Different Slants

Part Eight (the final part): 

What went wrong, and then right…at Sarah’s Bat Mitzvah; My undelivered toast and the eerie and unexplainable 1958 incident.   

About a week before Sarah’s Bat Mitzvah party, I asked her to see if she could find a CD she could borrow from the temple’s library that played the traditional Jewish celebratory song, Hava Nagila.  When people have weddings, Bar or Bat Mitzvah’s or any significant Jewish or Israeli celebration or party, this is the song that’s always played, and then the people joyously dance to a folk dance called the Hora. 

The Hora usually involves a large outer circle with everyone holding hands and dancing in a clockwise direction.  Then, inside of that circle is another one, going in the other direction, usually with the married couple or the person being honored in the inner circle.  The music is played loudly and raucously as the circles spin faster and faster, with more and more people joining in as people overcome their shyness.  The song goes on for a long time, or until everyone passes out. 

I’m not much of a dancer, but this is one I never miss.  Or that was until, at my middle daughter Rachel’s wedding in December, 2008, it went on for too long, and too fast, twisting back and forth as the dance requires until my knee blew out and I wore a brace on my leg for about a month after that.  But man…it was a great wedding! 

So, the point is, this extremely frugal Bat Mitzvah had no band and no slick DJ.  I figured we could use the temple’s sound system and existing equipment to play dance music for the kids in general and Hava Nagila for the Hora, in particular.  It mattered to me. 

At this point in the American Jewish Diaspora, there are probably more Christians, and even Moslems, too, that have been to so many family celebrations over the last one hundred years, that there are now collectively more of them who know about this dance, than the total number of Jews in this country. 

(Read on …)

When the senior doctor (and the fourth person) finally had the opportunity to read my x-ray results and came in to discuss things with me, he informed me that I had two broken ribs.  He seemed incredulous, having heard from the earlier doctors how much pain I was experiencing, and no sleep, and then he asked me, with that exasperated tone people reserve especially for idiots, 

“Why did you wait a week to come to the hospital?  You might have had a punctured lung, or worse.” 

I thought to myself about how much work I still had remaining to do, those last three days I had to empty out my store.  I had deliberately left the hardest task for last, because I didn’t want to do it at all.  Disassembling a ten foot wide, eight foot tall rack, that only used ten square feet of floor space but held, incredibly, four thousand copies of Life Magazine from the Sixties.  I was proud of how well I’d used the limited storage space, and how durable the rack was, but never dreamed that one day I’d have to remove it.    

But to make that storage capability possible, I used two inch thick shelves, many steel brackets and a bracing buttress to keep the whole wall of Lifes from falling on the steel shelving two feet away from it.  It was very hard to build and, even if I felt fine, it still would have been very strenuous to take apart.  But I didn’t feel anywhere near “fine” and it took me two hours to salvage all that wood, instead of about thirty minutes.  I ended up drenched and exhausted. 

I thought about the thousands of pounds of lumber I had to load into trucks those last days, aided by several people who volunteered to help me do what I couldn’t do alone.  One of them, interestingly, was the president of my synagogue, evidently a hands-on guy, Mike Rosen, who spent long hours sliding the twelve to sixteen foot long shelves into the truck while I did my best to stack and sort them for unloading while staying inside of the truck. This was the morning after the accident.  It hurt to stand and it hurt to breathe.  But I had so much hard work to do.

I was still unaware of my broken ribs, but Mike could see how much difficulty I was having carrying the long planks to the truck, so he suggested that he do that part while I sort the planks by size, and not have to lift so much.  I looked at the guy, an executive who travels the world for a national company, and whom I assumed lifted nothing heavier than a laptop and a cup of coffee while flying over the continent.  He was only a bit younger than I was, so I told him my concern was that he might have a heart attack from the sudden increase in work, and I wasn’t kidding.  People do what they do, and I didn’t want someone to die while helping me. 

(Read on …)

The ceremony, falling off the ladder, and the hospital incident, but not in that order   

Part Six 

The actual religious ceremony, which Sarah shared with another boy, went flawlessly. 

The temple’s longtime rabbi, Jonathan Magidovitch, provided a comfortable setting that made the event both special for two participants and less tense for them as well.  Although he has done this probably hundreds of times, he nevertheless makes it seems fresh each time he addresses the child and blesses them.  I know he set Sarah at ease, to the limited extent that can be done as one hundred people were watching her, with half of them Christian relatives who couldn’t read Hebrew nor were familiar with the temple’s patterns and customs. 

Sarah was also assisted in her chanting the ancient melodies of the Hebrew prayers by the temple’s beautiful cantor, Lynda Dresher, who has a soaring voice and, initially, was a major reason I joined the temple in the first place.  When I was a child, there were no female cantors or rabbis either, so this, to me, is real progress in both equality and the quality of a religious experience.  With three daughters, I want no barriers to them. 

Sarah’s speech was an important part of the event, where she thanks people who have helped her to get to where she was, at the podium, but also to make a declaration of faith and how Judaism mattered in her life.  Not so easy to write at thirteen, but her speech was flawless and flawlessly delivered.  Many people said so to Joyce and me later on at the party. 

While our synagogue has many interfaith marriages, this was the first joint Bar/Bat Mitzvah I’d ever been to where BOTH of the children were blondes.  The concept of somebody supposedly”looking Jewish” may soon have no meaning.  Still, there was a degree of culture shock for me, being the grandchild of exclusively dark brown eyed, dark brown haired Yiddish-speaking Eastern European immigrants. 

 But I thought Sarah’s Bat Mitzvah in particular rather pushed the envelope on interfaith family events. 

Without too much elaboration, this is who participated: Besides Joy and I, and her sisters, Rachel and Lisa, and later David, all Jewish, Sarah’s grandmother Helen Bishop was there (her actual father’s mother) and she’s proudly Lutheran.  Joy or I drive her to her church on Sundays.  Her grandfather, Robert Coffin (her actual mother’s father), is Swedenborgian, people who follow the teachings of Emanuel Swedenborgen (1688-1772) Swedish founder of the Church of the New Jerusalem.  This is a rare case where there are less of his followers in the United States than there are Jews, not that it’s a contest or anything.  

Her (other) handsome older brothers were part of the ceremony, too.  William Nelson, 17 and Robert Nelson, 15, both Catholic, were there with their adoptive mother, Judy, whom Joy and I view as a sister to us and Sarah sees as an aunt.  Actually, it’s not all that confusing to any of us.  Religion has never seemed to be an obstacle to love, in any of our families.  Sarah had also been to Will and Robert’s Communions and nobody tries to convert anyone to anything else.  It’s confusing enough as it is. 

Lastly, and frankly, the most fascinating to me, was (Aunt) Sarah’s new baby niece, Natalia.  This beautiful child, with dark brown eyes and dark brown hair, is the seemingly unique combination of the following countries and peoples: English, German, Lithuanian, Polish, Byelorussian, Norwegian, Danish, Northern Ireland, Native American (Ottawa, Ohio and Ojibwa Tribes) Mexican and best of all, Basque!  And Jewish. 

I can’t wait until someday, someone says to her, on a playground:  

“Hey, Talia!  So…where’s your family from…?” 

All of these wonderful moments occurred on Saturday afternoon, September 12^th 2009. 

(Read on …)

So, all the volunteers gathered, and started putting all the pieces together.

I schlepped all the food from home. Rana and Bruce, Dana Kruger, a grown-up childhood friend of Sarah’s older sister Rachel, was there, too.  Donna was commandeering the kitchen, doing six things at once.  Joy was setting tables and others were blowing up balloons with helium and making little table decorations in Sarah’s colors.

I did whatever I was told to do.  Bruce brought in the cake.  A man’s job.  All the place settings were distributed, carefully, making sure that family members who couldn’t stand each other weren’t sitting at the same table.  Then there was the Republican table and the Democrat table, and so on.  Complicated.

As we left the party room, Donna pulled me aside in the kitchen.  I didn’t resist.

She informed me that she wasn’t accepting any payment for her work at the party.  I was stunned at this news, and immediately protested that she was wonderful to make the offer, but she had worked so hard and deserved to be paid.  Besides, I told her, I already had the money ready for her.

But she brushed all that aside with a gesture of her hand and this “Don’t you get it?” look on her lovely face, saying,

“I believe in karma—what comes around, goes around.  Besides”, she continued, “you’re out of work now and I’m not.  Ya know you’re gonna need it.”

Not willing to let her do this to herself, I persisted and told her I really wanted to pay her for making the party possible because there was no one else who could have done what she did for us.

Donna is Italian and Catholic, or is it the other way around?  She fixed me with this This-Discussion-Is-Over look in her dark eyes and said in that unmistakable Italian way,

“Don’t worry about it.  Enjoy your party.”

I did as I was told.  One thing I’ve learned is not to argue with a determined woman, Italian or not.

Catching up to Joyce who was going into the temple’s sanctuary for Sarah’s Bat Mitzvah ceremony, I said nothing about it, but, feeling a little disoriented by my unexpected moment with Donna, I thought to myself,

Where do people like that come from?

But, her tribe increased.

A week earlier, Sarah’s older brother David had filmed her riding a horse she liked very much at a place where she worked, periodically, taking care of other people’s horses.  This came about in a spontaneous way, when the person (whom I am electing not to identify) who gave the riding lessons, was somehow able to figure out that Sarah was not just another rich kid from Barrington or Lake Forest.  I found out about this person, and this situation, after the fact.

(Read on …)

 Part 4

We went to our giant local discount food source, Costco Market, and bought sixty chicken breasts, for the adult guests, and some vegetables.  $100.00.

Then we went to a party supply center and bought pink, red and black paper and plastic plates, cups, balloons, napkins and boxes of assorted plastic forks, spoons and knives for our estimated seventy adults and thirty children.  And a bubble gum pink, portable, disposable helium balloon-inflator.  Another $150.00. 

We ordered a cake we estimated was big enough—although only a single layer—from our local bakery.  A red velvet cake with a large full-color horse on it, because Sarah, our Calamity Jane, loves horses.  $110.00. 

Our avant-garde filmmaking son, David, Sarah’s thirty-year old brother, agreed to bring two of his break dancing friends as unconventional entertainment, mostly for Sarah’s friends who won’t expect it.  $100.00. 

There was a sale at Walgreen’s on Coke’s two-liter bottles. Four for $5.00.  We bought twenty for $20.00. 

Sarah’s older sister, Rachel, sixteen years older, took Sarah to buy a special dress with her own money. 

Sarah’s other older sister, never mind, Lisa, whose new baby Natalia makes Sarah Aunt Sarah (and who also makes Joy and I grandparents) had Sarah’s ears pierced and bought her beautiful earrings.   

Joy’s sister Gail’s daughter Erika brought a large fruit bowl for dessert. 

I was the photographer.  I actually am a photographer, but that’s not the point.  I’m not for hire. 

(Read on …)

Part Three

 I stood up and walked over to a table.  There were some blank white sheets of fax paper scattered across the surface, and then I saw a black marking pen.  I quickly wrote down three lines each on two of the sheets:

                                             MONSTER                                                      ALL

                                             POSTER                                                         $10.00

                                         BLOWOUT!!!                                                  EACH!!!

Grabbing the 8 and ½ x 11 sheets, I raced out the door to a copy center one mile away.  For nine dollars each, I could blow up the crude handwritten signs to three feet by five feet, big enough to seen by all of those cars racing by my windows, day after day. 

I counted the cash in my pocket.  

Forty bucks. 

I told the cute clerk,

“Make two of each sign, maximum length and width.”

 Ten minutes later and thirty-six dollars lighter, I raced back to the store, turned on all the lights and climbed into each dusty window. Standing on a couple of plastic milk crates, I taped one set of my two signs as high as I could to the top of the western windows so they can be seen of the tops of any cars that might be parked in front of my store.  Then I did the same on the eastern windows.

 Lastly, I plugged in and turned on the dusty, flickering orange “OPEN” sign…and then tied open both glass doors so the world could storm in.

 And I waited.

 And I waited.

(Read on …)