Mornings at the Stanton Street Shul by Jonathan Boyarin

Author:Jonathan Boyarin [Boyarin, Jonathan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Jewish
ISBN: 9780823239009
Google: uwwmWB4ruUAC
Publisher: Fordham Univ Press
Published: 2011-01-15T02:40:03+00:00

Day Six of Parshas Naso, June 6, 2008

Everybody was a bit cranky this morning. No minyan, though if we’d waited five minutes more, we would have had nine. I sense that Rabbi Pollak is less inclined than he once was to give those extra five minutes; perhaps it’s because he will not be with us much longer in any case, perhaps he’s also swayed somewhat by my own impatience.

While the others are waiting, Benny Sauerhaft, who is obsessed about the shul’s electric bill, asks somewhat querulously a version of a question I’ve heard him pose many times before. Usually, as today, Rabbi Pollak is the addressee, though it’s not obviously his responsibility: “Someone was in the shul last night? They left all the lights on in the bathroom.”

I took this a bit personally, since I was the one who made sure all the other lights in the shul were turned off when we’d finished interviewing our first two rabbinical candidates last night, and knowing that Benny probably wouldn’t hear me anyway, I said from the back of the beis medresh, “So what?”

And Rabbi Pollak replied to me, “Now you know what I’ve been going through the past two years.” Though he’s learned to deal with the elderly members with much better grace than when he first started, he’s never become inured to Benny’s needling.

But at this, young Isaac Maxon took offense in turn. To Rabbi Pollak: “You can’t rebuke the elderly! The respect you owe them is absolute!” And to me: “Do you want to pay the electric bill?”

I retorted, “Sure, I’ll write a check for the extra thirty-five cents it cost.” (I look: There isn’t even a cent sign on this computer’s keyboard.) And later it struck me that I could have said also, “If it comes to that, kid, I’m a lot older than you, too.”

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.