Friends

David Rottenstreich , a young man from the Hillcrest community in Queens, is critically ill. The family have asked that I link to their blog so my readers can be informed and recite the appropriate Tehillim, Psalms.

Please click here.

The secret sofer, scribe, working on a Torah.

And you shall write [the words that I command you today] on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

—Deuteronomy 6:9, 11:19

So Karen says that it’s time to check the mezuzahs in the house. The halacha, Jewish law, teaches us that the lettering of the prayer, “Shema Yisroel…” Hear O Israel, on the parchment, has to be clear of all blemishes, the lettering perfectly legible with absolutely no mistakes.

It’s vital to make sure that the mezuzahs are still kosher for changes in weather and the natural aging of the klaf, parchment, can crack and smudges the ink thereby invalidating the mezuzah.

It’s best to have a qualified sofer, scribe, check the mezuzahs.

Mezuzot are required on every doorway that serve as an entrance and exit to your permanent home—save the bathroom. We have mezuzot on the arch of the courtyard and the front door. Even the entrance to our garages is slotted with mezuzot.

It takes us about an hour to remove all the mezuzot from the doorways and arches.

Yesterday afternoon, we dropped off the mezuzot with our sofer— a pious, low-key gentleman whose work is trustworthy and meticulous.

The handwritten prayer, “Hear O’ Israel the Lord Our Lord, the Lord is One,” on parchment inside the Mezuzah housing.

This morning, picking up the mezuzot our sofer says: “Two of the mezuzot are pasul.” Not kosher. And he rolls open twin parchment rectangles and shows me where one letter on each klaf is indistinct.

All in all, that’s not bad for twenty mezuzot.

Anyway, not only is our sofer a fine and pious man, but he’s a stalwart Republican. I confess to getting all warm and fuzzy as he works on a Torah with a McCain-Palin yarmulke—in English and Hebrew—sitting on his head.

I can’t help but feel that our sofer’s holy labors with the Republican ticket atop makes for a powerful and synergistic combination.

*******

And finally, let’s take six minutes to prepare yourselves for Rosh HaShanah. The titles that appear on-screen are the words to the Rosh HaShanah prayer chanted over the soundtrack.

Karen and I wish all or friends a Shana Tova U’mtukah, a good and sweet year.

Synagogue in Algiers.

“What year were you expelled from Algeria?”

“In 1956, the F.L.N. told us that we were not really true Algerians.”

“What were you?”

My luncheon companion, a handsome man in his late 60’s, smiles broadly: “Filthy Jews.”

“How long did your family live in Algeria?”

My friend sits back and ponders a moment: “Oh, since the churban, [586 C.E.] the Destruction of the Temple. That’s when our family made its way from Babylon to Algeria.”

“It must have been hard to leave.”

He just shakes his head in sorrow.

“The F.L.N. confiscated our home, our furniture, our bank accounts. For the revolution, they said. In truth, the committee members just stole for themselves. We were allowed to take one suitcase each. We arrived in France hungry, exhausted and penniless.”

“Were you ever compensated?”

He laughs.

“Did you receive government help?”

“Of course not. We all went to work. We would not take hand-outs. We had pride. We went to school, worked our way up into the middle class. France was good to us. I even enlisted in the army. I became an officer. But you know what happened. There was another officer in my unit, and he kept talking about dirty Jews. Everything with him was dirty Jews, dirty Jews.”

“The battle of Algiers, it never ends, does it?”

“No mon ami, it does not, not for us Jews. Anyway, I told him to stop, that I was a Jew. Well, this made it infinitely worse and he just never stopped. Finally, I took him outside and I thrashed him. I utterly thrashed him.”

“You are my hero.”

“You know what he did?”

“Cried like a girl.”

“He pressed charges and I was brought to a—what’s the word?”

“Court Martial.”

“Oui, exact, tribune militaire. And there was a General, very stone-faced, who was presiding, and he kept staring at me. And the officer defended himself by saying that he did not mean it when he said dirty Jew. He said it was as a joke.

“Some joke.”

My French friend, who looks like a dapper European diplomat out of central casting, sits up straight and rattles off a string of irate sentences in French.

I hold out my hands as if checking for rain.

It’s, er, Greek to me.

“Pardon, but I was so angry in the tribune when he said it was a joke that I shot up in my seat and I attacked him with a J’accuse.”

“Mazal Tov. So, what happened, what was the verdict?”

“Ah, I was terrified of the Director General. He just stared at me and I was sure that he was a Jew-hater, he had that cold, Jew-hating look. But in the end he just said that officers may not speak in such a manner, that it was not honorable, and that brawls are for drunken peasants. That was the end of it. Charges dismissed.”

“Not a great ending.”

“Wait, it is not ended. In the courtyard, I am walking away and I hear someone calling to me. I turn and it is the General. I think to myself, oh no, now I am in trouble. He is going to break my rank. He comes over and I salute. He tells me, the next time he calls you a dirty Jew you must be a gentleman, challenge him to a duel—and then shoot him between the eyes.”

“Get out of town.”

“Pardon?”

“Nothing, go on.”

“I say, but Mon General…”

“The General says, I am Jewish. I say, no, I do not believe it. He says, I will prove it, and he recites: Sh’ma Yisroel Hashem Elokenu Hashem Echad. Hear O’ Israel The Lord Our G-d The Lord is One.”