Burnt Offerings: A Rabbi's Memoir

Copyright © 2012 by Rabbi David H. Chanofsky

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ISBN: 978-1-4759-2598-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4759-2600-2 (e)

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iUniverse rev. date: 5/24/2012

CONTENTS

FOREWORD

SECTION ONE THE EARLY YEARS

THE EARLY YEARS

CHAPTER ONE THE TITLE

CHAPTER TWO WELCOME TO SMALL TOWN AMERICA

CHAPTER THREE WHAT ARE WE DOING HERE?

CHAPTER FOUR (IM)PRACTICAL RABBINICS

CHAPTER FIVE SECRET SIGNS

CHAPTER SIX CARING FOR THE HEART

CHAPTER SEVEN HESTER PARK TREMPS

SECTION TWO MIRACLES DO HAPPEN

CHAPTER EIGHT THERE IS NO COINCIDENCE

CHAPTER NINE NEVER AGAIN

CHAPTER TEN I HAD A DREAM

CHAPTER ELEVEN MISSION IMPOSSIBLE

SECTION THREE MEMORABLE EVENTS

CHAPTER TWELVE IT’S ONCE IN A LIFETIME

CHAPTER THIRTEEN A VERY COLD VOYAGE

CHAPTER FOURTEEN AMERICA’S SPLIT PERSONALITY

CHAPTER FIFTEEN THE EXPLOSIVE CHOLENT

CHAPTER SIXTEEN ADOPTION

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN UNUSUAL WEDDINGS

SECTION FOUR WEAK LINKS

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN A JEWISH TRAGEDY

CHAPTER NINETEEN WHAT IS A RABBI?

CHAPTER TWENTY THE LOST GENERATION

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE LAUGHTER WITH TEARS

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO A LONG JOURNEY

SECTION FIVE GREAT PEOPLE IN OUR LIVES

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE THE RAV AND THE REBBI

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR THE WORLD SERIES FOR RABBIS

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE OUR CHAZZAN

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX OUR QUEEN ESTHER

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN HITTING CURVE BALLS INTO HOME RUNS

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT TURNING THE TABLES

CHAPTER TWENTY NINE THE BLESSING AND THE CURSE

Foreword

Coincidence can color our experiences in ways that cannot be predicted. It can transform commonplace happenings and give them new significance and wonder; when the ordinary becomes the extraordinary. The narratives included here depict such events.

I have told these stories, over the course of many years, to friends and family at dinners and social occasions. At lectures in Monsey, N.Y. and in Israel, I entertained audiences with the reminiscences of fifty years as a pulpit rabbi. In retrospect, some are humorous and I enjoy telling them. However, like most incidents that we laugh about years later, at the time we were living those events they did not seem funny at all. Today, they are an endearing part of our family memory and heritage.

I have to credit a dear friend for the idea of creating this book of stories. Dr. Zev Wanderer, a psychologist and author, was visiting with us one weekend and we shared memories with him. By the end of his visit, he said to me, You know you have enough for two books in those stories. I suggest that you publish them and allow the world to share them with you.

Many of the stories involve my wife of fifty eight years. She was my inspiration in this writing, as she inspired me through all my years as a Rabbi. We were childhood sweethearts, and we were married while I was still studying to be ordained. Some of these experiences took place in those early years, and Leah was also an integral part of those events.

I have attempted to integrate the stories with fifty years of Jewish and world history; with my philosophy of life and my understanding of Judaism. I tried to tell it like it is from my point of view and my experience. Some may be controversial, particularly as it pertains to the divisions within Judaism and about what is Judaism? Jews are known to have a penchant for ideological debate and indeed, I have differences with those on the extreme right and extreme left. I hope that the point of view I present will help the reader to a better understanding of our faith and heritage, as well as, the controversies that surround it.

We feel blessed and grateful for our children and seven grandchildren. They were the first to be regaled with these vignettes, and they have been pressing me to finish the book and have it published. I finally listened to their request and it is to them that I dedicate Burnt Offerings. To: Dona and Jordan and their children; Orlee, Ilan, Leyat, Eitan, Ross, Jacob and Elana, who are the light of our lives.

Section One

The Early Years

THE EARLY YEARS

Chapter 1 – The Title

Chapter 2 – Welcome to small town America

Chapter 3 – What are we doing here?

Chapter 4 – (Im) Practical Rabbinics

Chapter 5 – Secret Signs

Chapter 6 – Caring for the Heart

Chapter 7 – Hester Street Tremps

Chapter One

The Title

On the one hand, serving as a Rabbi for fifty years, is worthy of being described as a Burnt Offering. The lifelong act of dedicating oneself to teach Torah and to care for the spiritual needs of families and their children is an apt example of a burnt offering. But, alas, that was not the real reason for the title.

Since the real reason involves my wife of fifty eight years plus, I think I should tell you how we met. Eventually, the meaning of the title will become clear. Our first meeting took place when she was about fifteen and one half years of age and I was about a year older. One fateful evening, as I walked on the Lower East side of Manhattan, on the corner of East Broadway and Clinton Streets, I heard a voice shouting over a loudspeaker. There she stood at the top of a flatbed trailer, next to a tractor announcing that this tractor was being sent to a kibbutz in Israel and she expected every passerby to contribute to make it happen. Heaven help the person who walked by ignoring her call. Later on, as a rebbitzen in congregations, this became known as being Leahized. In 2004, while in Israel, we observed the Yom Yerushalayim Parade of Flags. Kibbutzim paraded their antique tractors from various periods of time. Suddenly, Leah jumped out of her seat and exclaimed That’s my Tractor. Leah’s passion for Israel has never diminished.

Leah has some other very passionate agendas, but Israel is the first among them. Please, if you meet us do not ever say in her presence that you have never visited Israel. When she hears such a calumny I have to hold her back and reassure her that the people are planning to go as soon as they can.

Leah was a young teenager in 1948, when five Arab armies were about to invade the new born State of Israel. The British who had been the mandate power prohibited Jews from possessing weapons. The Jordanian Arab Legion, on the other hand was fully equipped by the British who also acted as the officers of the Legion. It was a miracle from God that Israel survived. Leah, however, was not about to depend on miracles. She felt responsible to supply Israel’s needs singlehandedly.

She has other passions that transcend the self. It is second nature to her to help troubled hearts. She spent a lifetime reaching out to people and they, in turn, flocked to her to find inner strength and guidance. Also, many parents are today grateful to her that she had passionately urged and pursued them to send their children to Jewish day schools. She made a difference in many lives.

All this should have been enough reason to have crowned her with the title of burnt offerings. But, it is not exactly so. In truth, the very passions that made her tick also prevented her from doing one thing at a time. Now we come closer to what gave birth to the title of this book

In Genesis, the commentary Rashi explains that God sent three Angels to Abraham because each had a special mission to perform; that even an Angel can only do one thing at a time. That was irrelevant to Leah; she could simply not do one thing at a time, and the result was Burnt Offerings. She became a great cook and would put on mammoth feasts for guests (she never did learn to prepare for less than fifty people although only two were coming to dinner), but inevitably one of the items was burned. And so, she became known in our community as a very religious person who always served Burnt Offerings. I have to admit that I had a part in spreading this blasphemy and I enjoyed teasing her about it. In fact, hardly a Sabbath Service went by without some teasing comment being made before the congregation about Leah’s Burnt Offerings. She was a good sport and accepted it with laughter.

However, the title itself was spawned on one exciting day during our early years in Monsey, New York. These were the founding years of the Monsey Jewish Center and I taught Hebrew school classes in addition to being the rabbi. In the midst of a class, my secretary burst in to tell me that a neighbor was on the phone and it sounded like an emergency. Rabbi, I heard the neighbor saying, don’t be alarmed but …..I just called the fire department; there is a lot of smoke coming from your house. I don’t remember whether I put down the phone, I called to my secretary to cover the class and out I ran, literally jumped into my car. Somehow, I arrived at our house without getting into an accident, on time to see the front door being broken open, smoke filling the entire home. Firemen were everywhere with hoses and hatchets. All this, amidst hysterical laughter as one of the firemen emerged holding his hands up high, like a prize fighter who had just won a knockout. And the prize in his hands was the shriveled remainder of a roast. One can say it was well done. This event took place on a Thursday afternoon. The next day’s edition of the Rockland Journal News was displayed in the Synagogue at Friday night Services. The back page headline read Rabbi’s wife burns a roast, Monsey Fire Department was on the scene. So, Leah became the maker of BURNT OFFERINGS.

Baking was a particularly hazardous adventure for Leah. Baking requires attentiveness to one thing at a time and Leah has no patience for it. But she was determined to master it and the stories are legendary. Permit me to share some of those adventures with you.

Among our first visitors to our Vermont home was a mother with her about-to-be "Bar Mitzvahed" son. Since there were no kosher bakeries within fifty miles, Leah baked a cake for the occasion. The recipe called for a small amount of baking powder. Leah decided she wanted to have a big cake, one that would rise similar to others that she had seen. Thus she decided to put in a little more of the baking powder, and then a little more…. She also forgot about the time and it came out a bit blackened. The cake came out as big as she hoped it would. Leah served tea and a piece of cake. The mother took one bite and tastefully put it down. But, the young boy’s response was precious and the more honest. After one bite he threw it down and exclaimed Yuck, that’s disgusting.

Later, when we arrived at my second Pulpit in Watertown, New York, Leah was immediately confronted with a crisis. The Hadassah group was having a cake sale. The president told Leah that each year the Rebbitzen’s cake always sold for the most money and this was a long standing tradition in the community. Would Leah continue this tradition? Naturally, Leah confidently responded of course it would be my pleasure; I would be delighted to participate. As soon as she came home, one look told me that something was wrong. When she explained he reason, I joined her in exclaiming, "OY VEY we are in trouble".

What to do? Well, we had a few left over cake mixes from Passover, it might not be the best but we had no better way, there were no kosher bakeries within eighty miles. Naturally, Leah never had the time to bother to read the directions, and even if she had read it, she would not have bothered to follow it. The cake emerged from the oven, burned and broken in two uneven parts and a bit concave. What to do about the two parts? The answer she decided is simple, you paste them together. Flour and water were mixed together, the cake was pasted. Leah was great at decorating, she made an icing to cover the incision and all was well, or so we thought.

That night, we met the Hadassah president and Leah asked her whether she would like to see her creation for the cake sale. She accompanied us to our home. As we entered, the storm door must have slammed shut behind us. Right there in front of us, the cake fell apart into thousands of crumbs. Would that we could have saved that scene in slow motion; it was like a great pyramid that slid down and became a pile of sand. . The president laughed and laughed and the story continued for years. The next day we drove to Syracuse, NY to buy a cake. I was relieved to know that they would never again ask Leah to bake.

Leah loves to make parties and if it is a Birthday party for someone, she tries to bake a cake. We had developed dear friendships in Watertown and we invited one of these couples to our home to celebrate the husband’s birthday. Leah tried hard to bake a cake and it appeared to be successful even if it was well done. The only problem was that it was only about one half inch high. She remarked, if only these were Brownies. But, Leah is never at a loss, she will always find a way. She decided she would take a page out of how wedding cakes are made; most of the cake is usually superficial, a cardboard mold is placed on the bottom. So, Leah built up the cake she made into a beautiful looking specimen, covered with cream and cherries on the top. The candles were duly blown out, the celebrant lifted up the knife to cut the cake. He cut and he cut, he chopped and he chopped, too embarrassed to admit failure and too unsure of what to do, he became redder and sweatier, until one of his little boys saved him with a shout, Hey dad, that’s cardboard you’re cutting. Leah was never fazed by these events, Oh that was just for show, now I’ll take the real cake out of the freezer. And indeed, she always had cake in the freezer. In fact, in Monsey she also became known as the freezer lady, nothing was allowed to go to waste in the Synagogue; it all went into the freezer. After all, we came out of the great depression and food could not be wasted. The other people would wait until she left and then they would do the honors of throwing it into the garbage. They knew that the pain of seeing food being thrown out would be too painful for Leah to bear.

But Leah’s coup de grace in the art of baking took place in another community. It was just before Purim and the sisterhood was going to have a grab bag and exchange of gifts event. The gifts were to be packaged and anonymous. Of Course, Leah decided she would bake a cake, she never gives up! She found a new recipe that called for bakers’ chocolate. She had none at home and being as creative as she is, she found two boxes of Barton’s candies left over from the last Passover, or maybe the one before that. As you know chocolate is chocolate, what’s the difference? Well, in a strange way it actually came out looking like a cake, a very large chocolate cake, a bit hard, a bit burned, a bit heavy, but nonetheless it resembled a cake. That night at Services, I cornered two of our best friends and I said to them I have a special favor to ask of you. Rabbi, anything at all, whatever you ask. Well, I would like to invite you to my house this evening for a cup of coffee and….. Leah baked a cake. I would like you to eat a piece of cake and then to ask for a second helping. Rabbi they said, you know we would do anything for you, but now you are asking for too much Nevertheless, they came and they did as I asked of them. When they ate the first piece, Leah stood over them with a victorious smile. When they asked for a second piece she danced a jig (as we used to say). On their way out that evening they whispered to me you owe us big for this.

But that was just the beginning of this cake story. As I said, this was a large cake and you know where it was going, yes, to the freezer. She covered it with aluminum foil and put it into a very large carton; a cake box was not available. Into the freezer it went to await the grab bag party. Weeks later she took it out of the freezer, wrapped it beautifully, as only Leah can do, finished it with ribbons and it was a thing of beauty. The women would draw lots to determine the order in which they would choose the grab bag gifts. And who drew number one in the lottery but, Mrs’S. She is the squeaky wheel; "The squeaky wheel gets the oil", a person who demands perfection. In every congregation, people trip over themselves to try to please the squeaky wheel.

Mrs. S. She scans the goodies before her, and of course, her eyes land on that beautiful package that Leah had wrapped. Someone should have told this woman that the Talmud says Do not look at the bottle but at what is inside of it, or as the later copycats would say it Do not judge a book by its cover and do not judge a Purim package by its wrappings. And so it was that she brought the package back to her seat and started to unwrap it, to savor her "Metziah, her acquisition, indeed, her victory. Who should be sitting right next to her but the very maker of this magnificent package? So, Leah looked on as if she were Miriam at the Nile River with Pharaoh’s daughter, to see what would happen with the Child. The S lady opens the package and starts rifling through the entire lovely paper filling until she reaches at the real prize. She sees the aluminum foil which by now was well imbedded into the chocolate that covered the cake. It required a lot of peeling; the chocolate, the foil, the tissue paper have all become intertwined and inseparable as only Leah could have made it. Mrs. S feels the apparition (the cake) and it is still mostly frozen. She bangs at it with her fist and angrily says to the person sitting closest to her, Leah, this is so disgusting, I would not even give it to my cleaning lady. Leah is very sympathetic and says you are right, what a disgrace to put out something like this as a gift. "A Shande, this is shameful. The more Leah spoke, the more Mrs. S’s anger grew.

The next day Lady S was playing canasta with a group of friends. One of the women looked at Mrs. S and said "by the way do you know who brought your grab bag gift last night? It was the Rebbitzen (the Rabbi’s wife). It was like a lightning strike and Mrs. S" fainted.

So, now you have some idea of why I named this book Burnt Offerings. More important you will understand that the worst thing with which my wife can threaten me is when she says "I am going to bake.

Chapter Two

Welcome to small town America

In my first ten rabbinic years I was a country bumpkin. That is how I started my rabbinic career in 1956. Born, bred and educated on the sidewalks of New York City, the transition into small town America was bewildering. Little did we know what lay ahead of us. We had to relearn the English language, expressions, accents and points of interest. People were discussing grass and weeds. That was alien to our New York experiences. We had seen grass in central park but never paid attention to its quality and its weeds. It was strange to listen to guests discussing such grave problems at a Saturday night home gathering. Here we were in a new world and we wondered whether we would ever feel that we belonged. In time, I came to understand and to identify with these people. I also came to realize the important role that I could play in their lives. I was more that a Rabbi and teacher to them; I was their link to the Jewish world and to a Jewish identity. I also came to understand their inner selves; their fears and their hopes.

Here in this small town world, I was able to sense, that just below the surface, the American Jew carries hidden fears because we are a tiny minority in a vast Christian world. We are always trying to prove that we are real Americans and as normal as everyone else. It was an eye opener to me, in my interviews with Synagogue boards, that they felt it important for me to become a member of Rotary. That seemed to be a rather strange expectation of a Rabbi. In time, I came to understand they wanted me to be more than a spiritual leader to them; they needed me as their representative to the non- Jewish world. Indeed, they needed me to be the face of the Jewish community.

Small town Jews are very conscious of their dilemma. They get along well, they are respected, and they have friends in the general community. But fifty years ago, they were only on the fringes of the general community and they were never quite sure how secure they were in all this; they were always looking over their shoulders and worrying. Any publicity made them nervous, no matter how positive it might have been.

Prior to my first Passover in New England, I had organized a model Seder for all the children of the Synagogue. It was an all out effort and it was very successful. The local daily newspaper sent a photographer and a reporter. The next day a large picture appeared on the front page with an excellent description of Passover and of the model Seder. We had reason to be delighted and proud. However, the reaction of my congregation was the very opposite. The beautiful picture of their children in the local newspaper at a Passover model Seder frightened them. It revealed their existence as Jews to the townspeople, and that is not what they wanted; they felt safer when they were faceless.

In the same way, these small town Jews wanted their children to go out trick or treating on Halloween because that was what real Americans did, and they needed to be seen as real Americans. They performed many good deeds for other people. On Christmas day, for example, they volunteered at the local hospital so that others could enjoy their Holy day. One reason was because it was the right thing to do. The other part was to look more American. One family was very proud that their young teen age son played the organ in a local church. They felt it made them seem less different than others.

Jews who were in service related industries or in retail sales depended upon the broader community for their livelihood. Jewish history has taught how fragile our relationship is with Christian people. Anything that might upset that fragile balance might cause an unspoken boycott or worse and have a real financial or physical impact upon their lives. The fact, that they were living in America, in the greatest and most wonderful country in history; where Jews were equals, did not mitigate this paranoia. That is built into our psyche; it is burned into our psyche and we cannot escape it. However, fifty years ago, when the holocaust was still a recent haunting memory, the fears were more haunting especially in small town America. Many of the older folk still remembered the Nazi parades that preceded the Second World War and this too never quite left their psyche.

There was also a more positive side to country bumpkin Jews. They were generally much more attentive to the needs of the