox won’t let us use their mikvah for ritual immersion. Then he will do the conversion ceremony at the temple. After that there’s a board meeting. He will eat dinner……?

December 11, 2001-Home Free

Enough of my “whinging.” That’s whining in Australian. For those of you who were worried about David’s nutrition, he did manage to get home for an hour last night to eat dinner. We got a call at 8:13AM, to tell him that the man in the hospital died. The funeral will be tomorrow.

Our trip to Frasier Island is safe for the moment. Now we can look forward to getting away from our life in Paradise so we can go to a remote sand dune & be eaten by dingoes.

Toby