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.