Wardrobe Update

Years have gone by since I bought dress clothing.  I've been retired going on eight years.  In late employment, I almost never had occasion to wear tailored clothing, and didn't buy any, other than perhaps dress slacks made of synthetics, which I still wear.  My good suit fit adequately for my son's wedding and reception the following year.  I may have gotten invited to one other wedding.  For the most part, I only wear one of my two suits on the Holy Days.  Sports coats come in handy on Shabbos, two for winter, two for summer, and two that bridge the seasons.  The jackets have gotten snug when I button them, though I have almost no reason to button them.  Men at synagogue often forgo their jackets or their ties, though usually not both.  I typically wear a tie, with or without a jacket, because it sets Shabbos as the only occasion where I wear dress clothing.  And I still like the challenge of tying a bow tie, something always accompanied by a sports coat.

In the next month, I will have an event to attend, one best described as casual chic.  Maybe it's time to follow the advice of Abe Lincoln, who stopped at Brooks Brothers in advance of his major public appearance at Cooper Union.  I could alter what I have.  But the price of cheap suits, particularly those made of synthetics, has declined.  I could get suit separates, have a professional tailor do the jacket, the man around the corner alter the trousers, and have some new options for synagogue.  I already bought a new shirt for the travel, a short sleeve blue print on white background that can be worn anywhere.  

Buying clothing of this type has become a challenge.  I fall between sizes, as I have in the past.  Long gone are the Halls of Robert where my parents would take me to get something of polyester.  A man wearing a suit better than the one I was purchasing would put chalk marks on jacket and pants.  Then I would get back into my own slacks and shirt.  A week later a parent would drive me back to try the finished suit on, then never needing any adjustment, I'd take it home.  I would wear it until I outgrew it.  Earning and income and tailored clothing more expected than it is now, I would continue to buy the important items from a men's store.  Less important items would come from Goodwill, then get taken to a very talented nearby tailor if more than sleeve alterations were needed.

Those in-house tailors, or even measurers and markers to send purchases to an independent tailor, have disappeared.  I went shopping recently.  The megamall has a place dedicated to suits.  Their display in no way resembled the wardrobe staples that John Molloy taught American professionals in Dress for Success, now fifty years past publication.  Loud plaid, no.  Muted plaid perhaps, stripe perhaps, solid probably not.  Wool blends have gotten harder to find, as are people who work at the stores.  My default option has always been Boscov's.  I've even had their salespeople measure me, send the work to a contracting tailor, and pick it up.  Service discontinued.  They still have a big selection at a favorable price, though now nearly all synthetics as the fabric. I tried some on.  My usual size too snug.  The size above, not right in the shoulders.  No attendant in the department to measure me or at least tell me to buy a size up or down.  I had the cashier page a person who works in that department.  None came.

Finding a tailor to correct whatever I select poses its own challenge.  In this era of internet and websites, custom tailoring remains a cottage industry.  There are some near me.  Few reviews.  The rational part of me affirms that for as often as I wear a jacket, my current supply more than gets me by.  Have plenty of suitable shirts, ties, and adequately fitting slacks.  I could take one of my current jackets to tailor, see how he does and for how much, then decide on new clothing.  Likely my best option.  Or just use what I have, leave the button open, and accept snug, another rational approach.  Or I could get something at Boscov's and let him alter it. I'd have something that fits.  Versatile, but not wool.  And few places to wear it.  Looking more put together when I really have nobody to impress does not make much sense.

Maybe before the event, I'll have my hair and fingernails done instead.

Cancelled Classes

Each Sunday morning I write my week's fixed appointments on a magnetized whiteboard, as does my wife.  A look at the refrigerator door enables us to coordinate our flexible time activities.  In the right margin, we write upcoming appointments to be transferred to the weekly list when the events arise.  Events are often repetitive.  Choral rehearsals for my wife.  Obligations at the synagogue, from monthly board meetings to tasks on the bimah for shabbos.  Doctors' appointments are few.  We each take full class schedules at the regional Osher Institute, three days each.  And I enrolled in a monthly session from the Rabbi at synagogue.  Few days have no entry on the weekly whiteboard.  Moreover, we have our routines that recur without an entry.  I exercise and stretch on a reasonably fixed schedule, was dishes at predictable times, prepare and eat dinner.  My wife lights shabbos candles and we recite kiddush with shabbos dinner in season or separately when Daylight Savings Time moves the onset of shabbos much past our usual suppertime.  I read my NEJM articles at set times and plan my next day in My Space after supper most nights.  No reason to coordinate these.  Cluttering the whiteboard with too many things reduces its value.

During the school year, our classes dominate the weekly list of places we have to be at specified times.  This week looked especially full.  My monthly expense review got delayed a day by yontif Pesach.  Classes with Osher and the Rabbi.  Interviews of scholarship candidates.  A yahrtzeit for my wife, where I am needed to help make the minyan that enables her to recite Kaddish.  A day trip on Thursday. So it came as a welcome surprise when the Rabbi and an Osher instructor cancelled classes for Tuesday night and Wednesday morning respectively.  Fixed obligations suddenly became flexible time.  Free time and flexible time differ in productivity expectations.  Opening Tuesday night and Wednesday morning creates an unexpected block of opportunity to insert what I ought to do, perhaps more important than scheduled activity.  

I had wanted to try out the new pizza place nearby.  My wife and I registered at the front register twice, leaving when the hostess informed us of an unacceptable one hour wait.  I had anticipated no free suppertimes this week, but cancellation of the class brought opportunity.  Not having supper plans, we headed there early, finding the half hour wait acceptable.  Parking lot still full, most tables already occupied by our 5:30PM check-in.  Eventually seated.  Served a unique pizza not available elsewhere.  I understood its pre-opening hype and large crowds despite its recent opening and early service glitches.

My Wednesday morning class at the OLLI site at 9AM followed by a second class would have forced me into my treadmill session a half hour before my customary time.  When I step on at 8:15AM I achieve a rhythm hard to duplicate at the earlier time.  Because I am likely to find some excuse to skip this exercise session, I have disciplined myself to do it before I leave home in the morning, even when inconvenient.  The cancelled class allows me on the treadmill at my optimal time.  It also enables some quiet time, just me and my keyboard that an early class would have pre-empted.  This newly captured block of time did not go to trivial social media or YouTube.

I might question, if not having the two classes creates opportunity, should I even enroll in those two classes?  While I found the free time an opportunity to do something else of value, the two cancelled classes also enrich me in their own way.  The Rabbi's format allows interaction with other learners.  The OLLI session does not, as the lecturer goes from starting time to closing time without pause, not even for questions.  But having to drive there, I get to wander the lobby for a few minutes, usually encountering an old friend or two.  This cannot be duplicated at my laptop.  So if suspension of the classes infrequently creates personal opportunity, it is only because that time was otherwise dedicated to activities that push me ahead.  It is better to regard the two classes as the places I most want to be at those time, and capitalize on their occasional cancellations.  This time the options of what could I be doing instead came easily.

Classes suspend for the summer, typically in May.  The lesson of cancellation creates new insights into into defining blocks of open time.  Try visiting a new place.  Push my exercise targets.  Match mind and keyboard.  Enroll in another fixed activity that meets during the school and synagogue intercessions.  While I did not expect this absence of classes, I used the new found flexible time in a very satisfying way.

Getting There

In a week, I promised a person most dear to me that we would get together in NY.  She flies across America to enjoy a few days there.  I only have one specified day, a day trip not done for several years.  My transportation options are numerous.  Drive to and park in Manhattan.  Drive to a suburb that accesses either PATH or NJ Transit, park at the station, then enter Manhattan by regional rail.  Amtrak connects my city with Manhattan, though for a steep fare.  Bus options also exist from my city.  I could take regional rail to Philadelphia, then a bus with frequent departure and return times from there to Manhattan.  Or with senior discounts, I could take regional rail all the way from my town to Manhattan at a steep discount but parallel steep inconvenience.

My master teacher's imprint emerges.  John, of blessed memory, taught his fellows to list all possibilities that will solve a challenge, even the unrealistic ones.  From these, the best option emerges.  Since having surgeon remove a thyroid solves most thyroid conditions, that needed to be on John's sort through list, even if not accepted medical practice for the particular thyroid problem.  I approach transit in a similar manner.  The goal: visit the young lady I most want to see, getting there and back on the same day.

Considerations:

• Cost/Value
• Personal Effort
• Time Flexibility
• Logistics
• Foreseen Annoyances

It has been my good fortune to reach my Golden Years financially independent.  Even the most expensive of the options, round trip Amtrak for my wife and me, will not materially affect my personal financial position.  Their Senior Discount exists only nominally, though.  Getting to the train station and back is straightforward.  They have a parking garage across the street.  Downside other than cost, would be the schedules.  They don't run that often.  The commuter train to NYC has business travelers with expense accounts.  The extra $25 per ride is the cost of doing business at peak times, a pittance to what the traveler would be paid for doing his or her work.  Off-peak fare is less, but it delays my time with my guest.  Getting home would pose the same considerations.  On the up side, once en route I can basically relax next to my wife in a comfortable seat, occupying myself in any number of ways with what I can carry in my cross chest travel pouch.

Driving offers flexibility.  My wife would function as the passive passenger, amusing herself with crosswords or radio or chatting with me.  I have to pay attention to the road.  GPS has immensely simplified road trips.  I can deal with the highway, but the optimal exit that gets me to the NJ commuter train is not obvious.  I also have to deal with local roads once nearing my destination, find an unfamiliar parking lot, probably pay electronically, and walk to the commuter rail station.  By now I have some experience paying for parking at kiosks.  Costs include the hidden one, my gas tank filled the day before, usually about $30.  Turnpike tolls about $30 round-trip. Bridge toll home $6.  Parking estimates seem to be about $25.  Commuter rail across the Hudson River is nominal.  I could drive into Manhattan.  For my trouble, I would incur city driving, more expensive and less available parking, and a bridge toll.  Between hassle and expense, leaving the car in NJ seems the better option.

There are buses from my town.  A single bus line does not serve round trip at the times I would need to travel.  As a result, I would have to park in the garage near the Greyhound station in the morning then walk about ten minutes through some seedy blocks to get to the Rockleigh bus on time.  The bus lets passengers off in a difficult part of Manhattan.  However, I have taken this bus a few times.  It provides a pleasant ride.  For the return trip, which may approach dark on arrival home, I would have to take Greyhound which stops near where I park my car.  Fare, about $35 per ride.

Two other options that I would consider if traveling alone, though not with my wife and not with the need to meet a special person in NYC.  I have a Senior Rail pass that lets me ride to and within Philadelphia for free.  I could take that to Philadelphia, paying a nominal $2 parking fee at the rail terminal.  Then take the city bus or subway to the bus terminal, which would get me to NYC.  These buses leave frequently at mostly convenient times.  They seem to charge about $17 per ride.  There are downsides to safety and convenience.  I would have to time the commuter rail schedule to the bus departure schedule, leaving me enough time to get from train to intercity bus by SEPTA city transit.  The bus stops are now in different places skirting Center City, mostly places where crime poses a significant concern, particularly if returning after dark.  And I would need to make sure I get back to the commuter rail stop in time for the final train that brings me to my home station.  A suitable adventure for me, not suitable for an important day trip.

And for roughly the same price, I could use my free pass to Philadelphia, transfer to a line to NJ Transit in Trenton, which would no longer be free but not expensive, and then use a Senior Discount on NJ Transit to NYC.  I would have to get home.  Schedules are limited, but on the return trip I could take a bus to Philadelphia, taking advantage of their frequent departures, and complete my trip home by SEPTA.  That I do myself when I want to convince myself that I can do this.

At my son's college graduation, Mayor Bloomberg told the class to seek four elements in their personal initiatives, words that I put on my whiteboard the next day, where they have remained in my line of sight for 17 years.

1. Independence
2. Honesty
3. Accountability
4. Innovation

My travel options offer an expression of all of these.  My ability to sort out options.  A sense of what is suitable for one circumstance but not for all circumstances.  Responsibilities that I have for my wife's comfort and to spend time with my West Coast Visitor.  Setting priorities of safety, convenience, and value.  John z"l would be pleased with the ability to reason that he insisted I acquire.  For this trip, time with the people who count the most takes priority.  For another trip, traveling alone, my ability to explore something novel that I've not done before might become the overriding purpose.  I've not yet chosen my preferred travel option for this trip but I seem willing to spend a little extra for somebody else to operate the vehicles while my wife and I have a minimal hassle and optimal time with our special visitor.

World Zionist Congress Elections

 

If you draw a Venn Diagram from my 7th grade curriculum using two circles, one for Zionists and one for Jews, most of the Jewish Circle will overlap within the larger Zionist circle.  To be sure, people who believe that Jews need sovereignty as a feature of nationhood extends far beyond my Jewish community.  It includes all but a few American elected officials.  But if you identify somebody as Jewish, it's a safe bet that their attachment to Israel coincides.  Many clumsily finesse that reality in the American political and religious landscape.  The anti-Zionists on campus can correctly assume that if they chase a Jewish student across the Quad as they shout at him with a bullhorn, they will have succeeded in harassing a Zionist.

Israel has developed over its 77 years of independence from a start-up to a nation with talented, industrious people creating an effective military, a diverse innovative economy, a place of stable institutions and infrastructure.  International alliances have been created, some high profile, others more surreptitious.  Making this happen amid their domestic and international fractures needs considerable funding, unconditional funding.  It also requires decisions on allocation.  

While sovereignty belongs to the citizens and other legal inhabitants, diaspora Jews like me get a seat at the table in the form of the World Zionist Congress.  Each year this umbrella organization elects delegates from outside Israel to sit in a forum where project allocations are decided from a variety of immense pools of money, all earmarked to benefit Israel in some way.

Eligibility to vote is pretty loose by franchise standards of most nation-states:

• Be 18
• Be Jewish
• Live legally in the USA
• Affirm support for Zionism
• Not vote for the Israeli Knesset even if eligible
• Pay $5

Voters select Slates.  The ballot offers 22 of them, each with dozens of candidates who are seated by their place in their organization's pecking order and the proportion of votes that the slate gets.

All 22 slates produce a statement of their purpose and their vision for Israel as a democratic and pluralistic entity.  Some are obvious.  In your face organizations that want to recover the Biblically prescribed borders, even displacing those already there if necessary.  The three American denominations are amply represented by offshoots of their American umbrella agencies.  And then there are niche advocates, eco Judaism, two-state solution advocates, organizations wanting their adherents to be treated in a more dignified way than they experience now amid Israel's political structure.

After reading most of the one or two-page platforms, I am not sure how to distinguish most of them, despite a high level of literacy and considerable experience with the Zionist mission and Israel's modern realities.

Will I vote?  The fee will not change my own financial position in any way.  I have a not very admirable view of the American mainstream entities.  The Conservative and Reform understandably want to have their rabbis recognized and compromises from Halacha accepted.  The ZOA and Shas don't share my priority for kindness.  As I read the platforms of each slate, a few remained as maybes.

Irrespective of what a nobody like myself thinks, the volume of people running for seats left a favorable impression. Nearly all obscure people.  Organizational Judaism, outside its most religiously observant core, has slouched considerably in the sixty years since my Bar Mitzvah.  Synagogues like mine have few members not yet on Medicare.  The American seminaries graduate people whose applications would not have passed an Admissions Committee in my early post-college era.  Despite this overt attrition and niche interests, the number of American Jews wanting to seek their place at the table affirms that Israel's advocates remain vibrant.  Many of the slates, when listing their individuals, tabulate how many are women and how many have not reached their 35th birthday.  Whoever gets the seats, usually a mixture of Orthodox variants, religious Zionists, and Islamophobics, the American Jewish community still has its critical mass of young people willing to put themselves in Judaism's arena.

Tax Bill

My financial experts did a good job.  Each month, when I review the composite accounts, the sum total increases.  My income is very predictable.  Wife has a pension, we both get social security, and I reached the age of IRA mandatory withdrawals.  More than we spend on ourselves.  Everything else stays in a few accounts, most distributed among a single manager.

As tax season arrives, we sent all the statements to our CPA, who compiled them.  What we owe created sticker shock.  While on paper my investments have made me quite prosperous, the IRS and State Treasury want their cuts in cash.  It seems my fund managers read the financial and political headwinds correctly.  They rode the markets upward and cashed out in favor of other investments.  That left my wife and me with capital gains that approached the total of our annual cash flow and exceeded our annual expenditures.  We pay estimated taxes on time each quarter.  It didn't come close to meeting our tax liability for the capital gains that we never considered spending on ourselves.  To make this even more of a jolt, our very high composite income for the 2024 year boosts our quarterly estimated obligations dramatically, even though the likelihood of duplication in a consecutive year is low.  

While my wealth is on paper, it is still accessible to me and to the tax collectors.  I had my advisor transfer enough money to our checking account to cover the immediate payment and the next quarterly ones.  Then our income will replenish that checking account gradually, though we may still have to transfer additional savings to that checking account.  I assume that we will drastically overpay what we owe next year so an impressive refund reconciliation is likely.  If our health and stamina hold up, we should allocate some of this, as immediate cash in our possession, to ourselves.

Undoubtedly, the fund managers served us well, as the intent was to create wealth from savings in the absence of ongoing earned income.  Volatility can be spooky, even when it falls in my favor.  But I asked my advisor if we might consider alternatives to incessant trading and profit taking which enhances my account balance but puts the onus of getting a lot of cash into my checking account on short notice to me.

Backing In

My new skill.  Accomplished and repeated.  I've had my current car long enough to pay it off.  It's a 2018 model, my first with a back-up camera, though I've rented a few SUVs with this feature.  My driver's licenses, though, go back to 1967, including a road test failure for backing up over a curb after the inspector instructed me to parallel park.  Since then I have a lot of experience and a lot of habits, with a few insurance claims.  I park my car based on those skills, and much less expertly than the residents of big cities or paid valets park their cars.  When in a parking lot, as my need to parallel park is rare, I drive into my selected space.  Mostly I reverse out, partly using mirrors but partly the camera.  I much prefer to drive out, so until this week I've sought a space with an empty space in front of it. That lets me drive forward coming and going.  

Mostly in lots I select random spaces, those easily entered.  At OLLI these past few semesters, I selected a particular space in the lot that I consider mine.  It's only been occupied twice.  This lot has no spaces where a driver can pull forward into the next one.  All spaces abut an edge.  I see lots of cars, mostly  SUVs but some sedans backed into their spaces, and watched a few senior drivers doing that.  It is certainly safer to drive forward when classes let out and many other drivers want to leave at the same time.  Yet my usual location in the lot had been ideal for me.  It lies at the edge of a section, with the walkway adjacent to my passenger side.  I will never have to worry about avoiding an adjacent car as I exit.

This week, though, a usurper had gotten there first.  There being no other cars entering the lot and ample open spaces to my right, what better time to see what the reverse camera can do.   I positioned my car where I wanted, then placed the transmission in reverse.  The camera image appeared.  Making sure no other cars were entering that portion of the lot, I selected a space with no cars on either side.  The camera had guides to the side and to the rear.  I followed the blue lines until they matched the while lines on the asphalt, then the rear blue guides.  The red line indicates the rear of my car.  I wanted it to appear a little behind the concrete wheel guide, with the trunk at the edge of the grass.  It went smoothly, with a bare repositioning.

The next day my usual space had become available to me, but I opted to practice my new skill.  This time into a space with an adjacent car.  It went well, though I was more skittish and had to reposition twice.  Driving forward out of my space seems a lot more secure than trying to back out while not challenging other traffic.  My windshield gave me an ideal view of the other cars entering and exiting the lot as classes transitioned from early morning to late morning.

The rear camera adds safety beyond what mirrors can offer.  It can be used to parallel park, so maybe I'll look for occasions to get that experience.  And had these cameras been available as a teenager, with their use part of driver's ed instruction, I might have acquired my junior license on the first try.

Shabbat Pageant

Too much.  Over the top.  My personal connection to Friday night services, known as Kabbalat Shabbat, has cycled considerably over a lifetime.  As a youngster, primarily 1960s, we belonged to a United Synagogue Affiliate, a member of the Conservative Movement.  While the suburban Reform congregations showcased Friday night as the demarcation between the commuting work week and respite, the Conservative synagogues held their traditional services on Saturday mornings.  Friday nights became special events, attended more for the specific event than the sanctity of Shabbat.  My congregation, now defunct, had programming that would violate many of the Shabbat restrictions.  We held Bat Mitzvahs on Friday nights.  A choir would perform liturgical melodies with organ accompaniment once a month.  Programming included guest speakers of community prominence of panels of members doing presentations from campers showing the dances they learned to honoring the graduating High School Class to hearing what a local Civil Rights leader had to say about recent initiatives or legislation.  The services were timed for 8PM, competing with That Was the Week That Was and The Flintstones in the pre VCR era.  My family essentially only went to announced events.  The evening served as much a communal as a worship function, starting late enough so that men could drive home after a long week in the trenches, eat a more elegant dinner than other days, and still get to services.

My two years as a camper, Friday night served a different purpose.  Our parents were told to pack white outfits:  shirt, long white duck pants, while suede oxfords, to be worn on Friday nights.  We assembled for services, rather late due to Daylight Savings Time, then a meal in the communal dining room with singing before Grace after Meals.  Finally we assembled to a public space for Israeli Dancing, with most campers getting the gist of the steps before the summer ended.

College brought a variant of that in a way, recognizing that Friday night was traditionally university date night.  The classes ended, exams over.  Shower, put on a clean shirt and sports coat, services timed to candle lighting, but always quick and efficient.  Then to dinner with chicken soup and roast chicken.  The dining room always attracted a lot more people than the sanctuary, but services remained similarly attended on Friday nights as they did on Saturday mornings.  Commencement done.  Friday nights generally history for me.  Saturday morning became the anchor of communal Shabbos with Friday night reserved for unwinding, some weekends taking medical call, and a meal with kiddush and motzi.  Friday at home, Saturday at synagogue.  However, at our Conservative synagogue, services still began at 8PM where they remained for decades.  Eventually, the Conservative Rabbis, noting marginal attendance, opted to move Kabbalat Shabbat to a pre-dinner hour to enable them and maybe some congregants to have more of an uninterrupted home Shabbos experience. Rabbis sang songs or hosted dinner guests.  Congregants watched Dallas and Wall Street Week.  The Reform Movement kept Friday night as its centerpiece, including periodic programming.

This turned out very useful for me the year I needed to recite Kaddish for my father.  I had taken a new job that required a substatiantial commute.  By the time I returned home on Fridays, the week and driving had taken its toll.  Most of the year Shabbos had already begun.  Chicken got seared and baked before I left in the morning.  My wife finished the meal preparations and lit candles before I returned home.  Then dinner, then Kaddish.  My only realistic option was our local Reform synagogue.  Despite the sad reason for attendance I liked going there, not missing TV at all.

The Reform Movement had issued a new prayer book shortly before.  It offered their rabbis considerable flexibility of content from week to week.  While this congregation had a much different format from my traditional one, the choreography of the service remained fully recognizable.  An usher with name tag handed out a program as people entered the sanctuary. I selected a seat towards the back half, a place that I sought out most times.  They had an organist accompanying their cantor, both people of musical talent.  Periodically their choir participated, but usually not.  A woman lit the candles, irrespective of whether Shabbos had already begun on the clock.  This honor went to a board member or a Bat Mitvah girl, one of their few retentions of gender roles.  Then the service, a mixture of readings and familiar tunes.  Most weeks their Rabbi delivered a message, though sometimes a guest spoke.  Towards the conclusion, children under age 13 came to the Bimah where the cantor chanted Kiddush and the Rabbi blessed the children.  Ill acquaintances blessed, the departed memorialized, and the service concluded with their organist playing the tune to a hymn that varied between weeks while the congregants sang.  Then everyone assembled in an adjacent room for snacks.  It had predictability despite the variances in weekly content that added interest.  Even on special Shabbos weekends, whether partnerships with African American congregations for Martin Luther King Weekend or an invited guest of special accomplishment, the format avoided elements of public spectacle.  After my year of Kaddish, the fondness for the experience remained, so that I continued to attend periodically.  Eventually their Rabbi or their Board opted to move the time from 8PM to 7PM.  That largely ended my Friday nights there, and the few times I ventured out, their attendance seemed at least a third less than it had been.  The format remained unchanged.

My Traditional congregation has Friday night services timed to pre-dinner. Getting there and back, approximately 20 minutes in the car each way, puts my attendance in competition with Shabbos dinner.  I opt to have a pleasant meal with my wife.  I do not know if they assemble the required ten men each week.

And then we have events, times designated to venture beyond the ordinary, yet stay in bounds with fundamental purposes.  My congregation sponsored one of these, a multipronged extravaganza designed to tie different elements of the larger Jewish community, celebrate a milestone anniversary year for our synagogue, and perhaps right some wrongs that left us as victims.  

It had been a tradition for many years that our umbrella agency, The Jewish Federation, would designate one Friday night each year for one synagogue in our county to host the others.  Population migration has brought a significant number of Jews outside the reasonable driving distance, but pandemic normalized Zoom has enabled electronic access.  This is acceptable to all congregations but mine and Chabad, where electronic prohibitions on Shabbos are maintained.  Moreover, Chabad officials do not drive and their sanctuary is too small for a communal event so they have not participated in these geographicallly expanded Shabbatot.  Moreover, our clergy do not drive or ride in motor vehicles on Shabbos so their participation has been limited to our host years, though our officers have been full participants.  While liturgy, acceptance of women, and Shabbos restrictions vary among the county's synagogues, it has been the custom that each host showcases itself.  If only the Reform affiliate allows an organ, all congregations and their clergy accept that under the banner of Achdoos, or communal unity.  Experiencing each other in their own way serves as the foundation of this annual program.

Congregational fortunes have their own life cycles from creation to closure.  Mine started 140 years ago, the incentive for celebration.  In that time it has experienced internal history from locations, mergers, membership growth, programming adapting to the expectations of different decades.  In a much more compressed time, maybe my 70 year lifetime, organizational Judaism has experienced attrition.  My Bar Mitzvah synagogue, class of '64, building cornerstone '54, closed in '06.  My dear congregation as a newlywed, where I only worshipped for one year, swooned from 400 members to 29 over about 25 years.  They had a benefactor.  Like my Bar Mitzvah congregation, they ran out of people before they ran out of money.  My congregation faced a similar trajectory.  Declining and aging members without replacement.  No tycoons created in the 140 years of our existence.  We opted to sell our building which will keep us financially solvent until the actuarial realities catch up with us or an unanticipated influx of younger members find our traditional ways sufficiently attractive to pay annual dues.  With diligence and an interim location, we rented more suitable digs to call our own.  Weekly attendance of about forty makes our sanctuary appear reasonably full.  Accommodating hundreds, a possibility in our previous building, cannot happen.  In the interim, the kingmakers and shot callers from the Federation had to field objections from different leaders who found some host congregation customs or locations unacceptable.  As a result, they relocated this annual Shabbos of Unity from fractious sanctuaries to a central auditorium that serves the entire county, with Zoom links for those synagogues too distant.  One congregation would be named host.  Since Siddurim, or prayer books, are themselves sectarian, our communal brass decided to homogenize this with a more generic prayer book.  And then there needed to be a recovery from Covid restrictions and emergence of in-person worship.

My congregation's turn in the limelight arose this year.  It didn't happen.  Important people of other congregations found our customs unacceptable and vetoed closing down their Friday night activities to come to a central place.  Important people rule, up to a point.  Attrition has occurred with leadership very much in place.  Walking away, the easy default.  Challenging for a better outcome, more difficult.

Our synagogue has a milestone anniversary this year.  Not a typical one like a centennial or one with special Jewish significance like 13, but a three digit year that ends in zero brings an opportunity for hype.  We could use some hype.  Events aimed at those already inside.  The Dominant Influencers decided what we might like.  They think they know, though in 25 years I've never actually had my preferences or vision solicited.  If gathering on Shabbos could be more robust, create a dinner or festive event.  I attended a spectacle.  Admittedly, the Rabbi put in full effort and talent to reversing the affront that marked our initial turn as the focus of Community Shabbat.  Invite everyone who's anyone.  A singing troupe.  Elected officials with their time at the microphone.  A place for Rabbis of all Congregations to lead a prayer.  A barely teen to light Shabbos candles just in the nick of time, while not pre-empting a video our Senator created to be shown just after candles were lit.  We have no instrumental music on Shabbos.  That is part of our Shabbos.  But the show must go on so guitars from the ensemble accompanied our prayers.  Our High Holiday Choir.  Our closing prayer fixture to lead a few verses that overlapped Friday night with Saturday morning.  Shabbos as pageant, maybe with a tinge of parody.

All executions went well.  A few hundred people now know who we are, though not quite in the same way I thought we were.   Good food awaited those who stayed to its conclusion, which I did.

Interestingly, the part I found most meaningful did not occur in the auditorium.  I've met the Governor, Congresswoman, and live Senator before.  I've met everyone who performed other than the ensemble director.  My more meaningful interactions occurred with people I see too infrequently.  A very capable officer who mostly ignores me at shul, cannot ignore me by Zoom Board Meetings, who saw me exercising on the JCC treadmill.  There's a story behind that which I conveyed.  An old friend whose class I attend every week at the Osher Institute, a Dominant Influencer at his congregation on a different tier than ours.  Some words about OLLI.  Another fellow who I've not seen in decades, a contemporary recently widowed.  He had served as president of an agency at a time when I found it most contrary to my concept of what Judaism should aspire to.  He did too, but he had an obligation to his agency.  Never any ill will towards him, as he provided a sympathic if ineffectual ear when I needed it.  No attempt to bridge the decades of separation.  Just small talk for a few moments and glad to see we both appeared well in our late life Jewish obscurity.  I may have reservations about the experience, but those handshakes and greetings with a rugulach in hand confirmed what I knew all along.  The worship and showcasing must take a back seat to good will and kindness among the people who make an effort to be present when they could be home streaming whatever has replaced Dallas on TV.  Thinking back to late Friday nights of yore, my year of Kaddish always included some greetings afterwards.  My childhood congregation invariably brought the Bat Mitzvah of somebody I knew or public school person familiar each weekday but friendly for fifteen minutes after services.  Places where people of title, Dominant Influencers, become subordinate to the quietly talented sharing a handshake and a one liner.  Shabbos has its inherent formality.  People who prepare in advance their time at the Bimah or Torah Scroll.  They acquire merit for the effort.  But you reach long milestones by people remembering how well you treated them.  

Safe Deposit Contents

No greater incentive to review my most vital documents than referral by my cardiologist to an oncologist.  While my visit and lab work that followed do not seem desperate, I probably should have reviewed my will and Advance Directives periodically without this external prod.  They are housed in a safe deposit box at the bank where we maintain our checking account.  My last trip there was not long ago.  I deposited the title of my car which the finance company mailed to me after my final payment.  Eventually, I or my Executor will need to sell that car. On that visit, I did not look at any contents, just placing the title atop other items already there.  While we've rented the box for more than forty years, the original branch closed a few years ago, forcing us to rent a new box at the branch near us.  New location, box number, and keys.  Prior to dropping off my title, I had never signed in at the new location.  At the old location I only visited every few years, not looking at its contents more than once or twice previously.

So what did I find there?  Mostly important stuff along with small expensive items.  In a plastic bag sat a few clipped hairs from our first cat who died suddenly and prematurely.  And a gold ring with a ruby that my late father valued and gave to me.  I've never worn it.  Some jewelry of my wife's, including her engagement ring.  The expensive watch that my wife gave me for our 25th anniversary.  I think I only wore it to special occasions twice, and did not recall that it had been stored there.  It sits in an outsized box that I did not recognize.  Opening it took effort, but once opened I recognized that watch immediately.

Papers included appraisals of that jewelry and other pieces.  The box also had a VCR cassette labelled A Tour of our house.  No doubt also related to documentation of expensive items like furniture for future insurance claims.  I wonder if we should do this again, this time with a CD and images in The Cloud.

Other papers referred to our house.  The Deed.  The Surveyor's map of property lines. Our original mortgage documents, long since satisfied.

And papers needed as our lives reach their conclusions.  Wills, Advance Directives, Revocable Trusts.  Those things taken home to copy so that my home strong box will have copies to share with my financial advisor and our doctors.  Then return the originals.  Once returned, I expect that safe deposit box to remain dormant and unaccessed indefinitely.

Herb Pots

My morning task has become retrieving the newspaper at the end of the driveway.  I do this in night clothes, irrespective of the weather unless I have some reason to dress first thing in the morning.  I do not read the newspaper most days, though my wife does and I once had a great fondness for many different newspapers.  A of these dailies have gone extinct, including the Herald-Tribune to which my sixth grade class qualified for a cheap subscription.  Most still print every day but with much reduced local reporting, victim to parallel depletion of paid advertising.  This morning, as nearly every morning except Saturday when the local paper discontinued that day's print edition, I went to the driveway's end, this time dressed in anticipation of our cleaning service visit.  Rain fell steadily, though not enough to create big puddles on the driveway or adjacent lawn.  I found the paper wrapped in plastic, tied at the top, with a coating of water.  I bent down, shook the drops off as I picked it up, then deposited it at my front door to enable my wife to read about what's new.

Today's forecast predicts a much heavier downpour as we enter the first week of spring.  Outdoor activities did not appear on my Daily Tasks, other than to begin preparing my herb pots that I keep a few steps from my front door, their bottoms resting on grassless peat moss applied by our semi-annual landscaping service.  Those herbs had largely failed last summer while my indoor aerogarden herbs have flourished.  I don't know why.  Rosemary had some straggly needles, hardly enough for meaningful culinary use.  Even spearmint, a dominant weed if not contained, produced only a few sprigs.  Chives, thyme, dill, coriander went nowhere.

Reasons for crop failure would generate a long list.  Old seeds, inadequate pot drainage.  I don't think the lawn service sprayed herbicide on them as their placement near shrubbery shields them from the grassy areas.  Maybe too little sunlight, though I have had better growth in previous years.  The soil has not been enriched in any way for a while.  

One recent afternoon I inspected each pot.  The soil seemed tamped down.  I don't remember if I used potting soil or topsoil.  The latter is easier to work with but most online herb pot advice recommends potting soil that comes pre-enriched.  I took a small hand trowel, loosening each upper layer, digging down the to the drainage layer beneath, one made of small stones or broken pottery.  I will confirm drainage before planting this season.  The soil layer for some appeared thinner than when I first established most of the pots a few years ago.

When I watch cooking shows, another activity much reduced in frequency over time, the chefs all have culinary herb access.  I do too as an aerogarden, with some components woefully overgrown and underharvested.  But I really want to be able to go outside my front door to snip leaves that enhance what I create in my kitchen.  That will require a little more attention than in seasons past.

Extra Coffee

Rationing coffee consumption has taken effort.  I became an enthusiast, if not an addict, early in college.  The main cafeteria offered a Bottomless Cup with free refills for 10 cents.  I would add a pastry, most often a bow tie, for another quarter.  Frequently a friend from around campus would bring his breakfast, usually more substantial than mine, to my table.  We would chat about any variety of topics until the clock nudged us to our first classes.  Later, I bought an orange percolator, an electric one of questionable legality in the university dorm, where I would add some caffeine in preparation for intense study as key exams approached.

Coffee has taken many routes since then.  An introduction to specialty coffee worthy of a premium at a unique shop within walking distance of my apartment.  Free coffee provided by vendors or employers.  Technology advanced.  I still have a stovetop percolator, though my beloved orange electric one is no more.  Technology brought us Mr. Coffee drip machines, Melitta cones, k-cups, and Starbucks.  Instant coffee, the staple of my parents and my intro to coffee as a teen, still appears in my pantry though as an additive to baking, never as a beverage.  

For sure, the many variations of coffee attracts me.  It has for more than fifty years.  It also has its physiological effects.  Studying for an exam, a safe boost when needed, if not needed too often.  Awake in the morning to perform the day's tasks, that's probably the reason for its global popularity.  Conviviality, whether at the university cafeteria or at a lounge or a reception.  Legitimate purpose.  Adverse effects crop up too.  Sleepless after those evening receptions concluded with dessert and coffee.  Withdrawal symptoms when deprived on religious fast days or mornings when I need to leave in a harried way to get coffee when I arrive or en route.  And that's without getting into the many reports of long-term benefits or harms.  Despite the advancing sophistication of science, these observational studies seem to segregate into results that pitch the sponsor's fondness for or aversions to my preferred morning stimulant.

Incessant of injudicious consumption had to stop.  I imposed some form of rationing, though a lenient one.  On days at home, two k-cups worth, with the Keurig Machine set at 8 ounces.  When I deserved a treat, I could go to a coffee shop at mid-morning.  On mornings with OLLI classes, one cup of coffee from my k-cup plus some to take to OLLI in a thermal mug.  One class mornings get 10 ounces made in a home Keurig machine poured into a 14 ounce cylinder with a sipable top.  Two class mornings entitle me to a little more.  I fill a 16 ounce thermal mug with water, then pour that into a French press prefilled with two coffee measures of specialty ground coffee.  Wait four minutes, depress the plunger and pour into the now empty mug.  Sip during and between classes.

While I've been faithful to this limitation, I've also used access to extra as a reward.  A superlative effort at my laptop or enhancing my home in the morning entitles me to more coffee at late morning.  This is usually fulfilled at a coffee shop, as the attention to details of brewing that the baristas offer enhances my entitlement for a job well done.  Infrequently, the reward comes from the Keurig machine.

My good faith effort has its lapses.  Rarely do I purchase WaWa or 7-Eleven coffee, though they offer tasty options of major variety and let me customize.  Travel changes that.  On occasion I go out for breakfast, maybe twice a month.  Coffee and one refill become part of that experience.  And that's added to the eye-opening cup I make for myself before leaving home.  Fortunately, evening receptions where coffee is served have become infrequent.  While suppliers indicated that decaffeinated coffee tastes similar to its raw prototype, it registers in my mind as deprived, adulterated coffee.  Maybe because I remember an Organic Chemistry Lab module where we had to extract caffeine from tea.  Very artificial with exogenous chemicals.  I avoid that even at the risk of a night's insomnia.

Those fifty years since the college cafeteria have taken the coffee industry on a forward path, whisking me along with it. I enjoy the variety, availability, and ease.  But for my own safety, I set limits.  My adherence to self-created restrictions plays out as mostly beneficial, with only a minimum sense of deprivation.

Staycation

My last OLLI class before Spring Break.  I came home mid-morning, worked on a monthly financial review, then declared Vacation.  First initiative, treating myself to a donut at a new donut boutique, one for me, one taken home to my wife.  Spring Break in progress.

Being retired, time off gets more difficult to delineate.  My life has minimal fixed appointments.  OLLI comprises the majority of them each week, though now only five distributed over three days.  Periodically I need to visit one of my growing roster of medical providers.  These seem to cluster with long lulls between encounters and the diagnostic procedures they want me to have.  Shabbos is sort of a  fixed obligation.  Dinner preparation Friday, Services Saturday morning.  I don't skip a dinner that demarcates my Shabbos.  Services I give myself periodic mornings at home in place of synagogue.  

For the most part, my Vacations separate themselves from the rest of my time by travel.  This makes both fixed appointments and ongoing chores largely unavailable.  It also forces me to seek new experiences.  Unfortunately, my last two journeys as a couple ended in significant medical problems.  I really don't want to be in my car for hours at a time in both directions, nor do I want to deal with airports or rental cars.  As much as I like wineries, hot tubs, and museums, most of these can be had at much reduced expense and enhanced safety using my house as home base.  A Staycation this time.  The risk, of course, is being sucked into errands that would not crop up while on the road.  Our next scheduled housecleaner service would be one of these.

Still, I think of it as mostly an ME week, a chance to do one to three things that I want to do more than I should. While I could delegate the cleaner to my wife, I really should keep myself on-site that morning. At the end of the week, I have a commitment to the synagogue. There remains my exercise schedule, something I try to maintain at hotels if possible.

Things I like to do.  While I won't have a hotel, I have accumulated two JCC Day Passes.  So the steam room, sauna, pool, and gym of a resort remain available to me one time that week.  I had a grand breakfast a couple of years ago at America's largest buffet.  One morning for that, one of the days that the treadmill has the day off.  As tempting as it is to try an adventure to NYC by some inconvenient but discounted public transit, I need to meet somebody there next month.  I'll travel as a couple by driving.  But I can and should do one day trip to Philadelphia, picking out a special attraction.  Wineries not on my radar this week.  St. Pat's Day come and gone, so no compelling reason to seek beer either.  A new restaurant opened nearby, maybe see if it meets its hype.  I like slices of pizza and tuna hoagies.  Maybe pick one as a treat.

And that OLLI Class time, and the travel time to get there and back, can be designated Writing Time.  Fishing probably ought to happen once.  Putting Green and Driving Range are near the OLLI campus.  Those can wait until classes resume.

But one inescapable reality.  My FB Friends all seem to take themselves to the air.  The algorithms pick out stuff that will keep you fixated on the screen, if not create a feeling of I want that too.  At the moment, I don't.

So my ten days of largely unscheduled time has begun.  It feels a little like Vacation, even in the absence of travel.  

Pesach Season

My invitation to do one of the Pesach Torah readings arrived.  The one selected I've done before.  It comes out on Shabbos this year.  I'm indifferent to making a commitment but I cannot defer a decision too long. Somebody else read that portion last year.

Other parts of the Festival are more difficult to bow out.  In many ways, my personal concept of a year centers around Pesach.  In the Jewish Calendar, the first command given to us as a people was to set the solar calendar to begin two weeks before Pesach.  For me, it has always brought a transition.  My birthday this year coincides with the First Seder.  Past my prime, but still able to prepare and execute the Festival with the right pacing.

The weekly Shop-Rite ad arrived in the mail.  It has a section on Pesach food, though the display aisle has had items for a few weeks.  I saw what's on sale.  A gefilte loaf.  I usually make one for Seder.  If discounted enough, I buy two.  Jarred gefilte fish too expensive.  Matzoh meal I use all year round.  The price comes down this season so I stock up.  Good deal with the coupon next week.  Macaroons.  Goodman's brand the best buy.  Usually I get four.  They no longer come in cans, something once very useful for portioning and freezing the chicken soup that I make in quantity.  I don't think I will get farfel this year.

The big dinners, two Seders and a yontif at the end is when I am most likely to have guests.  Shabbos, First Seder right after Shabbos, yontif Shabbos, and Sunday at the end.  This poses a challenge, though one I've experienced before.  It means I cannot poach pears for First Seder desserts but can for the final shabbos dinner.

Menus are almost programmed.  The Seder ritual specifies most items.  Charoset allows some flexibility but simple almond, apple, wine, with a splash of cinnamon has become quick and easy.  The entrée of default has become a half turkey breast, easy to season and roast.  Salad has a few ingredients.  I make a matzoh kugel, though I have a lot of potatoes, so maybe a potato kugel for Seder and matzoh kugel for closing shabbos.  Asparagus comes on sale.  So do chicken parts, thus from scratch chicken soup with matzoh balls.

Moving dishes upstairs from the basement should go easier this year, as I organized them better last year.  Moreover, the newly hired housecleaners will do their thing a few days before, in anticipation of the carpet cleaners who come for their annual shampoo a few days before.

I approach this spring, with the equinox still a week off, a little beaten down.  Pesach remains a challenge for me, an obligation to other people at home and at the synagogue.  I pull it off each year.  No reason not to rise to the occasion when this year's Festival arrives.

Registering

Worrisome lab work, results with the potential to reduce longevity, brought me to a specialist.  Despite my familiarity with possibilities and likelihoods, mostly in my favor, I fretted over the encounter.  I drove to a big place, a suite that comprised the entire third floor of the building's west wing.  Chairs everywhere.  Quite a lot of doors.  Stuff hanging on walls, with a small display case for awards that members of the medical group have received.  

My turn at the reception desk came quickly.  Insurance cards.  Driver's license to confirm that I am really me.  A clipboard with registration forms and a pen of the type they discount at back to school sales.  No practice promotional logo.

I took my clipboard, then headed to a chair with arms in a place largely unoccupied.  Demographic data straightforward.  Name, address, birthdate as medical facilities now use that to confirm identities.  Emergency contact.  That took some thought.  My wife came first.  Back-up?  Neighbor or Friend.  It reminded me of how few close people I have.  I named a friend who could rescue me in an emergency.  Who to discuss what to do if I couldn't engage in decisions myself.  My wife.  They needed a backup.  I have two children, both physicians.  One is a clinician, the other a researcher.  One can drive to my side in five hours.  The other can fly to my side in five hours.  They have different personalities.  I wrote the name of the more distant on the line.  A reminder that this specialty has patients who sometimes do not do well.  I might become one of them.  I have an advance directive.  I think I know where it is.

Next page, About Me.  Have I ever had?  Our electronic record keeping has distilled all responses to yes/no, ignoring context which often matters more than yes/no.  I have had a right upper lobe walking pneumonia,  no subtlety by X-ray.  I remember slight pleuritic pain, and I probably had a fever which is why they did the film.  I think I took a course of antibiotics.  I remember where the x-ray had been taken, at a facility that went belly up some time ago after private equity purchasers milked what they could of its assets.  So I have had pneumonia.  When the blood bank screener asks if I have ever had a problem with my lungs, I say no. No reason to deprive some really sick people of platelets that they need.  It healed and subsequent chest x-rays have been normal.  My cholesterol is controlled.  Do I have kidney disease?  By current criteria, I have minimal CKD of minimal clinical consequence other than a reluctance of my doctors to prescribe anything that might upset that stability.  Anemia?  It's been treated.  Covid?  Took a course of Paxlovid.

Surgery?  Appendix they care about.  Mucosal tags and arthroscopy and wisdom teeth they probably don't, but EHR record keeping still gives that a yes.  

Family?  I know very little of my relatives' past.  There have been malignancies.  There have been cardiovascular events.  My siblings, my closest genetic contemporaries, are not in my loop.  My children keep their adult medical situations private.  I know how long my parents and grandparents lived and their cause of death.  A few more Yes responses on the checklist.

My Review of Systems, a very cursory checklist.  A pittance of what I used to solicit from patients. HEENT OK, though I think they could figure out from my age that hearing decline and cataracts are in evolution.  CV, pulm, GI, musculoskeletal, hematologic all had some intrusions.  None limiting but all an invitation for the doctor to expand our interview when she thinks it helpful.

Medical parts done.  Statement of financial obligations signed.  Clipboard returned to the front desk for somebody to type my responses onto their computer forms to remain in cyberspace for perpetuity, though with some privacy protections.  I kept the pen, with their permission.

This introduces serious medical care.  Perhaps their registration form, carefully considered by whoever designed it, hints at what their new patients like me want out of the assessment, and later the treatment.  I think everyone, including me, wants the doctor's talent.  Usually that entails technical decisions that extend life when it is threatened, or at least ease discomfort.  But as I filled out my answers, an emotional component became apparent.  I've been through my share of illness.  Until now I've prevailed.  In my Medicare senior years, I've accumulated fewer people that I can count on than I might have anticipated in the years I was more fully engaged with other people.  My children remain available from afar.  My sibs no longer are.  When I needed to identify a backup person, I chose a friend over a neighbor.  Friends are few, though not absent.

Some diagnosis remains.  A chance to recoup my resilience exposed by my past medical history and my current array of symptoms.  I remain fully functional despite them.  I conveyed to my medical care team a few things they needed to know, some they probably didn't need to know.  Those fifteen minutes with the form, pondering that Yes But which an electronic data set cannot capture, enabled an overdue interview with myself.  It left me with a different impression when I returned the clipboard than I had driving to their office.

Vegetable Garden Upgrades

Last season's vegetable fared especially poorly.  My tomatoes stayed leafy with little fruit.  Staking them upright, both with plastic stakes and later with metal cages, did not keep them upright.  Fruits gave way mostly to pests and to blights.  Peppers grown from nursery plants went nowhere.  Seeds planted into the ground mostly disappointed.  I generated a cucumber vine but only one cucumber. Pretty much a dud all around.  My pots did not fare a lot better.  I wonder whether lawn care extended their herbicides to my vegetables and herbs.  Or maybe my seeds had passed their expiration dates.  Perhaps my soil needs selective enrichment.  Even weeds did not grow making me a little suspicious of my lawn care service.  Some plants grew green.  The beans did not generate beans but stalks rose.

The agricultural division of my state university offers a soil analysis for a nominal fee.  They have kits, but will also accept samples placed in a one-quart freezer bag, like the TSA does for screening liquids.  I've been reading their collection requirements.  Cumbersome, but within my level of skill.  I will need to wash, maybe sterilize, the garden trowel that collects the sample.  I'll follow the collection procedure that they require.  Fill the sample bag, label it with my identification and the intent of a vegetable garden, and enclose a check for $22.50.  Mail in a secure envelope that I can get from the post office.  Enrich the soil in the way the agricultural chemists advise.

I would like to harvest some vegetables this season.

To make space more efficient, I've used a Square Foot Gardening approach.  Mine never produces nearly as bountifully as Mel's who wrote the book, nor as well as the many online sites that guide amateurs through that method.  Considering the magnitude of last year's gardening failure, maybe it's time to return to row planting.  And new seeds would likely enhance yield.  A couple of layers of organic compost from a gardening center or hardware store could also contribute to success.  I don't have a good defense from pests, though.

I will need to reconsider what to plant.  Every amateur looks forward to tomatoes.  Either exotic heirlooms or beefy globe tomatoes.  Cucumbers have been successful.  To minimize weeds, I have a layer of cloth weed block.  While successful, it also makes root vegetables unrealistic.  I've not done well with leaf lettuce, nor do I particularly like eating a lot of it.  Bell peppers never produced.  I would consider chili peppers.

But first, collect soil and do what the chemists report.

Pick One

The more preferable of two goods.  In an electoral world of objectionable choices, this one seemed welcome.  Two invitations arrived by email, one directly with ample notice, the other in a more backhanded way on much shorter notice.  Neither anticipated.

First, a program on addressing anti-Semitism to be held at the Museum of American Jewish History on a Wednesday evening.  The topic interests me, though as an American, my Jewish identity has been mostly secure.  A few snide comments by fellow university classmates along the way, but no personal threats, or even limitations.  Yet, the past several years have added to my exposure.  The physician gunned down at the Tree of Life massacre I knew well in college.  On a trip to Pittsburgh to visit family, I reserved a Saturday morning to worship at the repackaged Tree of Life Congregation.  Four years later, it was no longer the multiplex of several simultaneous services in a single building.  The survivors assembled as a single worshiping community in a rather opulent space, part of a more cathedral-formatted Reform synagogue.  The President introduced himself to me as a visitor.  No one else did.  They still spoke of that fateful day, after four years, during their Dvar Torah discussion.  

The Monsey Hanukkah attack enabled me to generate an essay for our local Jewish magazine.  I knew the geography well.  I kept up with its transition from secular Jewish of my childhood to the Haredi dominance today.  Animosities are understandable.  They seem more generated by the experience of proximity and negative consequences for a secular minority than to scripted anti-Semitism.

I've had minor interactions with Islamic anti-Zionism repackaged as a form of negative transference reaction to American Jews like me committed to a vibrant, secure Israeli nation-state.  There seems little role for education where people are pre-scripted, yet that has remained the focus of our own legacy advocacy agencies.  Protective, enforceable laws and an unequivocal national policy with minimal wiggle room seem a better option for keeping everyone safe.  Some, however, rationalize the compromise of physical safety in the guise of free expression.

While this forum took some planning, and I am grateful for the invitation I received, I never received a formal agenda.  The session had been assembled by an educational institution of Jewish auspices, but I did not know whose presentations I would hear.

On much shorter notice, a brief mention in the weekly OLLI newsletter that arrives by email every Monday morning disclosed that Robert Putnam would be speaking at the University's main campus at a time that largely coincided with the Jewish event.  Like many others, I have held this Harvard professor in high esteem for a long time.  In addition to becoming thoroughly engaged as I read through his landmark book Bowling Alone, I've had occasion to hear him speak.  He came to my town about five years ago.  I paid $30 for seats in the auditorium, along with a minor parking imposition.  He did not speak about Bowling Alone, which I had read maybe three years earlier, but about his latest work focusing on childhood poverty and economic inequality's harmful effects that pass down through generations.  As compelling as his presentation was, the benefit to me came afterward.  The Delaware Community Foundation, which sponsored Prof Putnam's appearance, set up tables in the foyer outside the auditorium.  They had representatives recruit those in attendance for the many ongoing projects that the Foundation oversees.  I expressed interest in reviewing scholarship applications.  Once signed on, I remain active with this project.  Each spring for five years, I review some twenty-five applications.  Some come from high school students seeking assistance with college.  Others originate with people already attending medical and law school, needing some relief from tuition and loans.  Along the way, I've made a couple of friends and offered suggestions that get implemented for subsequent years.

This time Bob, which is what the Professor likes to be called, has a new book and a Netflix movie called Join or Die.  I got to this in a very indirect way.  After supper, I often retreat to My Space, where I watch YouTube videos.  I particularly learn from Rev. Dr. Russell Moore, who produces a new podcast on modern evangelical Christianity each week.  His podcast usually interviews authors of new books with a social message.  While the host is an Evangelical, though one who has kept his distance from the political alliances of the Christian Right, the people he interviews originate in many backgrounds, including Jewish.  He recently interviewed Bob Putnam, a show I had to watch.  When Bob told Russell his brief bio, he noted that as an undergrad he took a liking to a sweet Jewish girl of the opposite political party who sat behind him.  They went on an outing to the Kennedy Inauguration.  After graduation, they married, he converted to Judaism, and more than sixty years together brought them an expanded three generational family and shared professional accomplishments.

After the interview, I watched the Netflix movie, taking three sessions to match my limited attention span.  Only after seeing the movie, did I notice the OLLI announcement of his visit.  I contacted the University sponsor, which offered seats in the rather limited auditorium for my wife and me.

Which to attend?  From a content perspective, I think my prior fondness for Bob Putnam's insight and my appreciation to the Delaware Community Foundation for welcoming me as a participant gave them an advantage.  So did my wife's interest in accompanying me to that event.  Logistics cannot be discounted either.  I've been to both the National Museum of American Jewish History and the University's Trabant Center in the past.  The University placed its parking garage adjacent to this student union where Bob would speak.  Some traffic anticipated, minor annoyance registering my car and paying the fee at the garage kiosks, but just a minor stroll from my car to the event.

Philadelphia requires more planning.  I have an unlimited transit pass and the event planners made provisions for use of a garage a block or two from the museum.  To get there and back by public transit, I would have to take light rail from a station near my home, sit on the local train for multiple stops comprising a little under an hour, then transfer to either the city subway or bus to the Museum.  The driving option would require me to deal with some city traffic and with a significant diversion from the interstate to city streets before accessing the garage, then walking as darkness approaches going and fully established on the return.  The light rail schedule would leave me with either slack time with an earlier train or a rush with a later one, then return well into the evening.

Both content and logistics favored Prof. Putnam.  That's where I went.  He gave a suitable presentation.  At the end, I got to ask him a question.  I also got to greet the CEO of the Delaware Community Foundation to remind him that Bob's previous presentation connected me to his agency.  Some light snacks at the end with small talk with a contemporary who I had not met previously.  Then uneventful drive home.

I made the right choice.

Their Streak Ended

My mother's yahrtzeit approaches.  A notice came from my current congregation, as it always has.  When synagogue software first became available in the 1980s, automating special day notifications took priority.  People want a reminder of when they need to recite Kaddish.  Flag the date, assemble a packet for the office to mail, including a donation request with a return envelope, and both congregant and congregational treasury benefits.  Mass mailings were one of the first procedures to get successfully automated before personal internet access became the norm.  Snafus and uncertainties abound.  My synagogue keeps the deceased on its memorial list forever, irrespective of whether any survivors maintain their formal affiliation.  I do not know if they mail reminder notices to people who have moved away or otherwise left the congregation.  My former local synagogue stopped sending me an annual notice shortly after I stopped paying dues.

My childhood congregation took a very different path.  A quick chronology:

• 1964: Bar Mitzvah
• 1966: Breakaway group with Sugar Daddy forms a competing congregation.
• 1969: College in another city
• 1971: My mother's passing
• 1973: Relocation for medical school
• 1977: Marriage and relocation for residency
• 1980: Permanent settling in new city
• 2006: Closure of my childhood synagogue

Notices of my mother's yahrtzeit began to appear in my mail each winter starting in 1974.  I do not recall if I responded with a check before I started earning my own paycheck, but once established, they could count on a small gift in the return envelope each year.  As I moved to different apartments in the same city, or to different towns, the US Postal Service forwarded the requests.  As I responded with a check, the recipient in the congregational office had the presence of mind to record the new address, sending subsequent reminders there.  

Closure of the congregation created a branch point.  My congregation closed, it did not merge.  Assets were distributed under state laws regulating places of worship that ceased functioning.  Despite no formal merger, my congregation still had longstanding members, by then largely aging but still observant.  Nearly all defaulted to that breakaway shul, given no chance of long-term longevity at its inception, disadvantaged, or so people thought, by lack of our umbrella organization affiliation.  Whether by a preferable location or that Sugar Daddy, they not only endured, but now inherited pillars of my dying congregation.  They took the high road.  Memorial plaques relocated from the sold building to the active building.  The yahrtzeit list, including my name and address, merged with their database.  My notices kept coming.  

I had occasion to worship at the new place one time following my congregation's closure.  Familiar building sitting on prime real estate between my old elementary school and what was once modern luxury garden apartments that made that Sugar Daddy rich 

While I transitioned from place to place in my younger adulthood followed by extended stability, the institutions transitioned later in their life cycles.  The building where my Bar Mitzvah occurred lost its value as a suitable place for a United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism congregation but served as a desirable location for Hasidic institutions that had become dominant in that neighborhood.  At the successor congregation, nominally unaffiliated but with the form of worship characteristic of 1960s Conservative Jews, the neighborhood also changed.  My old elementary school had become an Orthodox Day School.  The houses where the people who attended that school, and that synagogue,  once lived, now had Orthodox owners.  While both my synagogue and the breakaway had always functioned as commuter congregations where carpools brought kids to Hebrew School and people drove to worship, that drive had become too long.  The building stood on valuable real estate.  Their leadership sold it, directing the proceeds to construct an opulent structure closer to where secular Jews now lived.  I worshiped there a single Shabbos morning, tied to a high school reunion later that night.  

Heavy entrance doors.  Posh sanctuary.  Those clunky bronze memorial plaques had given way to smaller uniform brass ones, my mother's name still among them, despite having never had a formal membership stature with them.  As secular congregations struggled, so did others in the region.  Two additional ones merged, pooling resources to maintain an elegant building and populate the sanctuary.  On my visit, a remnant of people from my Bar Mitzvah congregation, nearly all men, appeared for worship.  I greeted them but sat at a kiddush table with local contemporaries.

My final time there, likely 2009.  Still, each year that notice of my mother's yahrtzeit would continue to arrive each winter.  I returned a check promptly.  Later I learned that a high school friend, a fellow violinist in the orchestra, had remained with that congregation. Her parents had become charter members of the breakaway.  She ran a special project for the needy.  I wrote a second check for her to use, along with a brief note of admiration for her effort.  She sent a brief note of thanks to me.  And I added a third contribution to a semi-affiliated agency that dedicated a project in memory of one of my mother's close friends from my Bar Mitzvah shul, that one by credit card.

This year, that chain of fifty annual notifications stopped.  They had survived my relocations and their relocations.  People at one time devoted effort to keeping me, a minor donor, in the loop.  I do not know the fate of that congregation, though modern electronics offers a few hints.  They have a Facebook page to which I subscribe.  Every Shabbos, they post a greeting, at least until recently.  They have not had a Rabbi, but engage a Cantor, one with adult children. Within the last year, they posted that rather than maintaining their tradition of mixed seating/ male honors, their format since founding, they would try to make themselves more acceptable to the nearby residents by adding a mechitza.  This may also facilitate recruiting a Rabbi.  

The congregation offers a website, though a neglected one by modern standards.  It has not been maintained, with their newsletter postings ceasing in 2021 as Covid became less threatening.  

Why hasn't my reminder come?  In the pre-insulin era, Dr. Elliot Joslin, the recognized master of diabetes, used to ask his patients who descended to his Boston Clinic from far and wide, to send him a greeting card each Christmas.  When the cards stopped, he would have his staff try to contact that diabetic or family to confirm the expected mortality.  In our modern age, I could call the congregation or send a note to the office through their website.  I think I will send my usual checks, then inquire if they are returned.