Almost 2002

December 30, 2001-Rare Event

I saw a huge sign in a store window advertising the sale of what we call tube tops. They called them boob tubes.

Yesterday, Saturday morning, was a Bat Mitzvah. She's an elfin young lady whose grandparents, are pillars of the temple. It was a very special event here & a rare one. In this otherwise geriatric congregation, there hasn’t been a bar or bat mitzvah in years. There were 130 people crowded into the under air-conditioned sanctuary. I felt the lack of air & actually decided to stop reading the service & participating aloud to conserve my own oxygen. There was real concern that some of the older people might faint. As it turned out, I think they did far better than I.

The bar/bat mitzvah kids here only do the prayers before & after reading Torah, one small passage from the Torah (Five Books of Moses), the Haftarah blessings & the Haftarah (related passages from other parts of the Hebrew Bible) in Hebrew. In the U.S. we’re used to the 13-year old conducting 90% of the service. There were oodles of “aliyot”, though. Those are honors given to people who are asked to come up to the bima (pulpit) & participate. The participation can be anything from opening the curtain of the ark where the Torahs are kept to saying the blessings before or after the Torah reading. Because the bat mitzvah has many relatives in Australia, there were fourteen aliyot. Some of these were doubles in that two people shared the saying of blessings. For the seven occasions that people were called up to do Torah blessings, David said a prayer (mishaberach) asking for the well being of the honoree. Add this all up & you get one very loooong service. Somehow, we got out in two hours. At least there was the diversion of the bat mitzvah's 4-year old brother during the service. He was very quiet, but he was all over the place. As many of you know who have seen David conduct services, this doesn’t throw him at all. The child was on the bima, under the chairs, mugging, in & out of the sanctuary, & generally visiting everyone he knew.

The Rabbi and government official from Brisbane were at the bat mitzvah as well. He’s a in charge of multi-culturalism. He comes to the congregation from time to time to perform rabbinic functions & knows everyone. David asked him to co-officiate. He has watched the bat mitxvah grow up & gave a very moving address to her.

Although there was a light buffet lunch after the service, we decided to go out to lunch. We’d invited the rabbi and his wife over to our apartment for the afternoon. They were going to the evening reception. Since they live in Brisbane we figured we’d have a chance to visit with them & save them the extra round trip. They brought their swimmers, but didn’t get to use them. He was beat & ended up taking a nap.

Whenever I’m with him, I learn something. As always, I asked him about the Afghani refugees that Australia is holding in camps offshore. I asked what he thought of a recent riot in the camps & what should be done about the perpetrators. It was my feeling that they didn’t deserve to be admitted to Australia if they took a lawless approach to their situation. He gave me a brief history of immigrants & immigration. I hadn’t realized that hundreds of those immigrants had been in the camps for years. These were not the recent refugees from the quarantined ship Tampa. Australia, although a signatory of an international agreement on how to swiftly process & treat immigrants, was in gross violation of it for years. There were parallels in the past with what was happening today. He said that human nature hasn’t changed. After WWII, when Jews sought asylum in Australia, the headlines in the papers were similar to those of today. The motives of the Jews were questioned & fears were voiced that there may be terrorists among them. Australia was still a British colony, part of the Empire, & Jews in Palestine had attacked the British by bombing the King David Hotel in Israel. He said that if xenophobia hadn’t taken over & the rules of the international agreement had been followed, most of the Afghanis would have been settled in long ago & well on their way to becoming productive citizens of Australia. As it turned out, that’s what eventually happened to the Jews. As I said, he always adds a perspective.

American Style

The evening reception was a clone of an American bat mitzvah reception. There was the disc jockey, the professional party planner who turned the ballroom into an underwater world, the cake of 13 candles for honored guests to light, & two nubile go-go dancers to whip the pre-teens into a hormonal frenzy. The noise of the gangsta rap was deafening & we left as soon as was polite. The desserts were bereft of anything chocolate, so my interest waned. A traditional Australian dessert treat is called Pavlova. It’s a cake-like confection whose base is angel food cake (gag). Its sides are buttressed with ladyfingers (gag), & it’s schmeared & topped with meringue (gag). In my book, it has no redeeming qualities.

The main course was interesting in the way it was served. A menu on the table indicated there would be chicken & lamb alternately served. What that meant was that every other person got chicken or lamb. We all held our breath as meals were doled out hoping we’d get our favorite. Then it happened. One couple switched plates. She wanted chicken & he wanted lamb. The servers became confused, but recovered quickly. At a glance, they were able to discern that a switch had taken place. I think their training covered such a contingency. They picked up the service as if nothing happened.

Then, low & behold, one couple wanted the same dish. A crisis had been reached. The elderly woman really wanted the lamb, & I thought that at age 90, she was entitled to it. I leaned over to her & murmured those magic words my cousin uses at a restaurant to make sure they heed her instructions for a dairy-free meal. Those magic words are, “If there is any milk product that has come into contact with my food I will become violently ill in your restaurant.” With some variation, I thought this could insure the chicken/lamb switch. I don’t know what the nonagenarian said, but she got her lamb.

He, at age 91, is a model for us all. He recently bought a new car, "one that would last." It reminds me of an aunt of friends in Vegas. In her 80’s their aunt bought a mink coat for the very same reason. I think she indeed got a lot of wear out of it.

As I was leaving the ballroom to head for the ladies room, Syd Bruce stopped me & asked where I was going. I told him that I was going “potty.” He repeated the word & I realized it had another meaning here. It could have meant I was going “crazy.” I explained that in America, we “potty train” our children, so when they grow up & are “potty” they can see a psychiatrist. We joked around for a while with me trying to imitate his pronunciation. It’s not too hard since it’s like the way the Southerners drop the “r’s” at the end of words. As a play on that, when I walked away, I said, “Potty on!”

We had a good laugh with the rabbi about pronunciation too. His wife is from New Zealand. There they pronounce vowels differently :fish & chips is “fush & chops.” He loves it when she calls out to him & says that he should come because something needs “fuxing.”

Outlaws

Did you know they still use saccharine here? They will soon not be able to manufacture cars that use leaded gas, but, as of now, they still make them. The manicurist I use said that Australia gets a lot of stuff that has been outlawed in America because the laws here aren’t as strict.

Here’s something to think about. A 15-year old boy who was dying of cancer told a nurse that his last wish wasn’t to go to Disneyland, but to have sex before he died. This was in the papers today. The nurse called in a psychologist who said that the boy was mentally stable & mature. He said that terminally ill kids “get wise very quickly.” The hospital staff was all for it. They also respected the boy’s wishes & didn’t tell his parents. The psychologist consulted clergy who were polarized on the question. The professional staff realized they had enormous liability & were torn about how to handle the issue. Meanwhile, the boy did get his wish. It was organized by friends who thought it was the right thing to do. It took place off the hospital premises with a “sex worker.” The boy’s comment was that he was “very happy & only slightly disappointed that it was over with so quickly.” Ultimately, he lost his fight with cancer. I wonder how many other terminally ill teens have secretly harbored that wish but were afraid to ask?

Almost Happy New Year. You’ve been faithful readers through it all. I appreciate your loyalty & responses.

Toby