Birthday Favorites

I'm an Aries.  My birthday sometimes falls during Pesach, sometimes after, virtually never before.  Whatever the food limitations, some adaptation takes place.  My wife makes a special dinner, or sometimes I do.  This year, it falls after Pesach and on a Sunday, with very few competing obligations.  Table still set from shabbos.  I washed all the shabbos dinner dishes, not brought all the fleishig appliances upstairs from their Pesach storage in the basement.  I think I will make my own couples dinner this year.  For a milestone birthday.

First, milchig or fleishig?  Each has advantages and disadvantages.  I bought a slice of salmon for Pesach, but did not use it.  Even frozen, it can still be poached.   Milchig expands the options of birthday cake.

Instead, though, I opted for a meal of my personal favorites.  Always start with the centerpiece.  Briskets and steaks become available at Trader Joe's for Pesach.  Good Stuff.  Before Pesach, I bought a Kosher for Passover salami, a bullet salami that I've not seen in a kosher deli case for years.  What I do not have is pastrami.  That would have made the main dish.  I think I will go to TJ, see what beef did not sell out during Pesach and then decide.  If both remain, I could get a steak for the birthday and a brisket for later when we host dinner guests.

What goes with it?  I like knishes.  Also kasha varnishkes, tzimmes, shlishkes, glazed carrots, leczo, roasted beets. All the things I need to make these sit in my fridge or pantry, overpurchased from Super G produce prior to the Festival.  I think I'll go with shlishkes.  They are of Hungarian origin, one of my maternal grandmother's specialties.  Not very hard to make.  Boil a potato, chill it, mash, add flour and an egg and knead, then chill some more.  Roll it out, cut into bite size cylinders, boil, dry, then pan fry gently with matzah meal in olive oil.  

As much as I like leczo, and have ample unused bell peppers, it is hard to limit the quantity for a couple's dinner.  Though maybe I have a small can of diced tomatoes.  Glazed carrots have the advantage of ease.  They also have a sweetness that will serve the other ingredients.  Tzimmes is a variant on this, but making sweet potato and mashed white potato at the same meal seems problematic.

Pareve cakes.  I made nut torte for Pesach and don't have enough nuts left over.  Don't have pareve strudel dough or enough apples.  Don't have phyllo, and baklava seems too painstaking, though maybe I could buy some.  Instead, I mostly have what I need for fluden and for stuffed monkey, with dates that I have replacing candied peel that I don't.have.  My fluden had never come out well, but it is easier to make than stuffed monkey.  Passover cakes go on clearance.  They are not my favorites.  And while I like apple cake and honey cake, I eat them often enough that they have become less special.

There are soups.  Chicken soup with matzah balls have become universal favorites.  Same with mushroom barley soup.  Or I have herring that can be served as a starter.  I don't want to boil a frozen gefilte log.  That goes better with shabbos.  And I have falafel mix, but save that for another time.  They are among my favorites, though.

And salad.  I bought greens, bell peppers, celery.  Tomatoes need to be replaced as they spoiled before eating.

Wine has accumulated in excess.  White and red.  Put a bottle of white in refrigerator, separated a bottle of red, which may be preferable with beef.

Much of this effort involves choices, organization, less imagination if my starting point is established favorites.  Joy comes later, at a table, with my wife, maybe with phone calls from my kids.  Effort enhances enjoyment.  None seems overly taxing, appropriate to my advancing age.

And when all done, a Happy Birthday to Me.

Wrong Impressions

Attendance at synagogue during Pesach often does not seem a priority.  After the effort of Spring Cleaning, menus, invitations, shopping, exchanging dishes, and pulling off an elaborate festive Seder, many feel over-extended.  Services need to take place.  People get assigned portions to perform, forcing them to appear.  Many others, myself among them, judge the schlep to shul and the hours that people can redirect to cleanup or chilling as anti-climactic.  I stayed home the first festival day, attended Chabad instead on my own shul the second as I allocate that day to them, and to my own congregation for Shabbos.  Some registered as obligation to support those with bimah activity, but not enthusiastic affirmation to seek out my favorite people who will also attend.  Few people appear, often one male or two on either side of the required ten.

As we move five years past the pandemic, which took much American worship online, a few residual outcomes remain.  Many people who regularly attended their place of worship lost the obligation to show up.  People sampled other churches online, or now by streaming.  They could partake of places not available to them in person, megachurches, places with celebrity clergy, resources that bridge spirituality with entertainment.  Judaism has its parallel options, which I sampled generously for myself this Pesach.  The experience generated a lot of practical lessons, some a better understanding of me, some a different perspective of what Jewish worship could be, and some limitations, even false impressions, that watching another place's pews on a screen can impose.

To stream a synagogue service live requires a few things.  It excludes Orthodox congregations who judge Sabbath and Festival broadcasting to be a violation of Jewish Law.  Mine does not simulcast, either by Zoom or public streaming, for this reason.  That leaves primarily Conservative and Reform synagogues to do this, with a few Messianics thrown in for the very curious to partake of all that might exist.  Since these sanctuaries become exposed to anyone with YouTube access, the congregations that opt to do this are places that can display a flawless product.  Professional video, articulate Rabbi, lyrical Cantor.  In effect, places with the financial and talent resources to do this.  As a consequence, my streaming brought me to two Jewish cathedrals on Manhattan, parts of a lesser one on Manhattan, one near the UCLA campus made convenient to me by a time zone difference, another in an upscale suburb of LA where stars and moguls buy mansions, and a much more modest synagogue, though impeccably appointed in Florida, though not a place that screams We Have Money as loudly as the others did.

Jewish wealth has to be taken into context.  Some sage applicable advice came my way indirectly.  As a young careerist, mid-1970s, I read John C. Molloy's best-seller, Dress for Success.  Not really needing a corporate, expensive wardrobe as a young professional, I sought out basics at the time.  He recommended purchasing quality, which usually meant expensive.  The people who could promote you could tell the tailoring difference, even if I could not.  He understood that plunking down two weeks' pay on a suit would not be acceptable to folks like me.  Instead, he compromised on what to actually own, advice that got me through cars and homes and high end purchases of various types.  He advised looking at the best stuff.  Cadillacs, even if I would buy a Ford.  Identify features that the higher price allows, personal musts.  Those must appear in final purchase.  Other items that add to a high cost do not need duplication in the final purchase.  He called it shopping down.

As I watched three days, maybe ten services, of tony congregations, I found it easy to pick out what appealed to me, irrespective of whether my synagogue could duplicate this.  I also identified things about those places where my preference diverged from what I saw.  For better or worse, longstanding membership scripts people to look at their congregation as the assessment point.  My congregational experience has some predictability, most favorable, a few irritating.  Some worthy of learning from someplace else, others not.  

What I saw on the streamed services was a lot of hired talent.  My congregation depends on its own members davening, chanting, sometimes speaking.  The Rabbi does a few specialized things that others cannot.  My first service on screen began with a Torah reading.  Five volunteers read one festival aliyah each.  All proficient.  For short festival readings, our volunteers usually learn more than that, often the entire morning's reading.  The people receiving aliyot ascended to the Torah as families.  Couples with late teen daughters.  All seemed to know the names of their tailors and who they insist on styling their hair.  Not a single running shoe.  Men in suits that they would wear to their law offices or hedge funds.  Daughters who would have tennis lessons and summers at the finest camps that a family focused on Jewish affiliations could secure.  Not a single polyester white with blue stripes Conservative Bar Mitzvah tallis among them.  I did not resent this, nor did I admire this.  As social institutions, it has been places of worship have mingled people of different economic backgrounds, second only to universities.  I saw an ascendance of entitlement, one that offered me my own flashback.  As a young adult, I served as High Holy Day Torah reader.  Aliyot were sold as fundraisers, generally claimed by people like those I had just seen on TV.  As these men, and at the time they were all men even though egalitarianism was official policy,  these guys offered each other a generous handshake if not a hug.  I got two handshakes out of seven.  As I watched on the screen this workday morning, I could only assume that some nurses, school teachers, civil servants, also sat in the sanctuary.  But the camera captured Beautiful People in their finery approaching the open Torah scroll.  Because they ascended as families, their names were not announced, only their number in the morning's sequence of five.  Once done they returned to their seat.  

We get called up by name, blessed by name when done, and remain at the scroll until the person after us has completed his portion.  The LA congregation maintained the tradition.  It seems less processed.  The Reform congregation, among America's largest, reads Torah on Friday nights, as does the Reform congregation near my home that I periodically attend.  One Aliyah, often a fragment of an Aliyah.  This Erev Shabbat, they also had a Daughter naming.   

The other services seemed less starkly elite.  Indeed, at the Florida shul, men wore running shoes just like they do at my congregation.  The women wore simpler attire, purchased on Amazon or the Outlets.  Hair neatly combed but styled at home.  At the California synagogues, places in a different time zone that allowed me to watch their morning services in the afternoon, the ostentation seemed more in the worship environment than in the people worshiping.  All places can hire Rabbis experienced at public presentation.  All sermons thoughtful, but so are those at my shul, whether delived by our Rabbi or monthly by an assigned congregant.  We have more of a grass-roots culture, something I much prefer

I expect instrumental music at Reform Jewish worship.  Its foundiing in Germany, imported to America with the first large wave of Jewish immigration, adapted styles from Western Europe.  The much larger immigration of Eastern Europeans, my ancestors, numerically overwhelmed those of German heritage, so most American congregations adapted the traditions of Eastern Europe.  These prohibit instrumental music on Sabbath and Festivals.  To my surprise, all those I watched, except the Florida synagogue, had small bands playing multiple instruments.  Sometimes they accompanied the Cantor, sometimes they played music for its own sake.  At some point, the leader strummed a guitar.  The LA congregation engaged a professional choir, maybe five or six voices, sitting in a corner, adjacent to the instrumentalists.

Despite these variations, the content of the services remained very traditional. On one morning, the annual Prayer for Dew occurs.  I found it over the top ornate with the Cantor dressed in a rather tailored version of the kittel or white robe that the leader wears, not to mention a puffy hat whose gold braid front gave it a Papal look.  And they did not read the longer prayer silently first, then include Dew as part of the repetition.  But he sang a stirring, fluent melody of a difficult liturgical section.

Attendance on these days lags.  My congregation ekes by, Chabad, where I attended, attracted a few more.  These very large synagogues did not do much better.  Two worshiped in secondary chapels instead of the main sanctuary.  As the Torah processional occurs, some focus one of their cameras on the pews.  Not at all crowded, considering the congregational membership.  And the one where everyone seemed dressed to impress, the people in the pews also wore stylish dresses and hairstyles.  Every place has its local customs, as does mine.

Perhaps I can visit some of these.  Hotels on Manhattan are expensive, but within my means.  Bus or train on Friday afternoon and late Saturday.  Reform mega shul with celebrity Rabbi on Friday, Conservative upscale on Saturday, hopefully one without a Bar Mitzvah.  Macherlands?  Or maybe a very engaging experience.  TV screens let us see what the directors and cameramen want us to see.  In person, though, the visitor gets a snapshot, not the album or the movie.  Maybe not everyone shops at Armani.  The purpose of places of worship is to blend people.  Maybe they do it better than the streaming conveyed to me. 

Visit or not, synagogues come in all varieties.  I've traveled enough to attend many.  It's reassuring that when my own congregation finds me too weary, uninterested, and on occasion cynical, a change of experience needs only a few clicks on a remote control. 

Ahead of Schedule

One day before Seder typically imposes one of my longest task lists.  I begin shopping well in advance, but dairy certification for Passover usually doesn't arrive until the last minute.  Some items to be prepared for the Seder need defrosting about two days in advance.  Carpet shampoo squad comes at the beginning of the week, which requires me to move things off the floors, then replace most of them after their chemical application dries.  Food purchases not requiring refrigeration sit in heavy bags in the dining room, to be moved onto our tiled kitchen before the cleaners arrive.  They are not returned.  Our kitchen becomes a non-food place the day prior to Seder.  It's out for breakfast.  This could range from a restaurant to a grab and go at WaWa.  Lunch, if any, becomes a slice of pizza from a place that offers slices.  Dinner is set aside as a special time.  A family supper out with kids, wife time as empty nesters.  Most a family style chain, either national or regional.  I insist on craft beer, though, anticipating some deprivation during Pesach.

In between, tasks get divided between my wife and me.  She prepares our kitchen surfaces.  Sink, microwave, stove, self-cleaning oven, fleishig food preparation island, kitchen table.  I do the more physically demanding projects.  Cleaning the refrigerator, moving hametz appliances to the basement, and bringing boxes of stored Pesach needs upstairs to the kitchen.

My stamina has taken an age-related, or maybe health-related, toll.  I can make two round trips between basement and kitchen before resting.  That's a lot of trips.  Of the appliances that go downstairs, only the stand mixer has substantial weight.  Not so for things coming upstairs.  Some boxes laden with cookware and dishes challenge me with both weight and bulk.  In recent years, I do one of these, then for the second trip, tote two lighter boxes from basement to dining room.  The refrigerator is a project unto itself.  It only gets throughly cleaned annually, in anticipation of Pesach.  Contents removed.  Unsalvageable food discarded.  Shelves and bins cleaned.  Interior scrubbed.

This year, with Seder taking place at mid-week and OLLI on spring break, starting early became more realistic.  Food purged one shelf at a time over a few days the week before.  Vegetable and fruit bins scrubbed.  That leaves me with mostly usable food, a simple to clean cheese bin, the shelves and the interior.  At one time I did the interior with a sponge.  Now I use a sponge floor cleaner with handle, saving the sponge for the corners.  Shelves often need soaking, having intermittent spots of dried stuff, once sticky, now solid.  

For the dishes, as soon as the carpets dried, I went to work.  I did not count how many round trips I made.  Only two unusually heavy boxes challenged my physical capacity.  So at midmorning, I find myself well ahead of progress for previous years.  I started the kitchen table, a necessity as the refrigerator contents need to rest there while I remove the shelves, wash each individually,  allow them to dry.  Then scrub the interior.  Then replace shelves.  Finally, replace food, creating zones for Pesach and Hametz.  If I get this all completed before heading out for supper, it's been a successful effort.  Ahead of schedule.  Just the refrigerator to clean and food to sort.  Even though not yet complete, already I feel accomplished.

After darkness emerges, we have our formal Search for Hametz, arranged by my wife.  Then chill, with no loose ends, ready for the Seder preparation.  As a Bachor, or First-Born, I need to attend a Siyum to avoid a fast day.  Then washing dishes and preparing the Seder meal.  It's a second consecutive long day, one that does not conclude until very late at night when I return my guest to her home and drive back.  A second consecutive day of effort generated accomplishment. 

Visiting a New Place

Each semi-annual goal list contains an element of new experience.  It may be significant travel, day trips to places I've not been before, eating something I've not had before, joining a committee.  Experiences come in a lot of different forms.  Often it is visiting a new place, whether a city, tourist site, park within my own state, or even a new restaurant.

This cycle I had the initiative not as specifically new but as three day trips.  I had completed one, taking advantage of my SEPTA Senior Card to walk the length of Elfreth's Alley, Philadelphia's oldest currently occupied residential street.  Being on vacation from my state university's senior division, I seemed overdue for another visit to a new place.   A dear friend never made many social connections.  As his years advance, he has become more dependent on other people, more isolated at a senior living facility.  After a few desperate emails, my wife and I paid him a visit.  Driving took about two hours, with a stop for coffee and some redirection by Waze when I misunderstood where to turn.  I'd been to Baltimore many times for a variety of reasons, though not to where he current resides.

To our relief, the tales of woe sent electronically seem far beyond what we saw.  He lives in a spacious place, tastefully furnished, with kind staff everywhere.  The drive took its toll on me, so I left most of the conversation to my wife while I rested on a sofa.  He had an afternoon medical appointment, which gave everyone a reason to conclude the visit.

Many of my private times in Baltimore take place on Saturday mornings.  I am fond of one of their Orthodox synagogues, once headed by an iconic senior rabbi who has since retired.  I make a day of it, leaving early enough to get coffee at a WaWa, arrive before Torah reading and sometimes go to a tourist attraction after services, but sometimes just head home after kiddush.  While the shul sits in Jewish Baltimore, I only drive past a lot of McMansions where few of those in attendance can afford to live.  There is another part of Jewish Baltimore, perhaps its most robust section, just over the hill from where I turn off.  It being Saturday, everything Jewish is closed, including the 7 Mile Kosher supermarket, where I have always wanted to shop, if only one time.

This seemed like the ideal time to go.  Passover approaches.  My regional grocer has a weakening attachment to our local Vaad, though I could still get a respectable Passover food supply.  It's those irritants, the shankbone once given away for free, then sold, now absent.  Dairy not yet out.  And a very limited supply of meat.  Passover has the communal eating of meat at its core.  For a few guests, I can get chickens, both whole birds and parts to make soup.  For a crowd, there were no big slabs of meat to buy, other than frozen turkeys that people can defrost.  

Waze directed and misdirected me to parts of Jewish Baltimore I'd not driven past previously.  Modest homes with small yards.  And many more apartment complexes than I would have expected in proximity to the miniestates where lawyers and Hopkins neurosurgeons live. Two synagogues, one large reddish masonry building with signage announcing it as a Sephardic synagogue.  Another a smaller more conventional Orthodox place.  People on the sidewalks included a Hasidic teen girl with little skin exposed and a few men in black.  But the neighborhood had other representation.  Some African Americans.  A sprawling school dominated a block on our route, a few blocks from our kosher megamart.  Not a yeshiva but the Frederick Douglas High School.

The GPS corrected my directional misunderstandings.  We arrived at the Market.  It had a sprawling parking lot, though as Pesach approaches, it also has a lot of patrons, many visibly orthodox with beards, kippot, and tzitzit emerging over their belts.  Carts seemed filled to the top.  More than any empty nester household could eat.  These purchases will fill the back of an SUV and take a while to bring inside.  Perhaps some shopped as agents of their synagogues or organizations for communal seders or a week's worth of meals for a day school. 

I had been to large kosher markets before.  My childhood town has emerged as a Hassidic hub.  On my last visit, I toured Rockland Kosher, though without the detail and intent that I approached most aisles of 7 Mile Market.  Shankbone?  A whole case, help yourself, $2 each.  Priority for my cart.  Big hunks of beef, plain and corned.  Enough for a Bar Mitzvah caterer.  Margarine, no.  The industry must have withdrawn from Passover pareve margarine.  And no dairy.  Some prices far exceeded what I once paid.  Large briskets could run over $100.  A raw beef tongue, not seen in years, now sells for $40 a pound.  I did not run across lamb or duckling, but did not seek them out.  Marshmallows.  Had to put a bag in my cart.  My wife took a liking to thinly sliced sandwich steaks, to be reduced to smaller portions when we get home.  An I've not seen an authentic kosher salami in years.  Passover approved.  Into cart.

Satisfied, we headed to the checkout.  Interestingly the employees were sometimes representative of the local Orthodox clientele, but they had Black and Latino staff, including our most pleasant cashier.  No self-checkout lanes.  No express lanes either.  At each register, they keep a cardboard tzedakah box.  It helps local families in some way.  One of the Passover traditions is to add to a fund that enables Jews of low income to purchase supplies for their holiday.  I think these black corrugated boxes with slots on the top had a different destination.  I tapped my card.  As I returned the Visa to its wallet slot, I took out a dollar, folded it and stuffed it into the slot.  

As awesome as the place appeared, and as tempting a return visit without the Passover limitation seems, it still requires a 70 mile drive each way, and one bridge toll.  I likely will return to that favorite synagogue, though the Market closes on shabbos.  Similar, though less comprehensive options exist a shorter drive from my home.  At one time I drove out of necessity about 35 miles each way to a kosher butcher about every 6-8 weeks.  My school age son joined me.  Father/Son bonding or bondage made the errands special.  As an empty nester, these quests for the more exotic cuts of meat, liver, tongue, duckling, veal seem harder to justify.  But my afternoon at 7 Mile Market, both products and ambience, made me eager to inconvenience myself a little, if only to explore closer to home.

Not Wanting Anything

For serving as a research subject for my state university project, the investigators sent me a $50 Amazon gift card.  I try to redeem these quickly, before I forget about their existence.  To avoid shipping costs, all my checkouts at Amazon exceed the threshold for including shipping, which falls somewhat below the $50 I had to spend.  My wife needed a small electronic appliance that cost about $50.  I could not match the serial number she provided me with any item on their menu, so she opted to just get what she wanted on her own.  That still left me $50 to spend.

I tried to create a shopping list.  Some lavender sachets to keep bow mites from returning to my violin case.  These seem to be sold in bulk quantities far above what I would need.  Maybe a local crafts store would have them.  I have a few nostalgic indulgences.  Hai Karate lotions are not made anymore.  Jade East still exists but its current price exceeds any value I would place on it.  In retirement I am giving clothing away, not purchasing more.  My kitchen has every utensil, pan, dish, and appliance needed to create elegant dinners, both milchig and fleishig.  My last Amazon furniture purchase could have gone better.  At IKEA I can see what I am getting.

Then there are replacement parts.  Amazon does best with this.  Few exceed $50 and nothing right now is partially broken.  My fondness for pens is insatiable.  In the past, two cartridge pens from Amazon joined my small collection.  Rarely used.  Understand why ballpoints have replaced them.  No desire for personal jewelry.

Might I spend this on somebody else?  I could.  But honoraria from my research participations have become my mad money, my indulgences.  I don't want to change that.  It is not unusual for podcasters to make YouTube presentations of neat stuff from Amazon for under $50.  The run a short enough time, typically under ten minutes, to see what they have.  Mostly electronics, stuff to enhance productivity or make driving safer.  None attractive to me.

Basically, Amazon sells stuff.  And I do purchase stuff, though increasingly perishables like food and medicine.  I seek what they don't sell, experiences.  Sometimes this comes indirectly.  I purchased a violin bow with a previous gift card.  And a fragrance might be a form of experience.  So might a picture frame to keep photos of my grandchildren in sight.  And they started as a book seller.  The book is stuff, reading its pages becomes experience.  A team cap is stuff.  Displaying the logo of my affiliations when I travel transforms it to experience.

For now, I have $50 worth of petty indulgence waiting for the right product.  None today that I especially want.

JNF Reception

As a youngster, my mother would give me dimes to put in the metallic boxes colored in Israel Blue for each session of Hebrew school.  We had one of those boxes with the slot on top at home, though rarely filled it.  I have one in my adult home now, mostly filled waiting to pry off its lid, emptying and counting the coins long overdue.  For special occasions, we would plant trees in Israel, or really pay a dollar into a fund that would hire somebody to serve as our forest agent.  When I made my only visit, a full country Israeli tour in 1999, I learned that despite all this American effort, the buildings were constructed of masonry.  They had no appreciable amount of lumber.  Yet much of Israel looked like places I once lived or visited in America.  The vision to accomplish this came from the Jewish National Fund.  My dimes and dollar bills, very large contributions from some of our most well-off Jews.  It may be one of our best confirmations that Israel is part of Judaism.  We are willing to contribute part of our earnings and savings to make the land sparkle for those who live there, even when we live abroad.  That timeline includes enabling distressed Jews seeking something better than Russia or displaced by Naziism, warfare on the land itself, times of political optimism, and our times dominated by technical innovations.

My community. a small but cohesive American one, shares this effort.  Each year the regional Jewish National Fund office, one stationed in a major Jewish population center a less than two hours drive south, seeks from us a blend of financial support and ideas, by sponsoring an annual event.  We have among us Israelis now living and working in our location.  Children and siblings of very accomplished people have made their homes in Israel.  Most live as they did in America, a few achieving significant public prominence.  For the past three years, I have attended this gathering and later added to the financial collection in a meaningful way.  These assemblies display some combination of the most endearing and most cynical elements of Jewish organizations with a fundraising purpose, though no dispute of the noble cause and the sincerity of the major participants.

This year, the format changed.  It had been a tradition to gather for breakfast on a workday morning at my town's snootiest site.  They made a rare concession to the JNF, allowing a Kosher caterer of the organization's choosing to pre-empt the hotel's otherwise mandatory own kitchen requirement.  People in suits took the morning off from their law offices.  My synagogue had ample representation, mostly of older observant people.  We helped ourselves to coffee at a buffet table, then took seats at round tables.  I made a point of sitting with people I had not known previously, but mostly people sorted themselves out by synagogue or Federation positions.  The table had bagels, much better ones than are sold locally, mounds of plain and herbed cream cheese, insulated ivory coffee carafes for refills, a pastry plate, fruit, and another of lox.  People passed these around.  No public motzi or birchat, despite about half the town's rabbis sitting among the guests.  We ate.  My new acquaitences shared experiences, often commments about this and other Jewish organizations.  Then keynote speakers, typically three.  A community leader serving as our chapter's president would review the projects.  Quite a lot of thought went into creating new towns in parts of Israel less populated than the cities that tourists visit.  Then a financial expert to tell us the many ways we can give that will minimize the very large sums that their most valued donors will owe the IRS just a few weeks after this breakfast meeting, then an invited guest.  In my few times, typically a journalist telling us what she probably tells her therapist.  The others are cruel to me, they have to change.  I found the morning pleasant, the parking in town, now requiring paying by credit card at a kiosk an annoyance, and the organization worthy.

An email from the organizer announced a new format.  New place, new time.  It would take place on a Monday evening at a suburban location of Jewish recognition.  A spacious facility, one with appropriate security for an era when those hostile to Israel menace Jews and affiliated institutions.  Parking free on an ample lot.  Close to the town's Jewish population cluster. Dessert would replace breakfast.  The invited outside speaker had a higher profile.  Young man, part entertainer, part filmmaker, part cyberspace influencer.  I asked the event chairman why they abandoned their longstanding fundraising arrangements.  He indicated that collections had been gradually declining.  The purpose of the event was to attract donors.  To me, it seemed like the breakfast tables sat highly paid men, either in their earning prime or aspiring to it.  Expenses were high, and people they might have liked to attract had reservations about driving into the city.  Only then did I remember the male-dominated attendance.  Perhaps something easier to attend that does not require an absence from work would generate more donors and at less overhead for the JNF.

RSVP sent, reminder of event received by email a few days before.  I could come at 7:30PM.  Those who donated $1800 had a special reception an hour earlier.  Incentives for large donors are common but their perks seemed difficult to predict.  Maybe supper with the invited guest.  I arrived at the hour reserved for the less generous.  No traffic getting there.  Abundant parking.  Not a lot of really fancy cars in the lot.  As I walked past the guards into the building, there did not seem a lot of people already there for the VIP session.  The JNF staff checked my name against their reservation list, handed me an ID tag that I attached to my shirt pocket with a magnet, then shook hands with mostly people that I knew.  We milled in the corridor until the auditorium door opened.  

This place, where my congregation assembled for Holy Days a few months earlier, has a mid-sized auditorium.  It was set up as auditorium seating, rows of chairs allowing everyone to watch a podium, stage and high-end screen.  Chairs facing the stage filled about 2/3 of the space.  The first two rows had Reserved Tags, though I did not identify enough VIPs to fill all of them.  Much fewer people who I had never met before.  My synagogue punched above its weight in attendance.  We are a congregation solidly tied to traditional Judaism and to Israel.  On the Kol Nidre Bond Appeal we make more pledges than the other places despite our smaller membership.  We are also mostly people on Medicare.  Only the speakers, two volunteers and the keynote, wore office attire.  On signal, we took our places.  I selected a seat near the middle.

The local volunteers spoke first.  Same two as each of the last two years.  Impressive discussion of projects in the Negev to make those emerging communities attractive to current Israeli's priced out of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.  Housing gets priority.  Employment opportunities a secondary priority.  Then the financial man spoke, more low key than I remember from previous events.  Then the keynote.  I found his performance a refreshing change from the beleaguered journalists.  Entertaining, witty, maybe at the upper reaches of my tolerance for slick.  Questions at the end.  Few takers, none provacative.

His speech reinforced what had kept me attracted to the JNF for most of my lifetime.  It also supported how I approach the rise in American antagonism to Israel as a nation-state of the Jewish people and myself as one of the country's admirers, loyal despite the imperfections of its governance.  As the viral video displayed, "I am that Jew."   It was with great curiosity that I reviewed the results of the American Jewish Committee's poll on how this recent rise in travail has impacted us.  They randomly selected me to take that survey.  I have negligible personal adverse encounters.  Yet a sizable minority have, all with different responses.  My only concession has been to leave my tallis bag insignia side down on the back seat of my car.  Since my insurer would have to pay for vandalism, I should not invite it.  But I study my assigned Torah portions in public spaces with a kippah and photocopied Hebrew print.  Only two people have commented, neither confrontational.  The speaker had been assaulted by another skier on a high end ski trail.  He filed assault charges.  American law exists to protect him and me.  We have to call assault and intimidation what they are.  Perhaps getting mugged would change my response, but my Jewish identity requires responsibility for upgrading other Jewish lives.  That's what the JNF does.  I will take my chances with American hoodlums.

After the speeches, everyone assembled for the dessert buffet.  The baked goods did not have dairy or pareve labels, but I had eaten milchig for supper. Some chocolate layer cake, a slice of dragon fruit that I'd not had before, a plastic cup of sprite.  Nobody approached me to chat.  Instead, I headed over first to the regional representative to ask him about resettlement of Israelis into the new Negev towns.  Then I waited my turn to ask a question of the keynote speaker.  He seemed more thoughtful than slick up close.  We agreed on some things, differed on how to best confront or at least cope with the antisemitism that the younger folks encounter.  He noted independently of me that the audience he addressed included mostly seniors like myself, people already committed to our Jewish identities.  A subset of people, mostly prosperous, debt-free, late-life donors.  We are people who have built families, built careers, understand that somebody else built the schools we attended, the houses we purchased, and businesses that employed us.  The younger people not there may not have the same concept of building environments and institutions.  It would have been a better evening with a broader array of ages in attendance.

What did I miss most?  Probably the tables.  An auditorium layout matches common purpose, but so does a sports arena where everyone roots for the same team without knowing each other or anyone new.  The breakfast tables of previous years promoted conversation, whether with old friends or unfamiliar people.  The purpose of the session was to maximize donations to a worthy cause.  The most enduring outcome might be strengthening personal attachments or sharing thoughts.  Groups of eight facing each other accomplish this much better than a collection of a hundred all peering a stage in unison.

After my chat with the honored guest, I put my paper plate and polystyrene cup into the wastebasket, then headed out.  Nobody new in either the lobby or parking lot for me to greet.

Navigating Target

My lab work suggested a Vitamin D supplement might offer benefit.  I could purchase a bottle many places.  On a Sunday afternoon, the Target OTC pharmacy would likely have a few choices at a competitive price.  I drove over, found a favorable parking space that allowed me to exit driving forward, then headed inside.  I buy very little there.  A gift card earned a few years ago sits in my wallet unredeemed, waiting for just the right splurge.  They have the best price on generic omeprazole, which spurs me to a new outing there every six weeks.  I walk to the pharmacy section, rarely looking at anything else.  I take my three bottles of 14 pills each to self-checkout, tap my Visa card after scanning, take my receipt, then return to my car.

The Target stores have fared poorly in recent years.  At one time, not that long ago, my Sunday mornings began there.  The local Sunday paper would have retail advertising.  I read Target's first.  Then I drove the five minutes, looked at the ads again, posted to their bulletin board at either entrance.  Mostly I did not particularly want anything.  Occasionally, a small appliance or an anti-gravity chair to place on my backyard deck caught my attention.  Before retiring, I would look at men's wear, though rarely bought anything.  When the newspaper ads ended, so did my curiosity about what I  might find.

The treasure hunts ended, though they continued at TJ Maxx, Marshall's, and even the dollar store. My need to have some Sunday morning or weekday afternoon to myself continued.  Shopping became more purposeful.  It still included Target for a while.  Replace big screen TV, cell phone service, new flash drive, an iron, a Kitchen-Aid chopper, a thermal mug.  As I looked over their offerings, much of the options seemed a poor value or limited selection. For big purchases, the attendants were kids reciting scripts.  None ever asked me a question to guide what migh best suit my situation.  I needed ammonia to clean something.  They had bottles of cleaning mixtures made by alumni of college chemistry labs, but for a pure substance, an economical and useful one, I would have to drive around the corner to Lowe's. Other stores nearby took its place as where I find appliances, coats, munchies, and grooming items.  Browsing the aisles largely ended.

This Sunday afternoon, I entered with a specific purchase to complete.  They had several brands of Vitamin D.  Different sizes, different dosages.  Chewable gummies but mostly gel caps.  None stood out as less per pill or per Vitamin D Unit.  I took a bottle off the shelf.  Not wanting to go home, I walked around. Though the parking lot had a lot of cars, the store did not have much density of shoppers, nor did employees seem abundant.  They keep the pharmacy near the front to the left of the main entrance.  Walking to the rear brings customers past food.  Maybe some coffee could be purchased for Pesach.  I saw Dunkin pods on a display, no canned coffee in a place easily found.  At the very back stood seasonal.  Easter to the left, gardening to the right.  I buy seeds in the spring.  Limited to Burpee, not displayed in the most attractive way and not discounted.  Maybe clothing.  A few of each basic item displayed.  Shirts come in SML, not neck/sleeve.  Probably few people who need ties for work would get them there.  Limited selection.  This store sits almost adjacent to a local high school.  They sold logo t-shirts of two other high schools that would need a car to reach, no stuff in the colors or emblems of the school nearby.

Home decor displays would need more steps than I wanted to take.  The direct path to the self register took me through women's jewelry and cosmentics.  I guess some young people would put some of that on their skin or find a necklace with a medallion something that they could adopt as their signature.  The route took me past the cashier registers, mostly closed.  The door nearest my car stood at the self-checkout.  That had a short waiting line.  My turn came.  I scanned my bottle of Vitamin D.  It did not scan.  Instead it reset to a home screen.  Then I picked up the wand and scanned it that way.  $12.49.  Tapped my card, took my receipt and headed back to my car.

That bottle has 180 gel caps, enough for six months.  Omeprazole lasts six weeks, but if I want to go there less I can buy two.

Nobody there treated me poorly.  I found what I came for easily.  What I failed to find was anything that might attract me as an impulse.  I could not do easy browsing.  I'd wonder a bit about the manager who does not have the saichel to order and display apparel from their neighbor school but hangs items from two further high schools.  

My cell phone news feed often has items of hot shot new Target CEO with a vision.  Right now it's a place I go to get two cheap OTC meds.  It's not yet a place I drive to because I want to see what Target has that I did not already know I needed.  He will need a lot of mystery shoppers willing to convey the truth before a better experience brings large numbers of browsers back.

Pesach Anticipation

Megillah reading completed. Onward to Pesach.

This has been my central holiday, the season where my personal Judaism tops out.  Preparation, often with more than slight inconvenience or disruption, gets rewarded with a sense of having achieved something difficult.  Planning takes weeks.  Cleaning, Seder menus, shopping, who to invite.  Usually I am offered a portion of the synagogue ritual, typically one of the Torah readings.  Some physical work appears.  Bringing bags of groceries from the trunk into the house.  Hauling heavy boxes of dishes from the basement.  Washing everything.  Even kitchen time, something that energizes me, can challenge my stamina as I peel, grate, mix, and wash as I go.  Coffee cone and scoop gets opened first to allow me these respites.  

The nature of the holiday seems to be run up to Seder, where the peak occurs, then a gradual decline.  My Festival has a secondary peak, the intermediate Shabbos where I typically invite a guest or two for Friday night dinner, then have a Second Act performing in my kitchen.  Not to be this year, as the Sederim take place on Wednesday and Thursday evenings.  Shabbos begins the week's descent instead of a second but lesser peak.

My principal supermarket stocked its Pesach display before Purim.  All sorts of delactables, though I tend not to seek out the frivolous.  Instead I look for staples.  Matzoh.  Eggs.  Meats for main courses.  Chicken parts for soup.  Fresh produce gets purchased within a few days of seder.  Matzoh meal has versatility through the year and lower price when purchased Passover season.  I get enough to tide me through the year.  Cannot have Passover without macaroons, something I cannot realistically make myself.  Cannisters have given way to pouches, though I used those cannisters to store extra soup.  Some things priced themselves out.  Jarred gefilte fish has given way to frozen loaves, though even these now need a discount coupon to justify purchase.  Making my own from fresh carp with store grinding and harvesting of fish trimmings has passed from realistic.  I no longer buy jarred horseradish.  I can grind some from our maror, splash with vinegar, and enhance the gefilte fish slices that way.  I buy nuts, walnuts and almonds.  They become Charoset and nut cakes.

While the signature meals have a fleishig centerpiece, morning meals require dairy.  Certified butter.  There is a loophole that milk purchased before the holiday does not require certification.  As a result, many dairies no longer print certification labels on their plastic bottles.  Just have to buy enough before the holiday.  Cheese slices become a staple of breakfast, an expensive one.  Cream cheese exists but is hard to spread on matzoh.  A couple jars of jam, created from a fruit I would usually not buy, enhanced holiday mornings.  And eggs have versatility.  Figure about three dozen.

Maybe Pesach focuses too much on food, secondarily on purity.  I find the preparation more stimulating than the eating.  It can also be about people.  I reserve the Second Day for a congregation not my own.  The people there once provided an immense kindness to a Jew at the communal margins.  I learned a few weeks later that college students in attendance, people with futures on the rise, did their very best to bring this woman into the main loop for the evening.  There are other Festivals that focus more on Judaism's imperative to treat people in a sensitive way.  A lot of people rose to the opportunity for this woman.  The least I can do is show my appreciation by making a sparsely attended minyan more secure one of the Festival days.  To get one of my honored guests to my Seder also entails transport, two forty-five minute round trips.  This guest also has limited social capital.  We could arrange and pay for an Uber, I suppose, but reaching out to people has its inclusion early in the Haggadah.

Pesach has perhaps the unfortunate calendar coincidence with Palm Sunday or Easter.  It's also the change of seasons, when winter clothing goes to storage and summer wear gets unpacked.  We do not do special clothing shopping, though others do.  Looking your finest seems a bit goyish.  Seder is casual for us, though through American history it has not always been.  No ties.  My apron with the logo of the Iggles still in place as I serve dinner and conduct the ritual. We expect stuff to be spilled onto our clothing.  Synagogue attire without the finery of the Holy Days.  People attend to worship, not to be seen or to meet folks they've not met in a year.  

Anticipation firmly established.  Preparation in small aliquots, to be expanded as the calendar moves along.  Chores still in a mental framework.  Mind set on food.  My annual chance to have a special week.

Coping with Rejection

Arthur Brooks, the Prof of Happiness studies at Harvard, told an audience that people seek on of four centers:

1. Money
2. Power
3. Pleasure
4. Fame

We seem to share a focus on being recognized for the good work that we do.  He has achieved fame through his efforts over an adult lifetime. When I add to my body of work it gets few views.  When I submit something worthy of print where many will read, a rejection note or no notification at all indicates I've been turned down.

All performers, artists, writers, and quite a lot of university applicants accumulate denials, often in very high volume.  It only takes a few successes, though, to offset the many rejections. No matter how expected, getting turned down has an intrinsic sting.  Despite this, the rational analyst in me finds an upside.  If I never got turned down, would I ever learn where my peak achievement could be?  Unlikely.  

Lot's of successful people have failures.  The 0.330 hitter may be an all-star but he only gets a hit one third of the time.  Superbowl quarterbacks complete about half their passes.  Most can expect a sack or two per game.  Actors go to unfruitful auditions.  I see paintings for sale in various places that I visit.  Most will remain in their place the next time I visit.

 

It's easy to get spoiled.  Every day I read a few publications that have bypassed my work.  Each has other work in print.  Somebody gets selected.  Mostly somebody else.

On reviewing how to get a better outcome, often guided by professionals, their score does not seem all that high.  What they do that I don't is take more shots on goal.  When my work gets rejected, I put it aside in favor of a different article to a different destination.  Maybe it would be better to have a collection of my five best submitted to different places at the same time.

My deterrent though, seems to be my own ego.  Somebody else's opinion of my output becomes my default opinion.  It shouldn't.  The rational analyst needs to overcome the more fragile seeker of approval.

Obscurity

While returning home from a medical procedure, still not quite at baseline following IV sedation, as my wife drove along the highway I scrolled my cellphone.  To my credit, I've largely given up doing this.  When traveling this route, I am invariably the one behind the steering wheel, usually driving alone.  I decided to update an old friend, truly a mentor who shaped me professionally and to a lesser extent personally.  I typed his name in Google search.  First link, his obituary.  Apparently, he had died about eight months earlier.  I opened the entry, one of legacy.com.  Just his name, the funeral home, and about five subsequent tributes.  A link to the funeral home gave no additional information.  Florida would provide me a copy of the death certificate on request, but those accessible to the public only indicate date of death.  Information on cause or address or survivors requires documentation of kinship.

I read the five tributes.  They ranged from high school friends, early career medical colleagues, and more recent professional colleagues.  All had a similar theme.  Walter was a unique person, had towering medical skills, and helped a friend when he could.  I became one of those friends.

We met when I started internship.  Walter directed the Internal Medicine Residency Program.  He had a commanding presence, weight likely exceeding 300 pounds but mobile, booming voice, no hesitation whatever to belittle us or put us on the spot.  He showed no hesitancy, though, to make accommodation to me by altering the residents' vacation schedule to allow me two weeks honeymoon time in August while saving the third week for the spring.  Residency's three years passed quickly.  I transitioned from a timid newcomer with limited knowledge but reliable work ethic to a more dominant senior resident, highly regarded in the job market for new graduates.  He never took credit, nor did he help me find the position that I got.  But his guidance on how to secure a position and assess the offers that I got made a permanent imprint.  Even more so when his values clashed with my own.

Settled a plane ride or long drive away, we kept in touch, mostly by phone, though in person with his wife at his home on a long weekend back in Boston.  I could always value his advice.  When my job reached a dead end, he made the best sounding board.  Absolutely would write a recommendation.  Our children arrived at about the same year, my daughter first, followed by his first son.  We exchanged gifts.  Letter writing still existed in the 1980s, though he preferred phone calls.  Periodic updates on the travails of parenting and the insecurities of physician employment.  He had been involuntarily terminated from the hospital where he supervised the residency.  Boston has a lot of medical opportunities.  He found a safe landing at the university system where he had attended school and done part of his residency.  While his medical skills focused on pulmonary disorders and intensive care, his new position offered different opportunities.  He never abandoned his place in the ICU, but he saw a trend emerging where hospital systems had to negotiate payment contracts with insurers.  He became the expert for his health system for doing that.  It paid considerably more than billing patients for ICU time.  He also sought the financially lucrative in another way.  As I search his name on Google, after the brief obit, the search  identifies him as a medical hired gun.  He reviewed charts and testified for plaintiffs in law suits.  I knew about some of this, as he presented his first assignment during on of my residency Morning Report sessions.  From every conversation, whenever money or medical economics arose, it became clear that his compensation, from salary to speaking honoraria, far exceeded mine.

Our kids got to their teen years.  Mine did the college circuit, including a tour of Boston's options.  It would be our last personal meeting.  We met at a supermarket parking lot, then headed someplace else for lunch.  Walter looked different.  He had slimmed down to normal weight.  I didn't ask if the surgeon had enabled that. Bariatric surgery was a novel option at the time.  For all his wealth, or at least my perception of it, he drove a very ordinary car, one within my budget.  His home in a town halfway between Boston and Providence had appreciated considerably, though it was far from a McMansion.  My daughter had entered college, as had his son, each to top programs.  His younger son lacked the academic discipline.  All his life, my son had heard quips from me about Walter, mostly including remarks about his girth and bluntness.  He seemed much more ordinary in person.

I returned home, updated him on the ultimate college choice and my daughter's activities after graduation.  His older son had entered a business career.  We spoke a few more times by phone.  He had purchased a second home in a tony area of South Florida.  I remembered that my friend had been born in pre-Castro Cuba.  He left for NYC as a child but with the ability to speak native Spanish and Brooklyn accented English.  On our last conversation, or the last I remember, he told me about his Florida home.  At least one member of the Dolphins lived in his neighborhood.  When I ultimately visited Florida, I checked out the town.  A place of McMansions.  I never learned Walter's exact address.

Despite my efforts to keep in touch, the Boston contacts disappeared.  The marvels of Google Searches could not recapture a phone, address for a letter, or an email.  Nor did I find any references to his employment or practice in Florida.  Doctors usually have a searchable office address and phone number.  He must have retired.  My last exchange with him, from my own email records seems to have been about ten years earlier.  I knew his son had gone to Stanford for his MBA.  He knew my children had entered medical school.  But exchanges stopped.  As did my quips to my children about Walter.

I don't know why I chose to look him up on my car ride home.  His passing did not surprise me, though I knew nothing about his health other than morbid obesity the first half of that life.  He lived to his latter 70s.  What surprised me, though, was the low profile.  I might have expected a long obit in a Florida paper if not a Boston one.  Maybe a legacy.com summary containing more than a funeral home contact.  The other Google search info took me to a variety of look up anyone sites.  I found a series of relatives, most of whom I recognized.  The surprise came in the addresses.  That swank town in Florida was not his most recent.  His last address had him in a more ordinary place, one where my father lived his final years.  With much to celebrate in his adult life, if not his childhood, I found only five tributes. Not even a photo on an imaging search.  All five memories not much different than mine of my mentor turned friend.

They Hauled It Away

My once beloved naugahyde recliner has begun its final destination to a landfill.  I do not know how long I've had it.  It's metal tag stated Barcalounger, made in North Carolina.  They are still made but no authorized dealers near me.  A search of the internet indicates that the company folded or sold off in 2011.  I had purchased this chair in the early 1980s, either right before or after birth of my children.  They selectively gouged pieces of the cushion, dislodged and lost a support cross-piece from the leg lift, but bear no responsibility for its final demise.  When I created My Space upon retirement, I transported this special chair to the room's center.  Its recliner mechanism no longer allowed it to return to a rocking chair position.  For cosmetics, I purchased a generic navy velour recliner cover.  Every night I would retire to that chair, turn on the big screen TV and end most evenings leaning back, calves up, eyes on the screen.  Over a short time, the support mechanism of the seat began to give way, sounding a quick pop each time I entered the chair.  Time for a replacement.

Furniture stores still exist, though the ones with the Jewish names and salesmen, local pillars with memorial plaques in the area's synagogues, have largely disappeared from my area.  Some regional chains have taken over.  Department stores with furniture sections are fewer.  Now we have Amazon and Wayfair, places that give immense selection.  I shopped at the regional ones first.  They deliver and assemble.  They do not cart away the old chair, a service that would have given them an advantage over etailers.  Some online providers arrange assembly for a fee, others leave that to the customer.  My experience with their assemblers has not always gone well.  Still, I could not begin until the Barcalounger vacated the space.  

Junk hauling has gotten easy to access but expensive.  Quotes of about $140 to remove the broken chair.  A call to my weekly trash hauler gave me a quote of $50, which I authorized in a minute.  Challenge, getting the recliner down a flight of stairs.  While it had bulk, it did not have much weight.  I could drag it along a flat surface, which I did.  Out of the study, into the upper hall near the steps.  A neighbor helped me guide it downstairs, where it sat in the living room until the day before pickup.  Then I dragged it out the door, with some guidance from my wife, followed by a solo drag along the walk and the driveway.  It sat at the edge for two days, tolerating a drizzle.  On my scheduled pickup day, the sanitation truck hauled it to its final resting place.

To fill the big center void in the middle of My Space, I first harvested a bean bag chair from my son's room.  During his childhood in the 1990s, an amorphous seat filled with foam pellets, not real beans, could be had for a tiny sum.  Each child had one.  Rarely used.  When I sat in it and tried to rise, I can understand why they preferred real chairs.  In my bedroom, I keep a leather recliner with ottoman, purchased on amazon.com, assembled by myself, intended for reading, rarely used.  Easy to carry.  Rather narrow.  Fine for reading, though less comfortable than reading in bed, not very suitable for watching a big screen TV.  A replacement recliner has become a high priority, as I sat in my dear Barcalounger multiple times a day, despite its structural faults.

In the weeks that followed my decision to replace the Barcalounger, I had visited most of the regional furniture stores.  Had they assured me that they would remove it, I'd have purchased the new one there.  But left to my own, Amazon and Wayfair provide better seating with more selection at less expense.  Wayfair offers assembly for a surcharge, Amazon I'm on my own to find a handyman.  Presumably Wayfair screens its contractors, though my experience has been mixed.  For the living room sofa, the assembler did fine.  For my desk chair, he used a drill attachment instead of tightening the screws with the Allen wrench provided for assembly.  The screws dislodged.  I replaced them myself, making them permanently tight with the proper tool, that Allen wrench.  However, I knew where those screws went, even after two of them fell out.  That allowed me to just insert them and make them properly secure.  Starting just with the chair components and an assembly manual, probably one without writing to enable assembly in different countries, I probably would not have succeeded.

The etailers allow considerable customization.  Price, under $500.  Rocker mechanism.  No electric inputs.  Microfiber or faux leather.  Neutral color.  No nailhead style.  Favorable user reviews, if available.  I'm looking forward to using their filters to search for a personal match.  Then order, wait a short time, and let the assembler have at it.

My life expectancy is much shorter than the longevity of my late Barcalounger.  That was American-made in North Carolina, came assembled and delivered from a furniture store, probably one with a Jewish name, maybe Levitz z"l though perhaps Van Sciver's z"l.  Mass-produced stuff from Asia has enabled an inflation-adjusted economy, but expectations of durability have evaporated.  The low price makes them almost disposable.  But as I learned, disposing does not come easily.

Staying on Schedule

For most of my 70-something years, I've pursued what interested me.  In school, I had a class schedule and assignments with deadlines.  I attended, turned in my term papers, and took exams.  Work became less scheduled.  I had office patients most days and people who needed hospital attention.  Consultations and admissions came randomly.  Phone calls mostly got squeezed in.  Pharmaceutical and insurance representatives stopped by mostly on their schedules.  I accomplished what needed doing but enjoyed the autonomy of what I would do when.  Retirement carried over that imprint.  No pressure to time most things.  When I enrolled in OLLI, classes met at specified times, and I had to allot transit time there and back.  Synagogue services commenced at announced times but few people arrived at the beginning.  Like most in attendance, I calculated how much time I wanted to be present, knowing that concluding prayers and kiddush occurred at reasonably predictable hours, then adjust my arrival to suit.

Our modern age exacts a price for that flexibility.  Once retired, there are no times that need an alarm clock, let alone acquiescing when tired to meet somebody else's leverage over me.  Social media, emails, cell phones can absorb whatever blocks of time their addictive nature imposes.  No set meal times.  Minimal commutes.  The onset and conclusion of Shabbos each week sets the weekly structure.  

And for a while, I drifted along.  Not feeling particularly well, accomplishing few of the semi-annual goals I write down every December and June, getting too absorbed in FB, then descending into Twitter, I realized that some structure would enhance things.  And a commitment to stopping what I should stop.

Each half year I include physical goals, usually stated as a desired waist circumference and weight which never achieve.  It won't get fulfilled without a system.  Thus, exercise now has a set time and intensity, one that I fully respect.  Stretching also has a time.  Measurements not attained, but I feel better. 

After endless interrupted eveings, I took control of sleep.  Set time to turn off screens, review what I did each day, turn out lights, and get up the next morning.  This has also been regimented.  Dental first, then weekly weight, then downstairs for some sunlight in the form of retrieving the newspaper from the end of the driveway.  Water first, then brew a k-cup in the same mug.  No email until I finish the coffee.  Treadmill if on tap that day right after coffee.  Crossword puzzles in the morning.

My week has creative activity built in.  Make a YouTube video every Monday afternoon.  Make dinner for Shabbos every Friday, with defrosting on Wednesday.  BP taken twice a week and recorded immediately in an Excel log.

Some things do not take well to appointments with myself.  For those, I have a timer. Housework fifteen minutes, reading twenty-five minutes, writing twenty-five minutes.  I learned to avoid zero minutes.

Social media got the heave-ho on Rosh Hashana.  FB gone, or at least my responses gone.  I will share my writing or videos onto my site.  The algorithm will do anything to get me back, going so far as to clutter my email with notices to look at what the people I care most about have posted.  I almost never bite.  Twitter gone.  Reddit selective to responses where I can help somebody else.  Just divesting this has freed up blocks of time I did not realize I had.  Sometimes I use it well, other times not.

This process of small upgrades has taken about two years.  Results display as mixed.  I feel better with sleep and exercise assurance.  My library of videos now exceeds 100, my writing much more than that.  Public recognition for any of this nil.  Expanded friendships perhaps starting to slide from my FB exit.  My Space largely completed, other house projects in different stages of making progress without renewal.

Yet, I benefit from a sense of what to pursue when.  Keeping promises to myself, the essence of this change, has rewarded me unconditionally.

Addressing our Anti-Semitic Reality

These have not been two optimal years for Jewish Americans.  Hatred of Jews as people who stay separate dates back perhaps to Pharaoh, who addressed his perception of our communal power by implementing a slavery system, one created by our own successful immigrant ancestor Joseph.  Most of our history has us as a successful subset within a larger dominant population.  We created internal institutions in response to our circumstances.  Places of worship, a religious court system for internal disputes, economic wealth, enduring literature, effective educational systems.  Selected individuals or families would periodically gain prominence amid the majority culture.  But we experienced expulsions and massacres when prevailing cultural values shifted.

While America affords Jewish people our free exercise of religion, recently individual intruders have entered sacred spaces or targeted individuals at worship.  My congregation, and most others, have entrance monitors, often in police uniform, limiting access.  Doors are heavier, reinforced, and fitted with locks to enhance security.  We have had drills during worship, guiding us through a safety procedure for an active assailant.  When I travel, I email my intent to attend a synagogue as a visitor.  I miss the more open-door era, one where a synagogue welcomed all comers without challenge. Though my personal encounters as a Jewish target have been nil, I know people who were victims, including the doctor killed at Tree of  Life.

The American Jewish Committee released the results of its survey on anti-Semitism, seeking opinions of Jews and a broad representative sampling of Americans.  I was one of the Jews surveyed.  I do not recall my individual responses. There seems to be not only more American anti-Semitism, but it has been repackaged as anti-Zionism. And they know who the Zionists are and how to recognize us.  Have I ever personally experienced an incident?  No.  Or really Not Yet.  Do I behave differently?  In a minor way.  When I keep my tallis bag on the back seat of my car, I place it with the Jewish insignia side face down on the cushion.  Anyone passing by can only see a maroon velvet pouch.  I still wear my kippah wherever I want.  While I conceal my tallis bag to protect my insurance carrier, who would have to pay a vandalism claim, I do not hide my person.  If I need to wear my kippah, indeed want to wear my kippah, I do it without reservation.  Most of my sports coats have a lapel pin with American and Israeli flags adjacent to each other.  I've never been challenged, even at receptions where people in the gathering might start taunting me if I wore the same jacket to a university campus.  

I adamantly control my social media platforms, divesting myself of most of them.  As I try to be helpful to the participants of the r/Judaism forum, younger people post their own harrowing experiences pretty much daily.  They know no life without Facebook and its competitors.  Divesting carries a price for many.  Or maybe Twitter is the new nicotine, an intervention designed by experts to create and exploit addiction.  None of this will predictably ease off.  "Doc, they are tormenting me.  They have to change."  The introduction to many a Dear Therapist query.  And any skilled psychologist would advise that you only have the ability to change how you respond.  The discussion in the Jewish community has shifted to a blend of personal responses and communal responses to an adversity that, over a short time, has established a measure of predictability.

Our advocates exist, amassing ample resources and expertise.  I attended a local seminar, a class for seniors via Zoom at my state university.  The guest speaker was the regional director of the Anti-Defamation League.  As she used her time to extol her organization's legacy and educational efforts to minimize anti-Semitism, two questions from the electronic audience stayed with me.  One viewer asked something to the effect of, "if you are so good at this and have been doing it for a hundred years, why haven't your results been better than what we encounter?"  Her agency and another of similar mission had each named new directors.  The previous CEOs had been statesmen of long tenure.  The new heads came from Democratic Party high profile backgrounds.  A Zoom viewer asked her how that shift from diplomacy to political bona fides had changed the agencies.  She did not have an answer to either question that would satisfy a room of retired successful professionals and executives.  Maybe they aren't so good at it.  Maybe our philanthropic representatives have tunnel vision.  Maybe they own the approaches that created their comfort zones.  That online meeting took place during the Covid pandemic, 2000 when people could no longer meet in a classroom or auditorium, places where we could poke the guy in the next seat to express our skepticism as the speaker displayed her Power Point Slides.  In the ensuing five years, we are now back in person, to be harassed as Jews even more mercilessly, both in person and through our electronic global media.

People in that audience and much of the American Jewish public have been through college.  We took courses in psychology and sociology, some requiring independent term papers.  Many of us have careers where we had to assess what the public might find appealing and what they would reject.  We assess efficacy commonly in our business activities, the medicines the doctors among us prescribe, how well our elected officials perform.  Failures and rebound are part of our experience, part of Jewish communal resilience that we grasp as our heritage.  If pouring massive donor funds into educational programs leaves us worse off, it does not take a lot of saichel to explore other options.  But that might mean schecting some very Sacred Cows.  One that cannot be removed is the centrality of Israel to our Jewish narrative.  It appeared in our daily prayers for all the centuries when we lacked sovereignty.  With sovereignty, we made that territory prosperous.  Ownership cannot be negotiated away.  Conquest has been attempted.  We not only have economic prosperity through effort but and effective military as a high priority of that sovereignty.

As Americans, we watch mostly from afar.  Like the Israelis, American Jews have built an imposing presence from very little, but mostly through a combination of staying within the bounds of American rules.  NY Times editor Bret Stephens recently offered an assessment of the situation.  In his highly publicized presentation, he basically advocated writing off the anti-Semites and anti-Zionists. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QMTjVuo9dE  The communal parallel to putting our own masks on first in popular American travel culture.  We've already done the experiment.  Major cities have hospitals with Jewish names that medical students rank as top choices for their residencies.  They exist from an era when Jewish doctors of similar talent could not get appointments at the flagship university centers.  Our mega law firms carry the names of Jewish founders, as do brokerage firms.  People seek out entertainment of Jewish creation.  Cities have Jewish museums, or even secular ones with wings named after Jewish donors.  His theme, we have the talent, we have the track record of offering opportunities to Jewish people when others begrudged us.  More controversial than strengthening our own offerings to our people, was his suggestion to use the resources from ineffective, futile efforts to marginalize anti-Semitism through public education to expand our own communal growth.

Are we ready to write off our most enduring advocacy groups as ineffective?  Perhaps not.  While anti-Semitism in America, from tacit slurs to deadly shootings, has not disappeared, it was also those agencies that helped bring us entry beyond the niches we created for ourselves into the mainstream.  Jews have representation today in those academic centers, international corporations, and private clubs that once impeded our access.  Making anti-Semitism disappear through education may be a financial boondoggle.  Keeping us mainstream and prosperous, the people that other groups may envy as they promote their own prosperity gospels, still has immense importance.  Making Jew hatred less publicly acceptable remains a laudable undertaking.  Holocaust programs in public schools, Jewish donor names on cultural magnets, and public rallies have not accomplished this.  One track might be to see what efforts have better efficacy.  Faculty at several highly respected universities now have departments that study which initiatives have the most impact.

Ultimately, The Times editor set a correct priority.  The successes that Jews have had in America came from projects of self-help.  Seminaries, summer camps, Jewish schools from pre-school to university, synagogues based on denominational structure, publications of superior quality issued to Jewish audiences, Workmen's Circles at a time when Jewish laborers had vulnerability.  Some thrive today, others succeeded so well as to make their continuance obsolete. He suggested day schools as a foundation, which nobody would dispute.  But within the structure that we have now, a Big Tent model, not everyone finds a welcome.  We have significant attrition, too much of it for adverse experience or other cause.  We have to take great pains not to target our own as expendable, or worse, unworthy. 

What the editor did not include in his remarks is the untapped public goodwill that already exists.  Isolation with internal development offers a lot, but partnerships need a place in the communal agenda.  Can we make anti-Semitism crawl back under the rocks?  Our global platforms, where any malcontent can post with little adverse consequence and find adherents in the thousands makes that unlikely.  Refocus our resources, for sure.  Treat everyone as valuable no matter how challenging, a bit more of a project but within possibility.  Think fundamentally differently than a one-hundred-year ingrained legacy, big challenge.  Possible, high payoff.  High priority.  

OLLI Resumes

My senior program follows our state university's undergraduate calendar.  They afford their students a substantial winter break, enough weeks to do some serious traveling or volunteering.  These weeks also permit the senior division to hold minicourses, usually weekly for a few sessions, invariably online.  I have never attended, prefering control of my unscheduled weeks, usually with a few days travel.

But as Phil the Groundhog made his annual winter prediction, our classes reassembled.  My preferences did not go as well as last time.  Closed out of a course on enhancing drawing skills.  Closed out of a course on baseball that I would have liked to take.  Accepted to a course on what I thought was Guitar for Beginners.  It turned out to require a level of pre-requisite skill that not only did I not have but could not reasonably catch up on my own.  In the past I've only dropped one course, driven by disdain for the experience with the professor.  I will need to drop this one to make room for somebody else.

That leaves me with four classes, three in person lasting the full semester, the fourth by Zoom the second half.  All take place late morning, which allows me to complete treadmill exercise before heading off without having to modify my customary time or reduced a few minutes from a session.  

I drove to my first class.  Since the school's first time slot had gone to its midpoint when I arrived at the campus, I expected to find myself needing to park in an overflow lot.  There turned out to be ample spaces where I've parked in the past, though the handicap-designated lot adjacent to mine seemed full.  I pulled into a space a little farther from the entrance tha the specific space I seek out when I arrive for the early session, but not that many extra steps.  Usually, I take a thermos of coffee, but opted not to.  They offer coffee, but require students to bring their own insulated mugs.  Mine do not fit beneath the Keurig's dispensing mechanism, so when I take coffee, I make it at home.

Not many people in the lobby when I entered.  Tom the Officer who makes sure the  students, the frail elderly and more sturdy like me, make it across the roadway safely, must have been reassigned.  I walked inside.  Bitterly cold weather, though probably a few degrees warmer than what Phil the Groundhog encountered at dawn a hundred miles north of us, caused us to dress warmly.  I replaced my beanie cap and fleece gloves into the coat, pocket, hung it on a hook on the coatrack, then picked up my ID tag.  They changed the format slightly.  While I have lanyards from previous years, I took a new one.  The plastic sleeve that accepts the name tag now clips to the lanyard.  I found the previous safety pin unreliable.  Mine and many others would slip off, causing the lost and found employee in the office to chase a fair number of us down to return what had dropped onto their floors.  I think the current plastic clip will perform better.

Not many people in the lobby when I arrived, but morning classes were still in progress.  Once they let out, the central area filled with people.  Likely a mixture of those departing from their class, new people like me awaiting their first session, and a fair number who enrolled in two classes that morning. 

Still nearly a half-hour before my class would begin.  I sat in the library which has the most comfortable chairs for a few minutes.  Often I would stroll outside on the patio, sometimes venturing beyond to the small collection of gardens.  They had one doorway blocked off.  I do not know if their security staff thought the outdoors too icy for seniors.  The chill itself seemed adequate deterrent.  Instead, I traversed the lower atrium, then took the elevator to the second floor where my class would meet.  Chairs lined the upper corridor, many occupied.  I looked for an empty room with desks to maybe sit down and write.  None empty.  As I poked around, a former professor who ran a very worthy course, stood at the entrance to his assigned classroom greeting the new students entering.  We recognized each other.  Despite our name tags, I addressed him as Reverend, he called me Doctor.  His class would be new to him, but still philosophically based.  He opted for a short textbook rather than a series of Great Courses CDs, which have come to dominate many of the live OLLI sessions.  Some current students entered.  I moved along to my class, treating myself to a few moments in a chair in the hall before taking my seat in the classroom.

This professor had quite a lot of experience as a senior health care manager, just right for his course on American healthcare.  We received a list of topics for each lecture.  And for the most part, that's what they are, with selected audiovisual supplements.  The class engaged with each other about half the session.  I left content that at least one class will go well, after a few iffy offerings the previous semester.

Following the class, I walked downstairs, then across the parking lot to my car.  No problems exiting.  I could have driven home but opted to dirvert to the supermarket for a few staples.  Then home.  It had been a gratifying morning.