Twitter Style Report On My Yom Tov - How Was Yours?

My sedarim brought back memories of being a kid and competing who ended their seder the latest. First nite - 3ish, second - 4ish. There were 18 ppl nite 1 and 13 nite 2, including a 7 yr old who made it through the whole way on nite one and helped us access our inner arba banim. There was enthusiasm, deep sharing, true curiosity, a pleasure of a journey.

May His Neshamah Have An Aliyah

Har Nof

By Aaron E. Bulman (excerpt)

d

The way the sun shines

Here it makes eyes

Crinkle

To tiny slats

of intake

To take in

The quick

Childlike truths

Unforgettably

In black and white...

The first day of Pesach was Aaron's Yahrtzeit. Sigh. For us.

Aaron

By Neil Fleischmann

ijl

He's come closer for me

On Sundays like this one.

o

While the world oversleeps

Aaron blows through

My air conditioner vent.

I smell his smoke,

I hear him shout,

I feel pain, my pain.

o

And he tells me it's OK,

r

"You don't get it

Being dead is good for me

I didn't expect to like it

(Who does?)

But I do.

Peace"

t

If you know how to make the lines closer together please step up.

Erev Pesach 5770 - Next year in Jerusalem

12:12 PM I have three different things I want to write at once.

1. Diary style, free form blog entry, in this moment, Erev Pesach, 5770.

2. Pesach related divrei Torah, specifically regarding the hagaddah.

3. Writing to be kept private - heavier than the above (though I think what I consider safely light enough to share publicly is seen by thinkers and other living readers as heavier than I realize).

This is the place for free - so to speak/write - writing. And yet, don't be surprised if one and two mix together and if three leaks in. But, as Walt Whitman wrote, I repeat myself, I repeat myself.

Whenever I look for the ten hidden pieces, one of them proves elusive. I found number ten this morning just in time, thought I had gotten it last night, but I was mistaken. This, like most of my life, has meaningful layers to ponder. Tzei U'lemad. If you feel like it. I mean.

5:40 PM - I just had two long and different phone conversations, and I've been breathing. That more or less catches you up since the post above. I would love to spend the next hour till Yom Tov writing, but I have to enter the world of action - pick up dry cleaning, buy medicine and wine, food and water.

I will close this post now, or very soon anyway with the hopes of possibly adding in a bit of Torah before the Yom Tov starts. Here's a poem I wrote yesterday while walking in the rain after having sold my chometz.

While Walking in the Rain

After Having Sold My Chometz

Johari's window

You watch me through it daily

and I watch myself

Only G-d can see the truth

We try our best to get it

6:12 PM - Spoke to a dear friend just now, ate a snack so I won't be famished for the seder. Still need to get out.

I pray we all be blessed with freedom and development. How great it would be if we made our Father In Heaven proud by taking the freedom we're commemorating and using it to best effect. How ironic it would be if we take the time that is meant to celebrate our relationship with G-d and choose food over Him.

I pray we all ask questions as a child, hundreds of questions with unquenchable curiosity. And that we access that little boy or little girl banging on the doors of our soul, yearning to be free.

I pray that we become clear on what redemption means to us that that we can begin now to live along those lines.

I pray that we see the spirit behind the law.

I pray that we see the law that holds up the spirit.

I pray to G-d to free me

from the exile of my soul

my exile from G-d

my exile from you

my exile from my holy land

Next year I hope

to be my soul, not my body

to be with G-d

to be with you

Next year in Jerusalem.

I know you have doubts, for God's sake don't shut me out.

My brain's radio

Is playing Billy Joel's song

A Matter of Trust

Haven't heard it in ages

Pray to live it every day

CKV

I hope to post again today, but want to get a relatively early start on wishing everyone who sees this a great Pesach. May you be blessed with a true and meaningful Pesach journey dear family, friends, and lurkers - who may be strangers, acquaintances, family, friends or the "other" box).

I hope to write more Pesach thoughts today, but it may be too close to Yom Tov for people to get it and/or "get it." So here's a link to my hagaddah - which I still want to edit and update - for those who would like to see it, download it, read it, eat it.

I hope Pesach is a true conduit toward redemption for you, me, friends, family - all those people of whom it can be said that if we didn't know them we wouldn't know anyone.

Chag Kosher Vesameach

Actual Bread of Affliction, Not A Pale Imitation

Bread of affliction

It is baked and bought today

Ha'lachma'anya

no easy answers

answer back

or let it go

no easy answers

no way to know

whichever way you go.

Thank You Anne For Teaching Me The Word Prismatic

Prismatic Pesach:

Redemption is a prism.

You see the colors?

There are dark hues of bondage,

Painted over with new light

"...The Breaths, Smiles, Tears, Of All My Life..."

Why do I write here? -

- privately I count the ways -

my little life stage.

Guten Erev Shabbos

8:40 AM - It's three months since mom died - on the English calendar. I just got a related email about how my postings made this friend cry, which made me cry. Today is the first day of Pesach break from work. I led the whole Shacharis. Timing in life is key, and in davening too. Timing can be wonderful, timing can be wrenching.

I had held back on posting the scrabble scores for some time. I am grateful to the friend who told me to post it because it would be meaningful to others. That seems true.

8:58 AM - I could have baked kosher matzah in the time since I started the section above. I didn't just write that in these past 18 minutes. I read and answered emails, thought, breathed.

9:10 AM -

While Dozing on the Train to Wasaic

~

Altered states

frighten me:

sleep, dreams, love,

The After Life

;

There's also

a sweetness,

kindness of

a kindest kind

;

When I wake up,

almost fall asleep;

that something else

I feel, I like

I found that poem while searching this blog for Zelda's poem about names. I wrote it last year (feeling tired from havng run two days of yom tov and and and) during the morning of the second day of Chol HaMoed. I had it written into my contract at the retreat center I was working at that I had a day to visit my parents. I left after breakfast on the first day of Chol HaMoed (with a box filled with pesachdik cake and pancakes and cookies - oh my). I returned the next morning. In between the mashgiach and chef were both fired by the CEO who told me so when we spoke on my cell in mom and dad's basement.

10:10 AM - Someone just called and asked, "Did I wake you?" I said the truth, "No." The response was, "Oh, because you sound tired." I am tired, and hungry, fasting before my doctor's appointment. I was awakened by my new virtual alarm clock at 6:40 AM. Fifty minutes to go now. I could use a nap, but am forging on with wakefulness.

1:41 PM - Why is there always a long wait at doctors' offices? Should I have known 11 meant 12? Can you ever know? Anything? Blood pressure is in normal range - 110/70 - thank G-d. The rest is mostly tests. My doctor is a pleasant fellow and we had a nice chat.

3:25 PM - My computer guy came by. I hung out with my neighbor Avigayil. We watched a video. Of Elmo. She's three.

Where does the time go?

4:44 PM - My computer guy stayed for a while, restoring wireless on my laptop and putting into my computer all of my blogposts, which he had downloaded into a hard-drive for me. Did some school work toward the quarter ending right after Pesach. I need to clean up my floor, it looks like a three year old was playing on it...

My doctor read me the riot act about my weight. So I'm trying to eat wisely today. I am hungry.

5:14 PM - In From Twilight to Dawn, Rabbi Shlomo Kahn, who I was blessed to call a colleague and even a friend, cites Yishayahu 1:28, which sates “Tzion bemishpat tipadeh – veshaveha bitzedakah – Zion will be redeemed through justice and her returnees through righteousness.” We start off the seder by inviting and embracing guests. Thus, following our declaration that all who are in need are welcome at our Passover feast, we affirm with confidence, “LeShanah ha’ba’ah beYerushalayim.” The merit of tzedakah – righteous kindess to others, will lead to our redemption.

-

Nathan Laufer wries that kadeish is the idea of consecrating our minds and rechatz is consecrating our bodies. There is no bracha on rechatz because it is about the body, not the mind. Rechatz is the only section of the hagaddah that starts with a vav, because it is intrinsically connected to the section that preceded it; kadesh and rechatz are two inseperable parts of one whole. Kadesh is the sanctification of mind before entering sacred time and rechatz is sanctification of body before entering holy space. Our washing at this moment is similar to the washing of the kohein before his service, and of the washing the Jewish People were commanded to do before receiving the Torah. Those two times required a washing and purification because they were moments of direct encounter with G-d. G-d took us out of Mitzrayim Himself and the experience was a direct encounter with G-d. At the seder we relive that moment and directly encounter G-d.

Soon Shabbos and I am not ready. I need to cut myself off from blogging...for now.

My Queen approaches

Don't say it's only Shabbos

She's quite the beauty

My thought on Parshat Tzav is up at Parshapost. (Click for link)

Yes

Educators like to speak about stretching students. I'm on board for challenging people in the classroom and in life. People sometimes say to me that they can't write poetry. That's like saying I can't do a sit up. If you start to exercise your body's muscles they get stronger and if you keep going you will probably end up surprising yourself with what you can do. When you put pen to paper your creative writing talents grow out of their soil and you soon see the writer you are. I am grateful and proud that over the years I've been part of people finding their poetic selves. A dear friend just shared this haiku:

We're still slaves today

to our own private Pharohs.

Will salvation come?

My Night So Far

7:22 PM - I just got home from work. I stopped at Shoprite on the way and have stuff to put away , but first, perchance to blog. I was greeted by two phone messages, both of them solicitations for money. In the inbox I found a message that the rabbi I referenced yesterday commented on my blog. That was nice of him. I like his approach and agree that the relationship with G-d thing is big. I think about this a lot. This is why I think Ani ledodi vedodi li is the Ellul acronym that's outlasted all the others.

I just discovered that a friend of mine got the pink slip. Major sigh. Sigh again.

On the way home I started reading Dani Shapiro's Devotion and I am hooked.

9:14 PM - I like writing in the present, and part of my present is often (always?) thinking about the past. it's not so much reliving events as having them stuck all over me like post-its. I wanted you (who are you again?) to know.

I davened ma'ariv from the amud, kaddish included.

Today is the three month anniversary of the day my mother died the first time. Tomorrow, the twenty sixth, is the day her heart let out forever.

Davening from the amud and kaddish are zchuyot for my mother, please G-d. I don't think I'm going to be writing a book about how the routine of Kaddish has been cathartic for me. Kids talk to me almost every day about their struggles with set prayers. And adults model for me every day their issues with set prayers. Heavy sigh.

11:19 PM Been on phone, been planning, been. That reminds me of a student's recently pointing out that in the poem Every Man Has a Name (in Hebrew) the last three lines are three words, then two, then one, as it describes the final name of man, in death.

I keep wanting to eat and having to remind myself that I have a general check-up tomorrow and so shouldn't eat. I don't know if it would have helped, but I would have liked it if they called to remind me (or just even told me about the not eating when I made the appointment weeks ago).

I just read this in the Kol Menachem Haggadah:

What is the meaning of the hagaddah citing the pasuk which says that the mitzrim "acted in an evil way to us - vayarei'u otanu hamitzrim" and then add as a proof that "they conspired against us - hava nitchakmah lo?"

1. Orchot Chayim says that the true meaning here is that the Egyptians perceived us as bad and therefore plotted against us.

2. In a similar vein, the Shlah says that the true meaning here is that the Egyptians made us bad, in order to influence us negatively they had to act cunningly.

3. Likutei Ta'amim U'minhagim looks at it from a different angle, saying that schemed and came up with ways to not simply treat us badly but to hurt us in any way they could.

I was recently told, "You are not a light person,"and then asked, "Were you always this way?" I answered by recalling a game that my friend Glenn Kaye and I used to play in third grade. We called it spotlighting. The challenge was to follow and copy someone until caught. I think that's a yes.

A young teacher I recently met at a meal informed me that Bronx Science is a school for gifted students. Glenn went there. But he never told me that it was for gifted kids. Another friend of mine went there and also never used that appellation. I wonder if this educator was implying that if the students are gifted kal vechomer the teachers?

Sometimes I enter and buy into the thinking of others even when I know it not to be reality. This leads to discomfort. It takes confidence bordering on bravery to stand up for and trust our own thinking. It's worth it even if in some ways it leaves us standing alone.

Good night and G-d bless

I guess there are better words

but none I prefer

My Day So Far

1:30 PM Any minute now a student is coming for about our tenth meeting of learning Pirkei Avot together lishmah. Priceless. A member of our school's kollel gave a guest shiur to one of my tenth grade classes today. His focus was relationships and no-one seemed to remember that that was the focus of the talk they heard yesterday. A colleague just vented to me about how she's only nice to her offspring and yet they say they can't come to her for a meal on yom tov, but then it turns out that they're going to a meal with someone else. I sigh on her behalf.

A student is meeting with me later today. Her question: if one person is a kind and moral and wonderful person and another person does not seem to be any of those things, but the latter is "religious" and the former is "not religious" who is "better?" Also, if two people are both doing good and moral things but one is religious and one is not, what's the difference between them.

Another student should be coming soon to discuss her seventy something.

Another student and I have been trying to meet for a while about life, the universe, and everything. Hopefully we'll meet today pre-Pesach.

The Pirkei Avot tzadik is on his way. yay!

4:04 Meeting in moments with a student. Generally we work on davening, today we're talking about Pesach. I told him that its frustrating but if we hold on a little bit longer we'll see full redemption. He said, "I doubt that." Sigh.

4:38 Taught 5 periods today and did four periods of Torah Guidance. Number four is starting now!

5:15 Just had a great talk with a sensitive soul about G-d and and and.

Last night I ate the first tamarind of my life. And it was good.

Bell's about to ring

Eating candy with the boys

Time to say Kaddish

There's No Such Thing As A Free Association

Torah thoughts mixed with tangible have plans rush through my head as I free associate here for what feels like the first time in ages.

Rav Noach Weinberg once said in a shmooze that the Zohar says that if you do a mitzvah and tell someone then you lose the mitzvah. The idea is that a mitzvah is meant to be an intimate bond between you and G-d. What could beat that? If someone has an urge to tell someone else what he's done then he seeks reward in that recognition from another person. And, perhaps, G-d says that if that's the reward you want then that'll be what you get. I think of this often as I do good things. Do I want my boss to know? Should I tell him. Colleagues? Neighbors? Friends? I think good deeds are meant to be kept between us and G-d. On the other hand a dear friend of mine was told by a colleague that Chazal teach that if you do something good you should make others aware of it.

Amos 8:11 states, "The days are coming," declares Hashem, "when I will send a famine through the land; not a famine of food or a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of Hashem." This line has been put to music many times. Debates abound about what it means. Is it saying that people will finally start listening to the word of G-d, does it mean that when they're ready people won't be able to find the word of G-d? The Brisker Rav explained this based on personal experience. he lived through famine and recalled being happy if he could find potato peels to eat. During a famine people are satisfied with scraps. He said that this pasuk is predicting a sad time in Jewish life, a time when in regard to Torah people will be satiated with small amounts. Rather than wanting to learn texts for themselves and see what is Torah law and what is rabbinic or custom, what makes sense and what doesn't, people will be satisfied to ask for The Answer or just read it in a book. Sad. I've been thinking about this a lot lately. I want to want to know truth of Torah and not just ask or read simple answers. This has come up in the aveilut process.

Had five classes today, two of them were an assembly.

Rabbi Benzion Klatzko (who runs See You on Shabbos: Helping People Find Their Challah) spoke about how he views Judaism not a religion but a relationship. I'm down with that, as the kids once said. He said that Judaism is framed as a relationship hundreds of times in the Torah. He gave the example of Shir HaShirim. I'd love to hear or see the list of the hundreds of times.

Had five classes and two Torah Guidance appointments. Spoke about religion and poetry and life and and and. Yesterday I spoke to kids about religious observance head on, a questionable venture. The Junior recommendations are pouring in. Tests and work to grade. Pesach is coming. Met a friend in the city tonight. Ate sushi. Played Mad Dash. Bought the Torat Menachem Haggadah. Bought Dani Shapiro's Devotion. I can't expect it to be as riveting as Slow Motion. And yet, a guy can hope. A guy must hope. I bought a bag full of frogs that you push down on springs and suction cups and they jump.

Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz writes, "We human beings are amphibians. We are not like frogs, but we are amphibians. We live in two worlds, the material and the spiritual, and sometimes on the borderline between them..." - Simple Words, page 53.

Soon Pesach. For the first time in ten years I will not be working like a (happy) dog, running seders and minyans and presenting shiurim for 150 guests on the history of humor in Judaism, and on Living Wills. The seder will not end at 12, and will not include me running around the room and standing on chairs to say kiddush and sing. I won't run a workshop in comedy/improv and I won't host two competitive and prize filled trivia competitions. I won't be counselling the seniors. I won't speak at Yizkor about the dear people who came and went during my tenure. I won't be wishing my family would visit me in the retreat center and tell me they are proud of me. I won't be emceeing the talent show on the last night.

Today a student gifted me with a beautiful hagaddah: The Katz Hagaddah: The Art of Faith and Redemption. Tomorrow I'll do hagaddah with my classes and present them with the hagaddah I wrote.

May I be blessed to navigate my two worlds wisely, and may I value my relationship to G-d enough to keep my yapper shut when I do good.

Passover is near

Redemption growing on trees

Good night and G-d bless

Scrabble With Mom - Motzai Shabbos Kodesh, Parshat Ki Tavo - 5779

These are the score sheets from my last Scrabble game with mom, September 6, 2009, the last Shabbos before school/work. I don't recall if we played for two and a half or three and a half hours. Though I think many people would not enjoy Scrabble at that pace, we had a good time. It was that night that mom told me that I was a gem. Thanks. On Thanksgiving week-end, my first non-Jewish holiday related school break, we watched a video instead of playing a game like Scrabble or Bananagrams (which I introduced mom to once, but she didn't take to it). After the film I said something about it being nice spending time. Mom said that she didn't understand how people called sitting and staring at a screen for two hours spending time together, when there was no laughing, talking, etc. Good point. Scrabble was richer than Ghost Town - a movie about people dying and returning in spirit due to unfinished business left behind - the last movie we watched together.

"Why are there only four questions when I have so many more?" - Guest Post By Jordana Horn

I'm sure no one will be surprised when I tell you that Z and R, your two favorite boys under 7, are pretty pumped for Passover.

The Four Questions (actually only one question, but I digress) are a cornerstone of the seder festival meal, in which the youngest present asks, "Why is this night different from all other nights?" It's meant as a jumping-off point for discussion about why we do the things we do, all of which is meant to trigger a sense of immediacy and personal relevance. We are all supposed to think about what we are doing, and to feel as if we are the ones who were freed from slavery -- to feel, in short, that this is our story.

Anyone who has little kids knows that they ask far more than four questions on a daily basis. I think my kids have been asking some good ones, and wanted to share them. Please feel free to comment, answer or to add your own to the mix.

1) "Did the plagues only happen to the bad Egyptians, or to all the Egyptians, even the Egyptian kids? Because slavery wasn't kids' fault."
2) "If people stay slaves then that means they have no choices...but if they didn't run away, doesn't that mean they chose to stay slaves?"
3) "Are the Four Sons real people?"
4) "Why are there funny songs about the plagues even though they were really bad?"
5)"When there is an earthquake in Haiti, is that a plague?"
6) "Why did God make bad people like Pharaoh at all?"
7) "Did God harden Pharaoh's heart with the plagues, or did he harden his own heart?"
8) "Did God know that Pharaoh's heart was going to be hardened? Or did he think the plagues would soften Pharaoh's heart and so God made a mistake?
9)"When Moses got the Torah, did that mean he turned into a rabbi?"
10) "Did Moses have to teach the Torah to other people or did they know how to read?"
11) "If all who are hungry are supposed to come and eat, who is supposed to cook?"
12) "Why are there only four questions when I have so many more?"

Five Years Ago In August

Fate called me back to this poem about faith. It's been said that as there's a mitzvah to believe in G-d, there's also a mitzvah to believe in yourself.

And then I "chanced" upon this post about a movie I saw called King of the Corner.

Recently, the thought passed through my head that if I wanted a lot more hits I could change the name of my blog to Renegade Rebbetzin.

And from around the same time as the above posts, one that evokes an era that quickly became old, replaced by tweets and texts, the era of the bloggers. Nineteen comments. But is that what I want. In truth, I think not.

This is the scan of the print/lithograph
that I bought of Ginette Racette's
Rue Saint Paul, Quebec

One of the prints I bought was of Carole Rowan. l''

It was a similar one to this:;

;Verbena, lavender, mint, tarragon, chamomile,

and oregano labeled in a row of flower pots

Morning, Meah Shearim, 1983

And then there's this painting,

also by Itzhak Holtz,

(click for artist bio)

which I don't like quite as much

as the one of the post below this one.

I was reminded of this painting

by my dear friend and congregant

the great artist Itzhak Holtz (HSLABW)

From Stumbleupon.com

"Seven Blunders of the World"

1. Wealth without work

2. Pleasure without conscience

3. Knowledge without character

4. Commerce without morality

5. Science without humanity

6. Worship without sacrifice

7. Politics without principle

—Mahatma Gandhi

Quebec City

This is a painting of Old Quebec

by an artist from Quebec.

I thought of buying a print of it,

but they only had it in a large size.

I bought another lithograph

by the same artist

and took photo of this one.

Going down the ice slide at the ice hotel

At the Ice Hotel

At the dog-sledding place

The brains behind this program,

may he be blessed with health and nachas

In Old Quebec

At a waterfall in Quebec

I discovered my room's balcony and view while packing out

I'm back from Quebec City. Pictured above is me in an ice hotel, which is what they call hotels made of ice. Good night and G-d bless. More to follow. Maybe.

Almost Shabbos

I have a headache, hopefully Shabbos will take it away. I want to thank the friends and family, as well as lurkers who visit here to read what`s going on in my external and internal life. I am grateful to G-d for this space. I want to wish everyone well in general and in particular a Shabbat which enhances our shalom.

We went to a waterfall today and then a mall. I shared my thoughts on Vayikra with a colleague. I want to speak about us trying to be people, that that`s what being spiritual - at entry level - is about. That`s the symbolism behind sacrifices, that we are not animals. This is hinted to by the use of the word "Adam" for man. We are correcting the mistake of the first man, thinking people are like animals (this mistake has been made over, including at the time of the sin of the golden calf). That`s based on Rabbi Yitzchak Twersky.

Rav Zevin points out that the phrasing of the Torah`s introduction to korbanot does not translate to mean that a man from our midst sacrifices, rather it reads that we must sacrifice from our midst. The idea is that we have to devote out lives to G-d from deep inside.

A korban does not translate to mean sacrifice, it means an action toward increasing closeness. We are told by Dovid Hamelech that the only good he ever knew was closeness to G-d. Also, he advised that we `"taste and see that G-d is good." We can`t simply look and see, we need to experience G-d. When it comes to the deepest of the deep only after tasting does seeing follow.

It`s not

about space

proximity

touching

f

In truth

you taste it

kirvah

closeness

In Vivo Vayikra / Oh, Canada Continued (Click For Link)

I am thinking about Vayikra. If you had ten minutes to talk about Vayikra, what would you say? Consider that while you were pondering the parsha there was also the possibility that your group were in a hotel in Canada and there was turbulence. Tension; Who needs it? Sigh.

I am thinking of a favorite story.

Two friends make a deal, the one that dies first will tell the other about it. One dies and visits the other in a dream, asking, "How`s life?" The living man replies that life is good and asks his friend, "How`s death?" The man who died says, "Great. I eat whenever I want. I sleep whenever I want. And I fulfill every physical desire whenever I want.¨ The other friend says, "I never would have guessed, you died and went to heaven!" The other responds, "No. I was reincarnated. I`m a cow in Kansas."

Entry level spirituality is the recognition that we are humans, like Adam, not animals. The meaning of sacrifices to G-d is to reenforce our humanity. May we be so blessed to accept this crown.

Oh, Canada

We just returned from bowling. It`s been non stop here on the Junior trip. It`s late Thursday night, but I have to think about it. I`ve kind of lost track of time. We left on bus at about two in the afternoon on Wednesday, arrived here in Quebec at around three in the morning today...

I think of Rabbi Yitzchak Twerski`s signature thought as his approach to the eating of the tree of knowledge - the eitz ha`da`at in Breishit. I`ll be speaking, please G-d, on Shabbos morning and hope to talk about his take on Vayikra.

The medrash says that when the Torah states "Adam ki yakriv mikem," it is refering to Adam, the first man. Offering a korban is a tikkun for that mistake. We give (so to speak) G-d food, instead of taking it inappropriately...

I must run, the hotel is over nervous about the kids and noise and and and.

GNAGB

Keneged Arbah Banim

Complimentary copies of Jewish Action were sitting on a counter outside the sanctuary of the Young Israel of Windsor Park, the shul I davened in on Shabbos. I read through it and I was reminded of an idea about the four sons that I'd taken a liking to years ago:

It has been suggested that the four sons of the Haggadah parallel four generations, four trajectories of Jewish exile. The chacham represents the old school piety of the first generation. The rashah is strikingly similar to the rebellious sons who reject their father’s Judaism with the rhetorical question “what is all this ritual of yours?” That generation eases into the disinterested, isolated tam generation. And then there’s the oblivious generation that doesn’t know how to ask - the she'eino yodeiah lish'ol. Rabbi Shlomo Riskin adds that today there is the fifth son who sadly does not attend the seder at all.

And I learned a new thought that I'd never heard before:

Isaac Steven Herschkopf writes that the four sons represent the development of one person, in backwards order. First a person is an infant, inarticulate, unable to ask. The next stage is childhood, when one is simple and unready to confront sophisticated questions. Then comes the rebellious time of adolescence. Finally, through welcome questioning one comes to embrace the wisdom of tradition.

Besides this wise symbolic interpretation of the four sons, in the same piece, Herschkopf contrasts his present day seder with the one his parents hosted when he was a kid in the sixties: "We invite best-selling authors, Michelin chefs, famous actors, sports celebrities, rock stars, et al. My parents invited the Peshevorskys." He didn't like the Peshevorskys because Mr. P. "looked odd," the couple "dressed poorly," and "they were both tiny."

Dr. Herschkopf told his children about this odd couple that his parents used to have over annually and his children asked about it. Upon hearing his children ask why his parents included the Peshevorskys in their seder he experienced an epiphany and realized the answer that alluded him for so long. Those people were broken Holocaust survivors with no children and no Seder to call their own. So his parents had them over.

He suddenly understood, when comparing his family Seder today with the one his parents made a lifetime ago "that their Seder guests were far more impressive than our own." And he reached a mathematical conclusion, similar but different to that of Rabbi Riskin: "In retrospect, there was a fifth son at our Seders in Washington Heights. He was neither wise nor wicked. He was, ironically enough, stupid. I see his shame when I look in the mirror."

I've been familiar with the first thought, as applied to American Jewry for some time. The Old World Jews met up against their children growing up in The Sixties. Then came the passive Seventies, the ignorant Eighties and on. And then came the time of assimilation and disconnect, beyond ignorance.

I look forward to processing and integrating the idea of the four sons matching four stages of development, which I found striking and new. As for Herschkopf's reminiscences and realizations I am fascinated, enlightened, and inspired.

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My Zelda

Zelda, give me strength
to combine heaven and earth
Today, every day

GNAGB #227

Good night and G-d bless

me alone here, all alone

save for you, dear G-d.

Brother Michael, Auntie Gin

What's it called if someone fires a gun at you in shul and you fire back? Give up? Chazarat HaShatz.
o
In different minyans I frequent I am fast or slow, not just as chazan but as a simple davener. In one minyan I attend sometimes when it comes to long tachanun I need to put my head down for regular tachanun at the start of the long part to finish with the tzibur. Then there are tzibburs where I'm at the other end of the curve. Recently, in a yeshivish minyan I finished my Shmoneh Esrei (which in some places is one of the last ones to be done) and then wrote this:
[

I'm a Jewy Jew

I'm waiting a weighty wait

Chazarat HaShotz
l

Two friends recently asked me to pray for them, one big time, and the other said casually in parting, "Say a little prayer for me." That got me thinking of a song, which I thought was called Say A Little Prayer For Me, but it's actually called Dream A Little Dream of Me.
l

I don't know the complete lyrics to any song, even my favorites. I make them up, fill them in, it works. Though it's way off, this tune, to me has always been about asking someone to pray for me before sleep. When I was heading to mincha and a friend asked for a little prayer, I wrote this:
]

"Say a prayer for me"
And my head plays that old song
"Say a little prayer..."
]

Maybe my confusion has something to do with the song I Say A Little Prayer, but that would only be in title. The songs are not similar. I don't care for this one at all, while I find Dream A Little Dream's tune to be hauntingly beautiful (first cousin to magically delicious). (I love free associating to pop culture. On Shabbos someone asked me "What's the word?" I verbalized the first reply that came to my head, "Johanesberg." The asker didn't get it and when I explained he critiqued in a miffed manner that it was quite random.)

]

I see that Glee redid I Say A Little Prayer. That means the high school students I teach know the song. Remakes bridge the generation gap. They know Don't Stop Believing because it was on the premiere of Glee. I've been teaching long enough that there are things that they once knew due to remakes, but now the remakes are old - like Bohemian Rhapsody. Sigh. That reminds me of the Billy Crystal line, "My daughter asked me - 'Is it true that Paul McCartney was in a group before Wings?'" Truth be told, Wings are long forgotten but kids today still know the Beatles. How did Let 'Em In become a hit? Jimmy Walker (my mother - OBM - once told me that in a TV interview, when asked who he thought was the funniest person out there. J.J. replied that it was a kid he knew back in elementary school) had a routine in which he said, "Someone's knockin' at the door, do me a favor, open the door and let 'em in" countless times in his life. He found it unfair that McCartney made millions of those words and he didn't. I suspect that wasn't the only thing Jimmy Walker found unfair in this world. Did you know that they did camera tricks to look skinnier and taller on Good Times? That's what my dear friend Matt Okin tells me. My uncle and Jimmy were in the same scene for the same amount of time in "Airplane!" but Jimmy got paid more. I think that's unfair. (By the way, true confession - I liked and still like Let 'Em In, finding it pleasant and enjoyable.)

o

When I was a kid, my father, HSLABW, would lie down with me before we went to sleep. It was one of many moments of quality time we shared. We had a shared catchphrase, I'd say "I'm glad you're my dad," and he'd reply, "I'm glad you're my lad." Or sometimes he started and I responded, but that wasn't pre-sleep. Right before I headed toward sleep sleep (it was an indirect flight, first I'd host my own TV show by making shadows on the wall via Bill and Anne Goldstein's bright side door light next door) we'd chat about my day and then together say Shma. We'd recite it in the Hebrew and then I'd conclude with asking G-d to "bless mommy and daddy and all the people I love." That came to mind the other night as sleep was grabbing at me and with waning strength I wrote a haiku all about the memory.

o

Good night and G-d bless
mommy and daddy and all
the people I love

Boker Ohr

I walked through the drizzle and waited for my ride. I called JZ for back up. Then I called the emergency line. I'm getting a little tired of work being called off due to weather. This shocks me as much as you.

I'm going to minyan at 8:00 across the street instead of at 7:45 across the Hudson. It's hard to explain but this means that I'm going to Shul later; there's a kind of time warp at play. I'm starting this post in the early morn, but expect to post more later, as always - with the support of G-d.

Some people tell me that their bosses sincerely say not to take work home. My job is built on taking work home, or so it seems to me and most everyone I work with. Today I will continue to make headway in some of the test marking and lesson planning that I was working on over the weekend.

The day lies open

Like a miniature life

An early rebirth