A Thanksgiving Day Gentleman

A dear friend hit one of those round number birthdays. So I schlepped out on the North East Corridor Line to deep in New Jersey for the surprise party that he asked his wife to make. During the ride I doodled in the diary. I recalled the first time this fellow grabbed mt attention - he was selling orange soda for a minimal profit during an early Ellul dinner in BMT. While eating my schnitzel I overherard him announce to his old friend Jeffrey K, "A. Kanarack is here." Soon we learned together and became friends, trading stories and being there for each-other. He accompanied me when I picked up my belongings from a Yeshiva I studied in briefly. I walked him up the hill at night where he sometimes met a friend who was spending a year in seminary.
Time went by as it always does. We stayed close. We saw Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and Malcom X and together. He bought me a tape recorder back in '88 when he realized I was saving money by playing music on my answering machine. (I still have the tape Torah, Torah, Torah, Torah - on which Mordechai ben David is interrupted by a beep and my friend's Chanukah thoughts about Rabbi Soleveitchik's views on the chain of the Kohanim.) I recall him visiting me in the YU Kollel and laughing with me as my Chavrusa and I paced - and I did my best Stan Laurel as I walked into the wall, while my charvusa kept on marshalling his svara. There were many Shabboses and holidays together, many good times. I warmly recall the honor of reading the Ketuva and of being best man. I recall being there for the hard times as well as the happy ones. I recall books that he's given me as gifts, including, G-d Was In This Place And I, I Did Not Know. For this birthday I gave him And You Know You Should Be Glad - a book about a lifelong friendship. The poem that I wrote on the train follows:


For Yehuda Leib

Four years stretched between us
(twenty two years ago, four was a lot)
Providence brought us together
I can't imagine my life had it not