2004's New Year's Challenge

My Journal Entry 1/4/05 -- While jogging along a country road this morning, deep in thought over our recent "Happy New Year" party, a car stopped, and the driver, a "Rabbi With a Bible" inquired directions to "The City of Ten Gates." I was not happy that my cadence had been interrupted, but I was cordial. Identified as "Tevye" he was a pleasant "Sojourner from Gilead", a town 200 miles over in the next county.

I said, "Listen," if your "Faith Is" strong in my directions I will tell you the way, but it "Isn't Easy" to find. He offered "Five Crowns" to assist him. Thinking him English, I wanted to be helpful. I told him to turn right at a pile of "Cracked Earthern Vessels" a mile down the road, turn left at the fork, and drive until a sign is seen reading "The Valley of Dry Bones."

I cautioned him that driving through the hot valley would be tantamount to spending "A Week in Hell." He laughed heartedly making a notation on his map.

I told him that once he passed through the valley, he would come to a little town named "Gan Eden", where he should carefully drive the speed limit because it was a known speed trap. "It is Not Easy" to go through that town without getting a ticket. If you get stopped, you might as well say to the cop, ok, "Take Me to the Woodshed!" However, if you get through town without a ticket you can light a candle and truthfully say, "A Great Miracle Happened There."

He laughed and showed me his little dog in the back seat. Her name was "Miriam's Dance." The rabbi began issuing orders in Yiddish, and Miriam's Dance started dancing. I laughed. There was something comic-opera about traveler and dog in this "Beulah Land" environment.

He told me he had been invited to a seder, and he should be going. I listened attentively as he explained how they would have "A Chair for Elijah" at the dining table, "And Then There Were Twelve" other chairs for guests.

As he got into his car to leave, I asked what he did as a rabbi. He said he was a cantor, a synagogue official, who sang "Songs in the Day and Songs in the Night." He drove off, happily singing "A Wolf and a Lamb" indeed am I, oh, oh, aha, ha, ha....

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