sarah in nyc

 Over the years, people have often asked me if my father the rabbi came from a rabbinical family. If he was part of a long lineage of rabbis. I would always answer that probably not. My father's immediate family wasn't particularly observant. This photo of my father leading birkat-hamazon at his cousin's wedding, with the married couple, doing their best to hide their "OMG HOW LONG IS THIS JEWISH STUFF GOING TO TAKE???" expressions on their faces and Uncle Bernie not even bothering to try to hide his boredom and my father doing his best to do right by birkat ha mazon just about sums my father's sense of his family's connection to the rabbinical. I do remember my father telling me about how he learned to love to study Jewish texts from his grandfather Sam Cohen.  Sam (Issachar) Cohen, born in Kalish Poland had studied in Yeshivah before coming to New York. There was a family legend about him studying with  Akiva Eger  or at his yeshiva  except that the tim...

On the work completed front, Jane came to pick up her tallit. I was delighted to see how pleased she was with the finished piece. Like with all my clients, I showed Jane how to tie her tzitzit. Most people find it a bit of a struggle at first. After all, it is a new skill. Sometimes I have to be a bit more hands on as the tzitzit were being tiedif people are struggling.  Jane's hands were just so deft. All I had to do was watch her tie the knots.  When Jane was about half way through tying her tzitzit she commented how the work she was putting in made her realize how much time and work I had put into the tallit. I had put in lots of time. Each step raised questions about the best way of solving the problems presented. Some of the problems had me puzzling out the solutions for a couple of weeks before I could continue.  However, I could not be happier with how it all came together in the end. I love how this piece honors Jane's grandmother and great gran...