Dept. Black Friday. Shopping is one of my least favorite activities — but I’m all in this year on Black Friday. I made a mistake the last time I shopped, not listening to the saleslady who actually cautioned me not to buy certain white shirts. “Bad quality,” she said. Obviously I should have listened. When was the last time a salesperson said, “don’t buy”? But the price was very good. Well, you get what you pay for. I don’t think that even Goodwill will take these shirts. I need new ones, reputably branded. Is Black Friday really a madhouse? I’ll find out.
Dept. November 22. I mentioned to someone last Shabbos — Nov. 22 — that it was the anniversary of the assassination of President Kennedy. I got blank look in return. Just the way I’d look if someone told me it was the anniversary of the assassination of President McKinley. Time passes. A seminal, cutting, unforgettable, beyond dramatic event for one generation is flat, meaningless, for the next. The Kennedy assassination was not just Nov. 22, 1963. The country fell into paralysis for days, eyes glued to TV for the motorcade in Dallas, the arrest of Oswald, the assassination of Oswald, the funeral — but it’s just mist and shadow if you didn’t live through it.
Dept. Family. We had visitors, including a daughter-in-law, granddaughter-in-law, two granddaughters and one great-granddaughter. The cup overfloweth with gratitude.
Dept. Community. At the Yeshiva Toras Chaim dinner last week, the high quality videos and presentations were made to worthy honorees Moskowitz (Jay and family, and Adam and wife). It wasn’t, and it simply couldn’t be, a customary dinner, however, coming roughly a month after the passing of the unforgettable Reva Wasserman, whose exquisite taste has shaped these dinners for more than half a century. The presentations in her memory by Sandy Schiff and Rabbi Dovid Nussbaum, her son-in-law and now rosh yeshiva, were riveting.
Dept. Thanksgiving. It was tough at King Soopers. The IJN gifts turkeys to employees and business neighbors, but there simply were not enough kosher turkeys in the store. IJN Associate Editor Larry Hankin, who kindly performs this task, selected the non-kosher birds, amply available, for the non-Jews recipients, but meanwhile he had to explain to the seemingly countless Jewish friends he encountered in the store what he was doing.
Dept. Chavrusa, Torah study partner. Every Sunday, 6:30 a.m., I study Torah with a friend two time zones to the East. Lately, we’ve focused on the five letters that R’ Israel Salanter send to his disciples in Vilna shortly after he moved to Kovno in 1849. These super succinct letters contain the bulk of R’ Israel’s thought. The fourth letter focuses on “worldly wisdom.” R’ Israel, for all of his repeated emphasis on fear of Heaven, on introspection, on self-analysis, turns outward and notes that someone not wise in the ways of the world will fail religiously due to marketers’ skills in steering a person to indulge in things he doesn’t need and shouldn’t want.
Dept. Forgetting. I am writing a book on the positive commandments of Shabbos and ran across a wonderful quote from the widely read work, Netivot Shalom (Paths of Peace). I recorded the quote but neglected to record the page, for a footnote. Weeks later I wanted to write the footnote — but I forgot the page. Up and down, up and down, I looked though the book, but couldn’t find the quote (there was no index). I’ve struggled with this for weeks. Then I found a similar quote, not quite the same, in Netivot Shalom — had I distorted what I had originally recorded? Finally I decided: Use the second quote, even though it’s not quite as apt as the first one.
Dept. “Muscle Cars.” Among the candidates are the 1970 Dodge Challenger R/T, the 1967 Cougar XR-7GT and the 1969 Ford Mustang Boss 302. My colleague Seiji Nagata informs me that “muscle cars” are small cars with big motors. They are favorites not necessarily because their owners want to go fast but because they’re a hobby. Obviously, a big enough hobby to have merited a special issue US Postage Stamp (which might appear on the next subscription renewal letter you receive from the IJN).
Dept. West Bank. What’s going on? I read that Jews there attack Palestinian fields or Palestinian themselves. For that to happen even once is once too many. But how extensive is the problem? The question matters because the overall state of violence on the West Bank is potentially another club with wihich to beat Israel over the head. On the overall question I don’t trust what I read because it’s so hard to find non-agenda-driven news sources about the West Bank. Those who hate the idea of Jews living in this part of the Land of Israel either exaggerate the Jews’ misdeeds or discount the Palestinians’ terrorism. Perhaps the worst example of the latter is Palestinians who injure themselves in carrying out terrorist attacks Israelis counting themselves as victims of Israeli violence. I wish for non-agenda-driven news from the West Bank that we could sort out just how extensive the Jewish violence is, how much of it is Palestinian-provoked, and how much is unjustified. Whatever the statistics, I am particularly interested to know who the Jewish hoodlums’ Torah teachers are.
Dept. Non-Sequitur. I’ve written on an important topic for this column for 53 years now, but earlier this week I got stuck. Someone suggested I write about the Torah portion because it’s got lentil soup — you know, the soup that Jacob cooked for himself and gave to the famished Esau — and of course I should write about it because . . . I love lentil soup.
Dept. “Shabbat Shalom.” It’s a very different Denver Jewish community from the one I returned to in 1983, and certainly from the one I grew up in before I left for college in 1964. Our Jewish community is much less secular than it once was. I am routinely wished on Fridays “Shabbat Shalom” by employees in the Jewish community. It’s a dramatic change in tone. Not everyone who wishes “Shabbat Shalom” actually marks Shabbos in any traditional way. But at a minimum, Shabbos is in the consciousness. It’s a step up. The unique sage, Chofetz Chaim, wrote, “speech has powerful effect on holiness.” If you’re reading this on Friday, Isay to you, “Shabbat Shalom.”
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