The Eventful Rosh Hashonah

 So I met Patricia and Paul in the parking lot of the gleaming new Chabad Center -- and we went inside and Yossi gave us a small tour before services. The Founders' Wall was a highlight -- Paul and I and Wifey and Patricia are pretty, pretty, high up on the donor schedule. Over 30 years our combined gifts are rather substantial -- I chuckled at the fact that we gave LOTS more than the Bramans -- and they're billionaires. Of course, Paul and I don't have UM Departments named after us...

Still, all snark aside, we were proud. What Yossi and Nechama have built, a shul, yes, but mostly a community center that serves thousands of special needs kids, and now, with a new Mitzvah kitchen, food challenged folks, too, is, to use the right word, miraculous. And my brother of another mother and I were major assists there.

I joked that if we had back all the money we gave, we could have really nice houses, take wonderful trips, and give lots to our kids. Wait -- we do that! When you have a few shekels you're allowed to be an asshole sometimes.

Anyway, Yossi called me up to open the Ark, and told the 200 or so there that 30 years ago, the first minyan he held was in the rental house Wifey and I owned and rented to him and his family, and that I was the first called up to open the Ark. Now, 3 decades later, in their gleaming $20 Center, I was called again. 

I LOVE marking mileposts in life, and this was a beautiful one. Paul was also called to the Ark, and we were very moved. And I took away one powerful parable.

Yossi said in Jerusalem, he was told to go to a shul at Hebrew U, to see the amazing stained glass windows done my Marc Chagall. He got there and was unimpressed -- no different than he had seen at other shuls, from the outside. But when he went inside, he saw the magic -- the sunlight filtered through and showed colors he never experienced before -- truly amazing.

And the lesson was that people are the same. When you see someone, they may be unattractive, or mean, or simple (to use a term that needs more usage -- "Simple Jack" from "Tropic Thunder") from the outside, but when you get to know their soul, there may in fact be beauty.

After about as much as I could handle, Yossi blew the shofar, and Paul, Patricia, and I hi-tailed it out of there -- to Roasters on 128th. Norman's brother Martin walked in, and soon after, Norman. His big, beautiful family had all gathered from different congregations (one, in shorts, from watching online) and they took a long table by the wall -- must have been 20 of them.

I was so warmed for my dear friend -- surrounded by his amazing, big family -- sister, brothers, neices, nephews, and his local son Benji. His later parents were, I know, smiling down on their legacy.

I swooped in to fetch Wifey for our planned Rosh a pasta -- dinner at a local Italian place near D1. Wifey was dragging, which is not unusual since she sleeps very poorly, and for a very good reason has resisted my suggestion she speak to our concierge doc or maybe a sleep specialist to see what can be done. I mean, I'm sure there's a very good reason why she has been so refractive about this -- I just don't know what it is.

So the Jewish New Year is brand new, and already there has been spiritual joy, and, literally, a lot of crap. As a holiday goes, so goes a year...