The purpose of this blog is to add a little fun to the Shabbat table. Please print and share.
In memory of my father Dovid ben Eliezer, whose 14th yahrzeit was this week.
Two questions for your table:
1. How many people do you know who exercise regularly?
2. How many of them make it fun? Not just enjoyable - but actually FUN???
At my father's yahrzeit celebration this week, several of his old friends spoke about how he would do things that most people would be too inhibited to do.
For example, in the summer of 1965 he left his pregnant wife and traveled to Neshoba County, Mississippi to provide legal services to civil rights workers.
In case you forgot, Neshoba County was the least welcoming county of the least welcoming state to Yankee Jewish civil rights workers.
If he were visiting a museum and there was a closed gallery that he wanted to see, he might just ignore the "gallery closed" sign and go in.
As long as he felt he wasn't breaking any laws, he lived as though every day might be his last. If that museum gallery had a guard on duty - and he very much wanted to see it - he would try to talk his way in (although I never once saw him resort to actual bribery).
I believe that what drove him was a tremendous sense of carpe diem. He would say, "Why not do it today? Who knows if you'll have another chance?"
For him, daily exercise was a given - because (I think) his own father used to say, "Take care of your health! If you don't have your health, you don't have anything!"
But it was never a chore; he would always find ways to make it fun. For example, he would play tennis or squash or any game that got his legs moving.
He never ran on a treadmill or even around a track - that would be dull - he would run outside. But each run was a different route - let's go this way and see what there is to see!
Eventually, in his native Tacoma, Wash., he proudly discovered that he could run over seven different bridges without repeating, and this became his jocular authenticity-test for anyone claiming Tacoma blue-blood: How can you run over seven bridges downtown without repeating?
In his memory, the downtown Y holds an annual Denny Seinfeld Seven Bridges Run on one of the Fridays in August. This year it will be on Friday, August 16 at 5:45 am. If you'd like to exercise your own carpe diem muscles, maybe I'll see you there.
If my dad knew you were going to show up, he'd be honored, but even more honored if you made up your own.
In memory of my father Dovid ben Eliezer, whose 14th yahrzeit was this week.
Two questions for your table:1. How many people do you know who exercise regularly?
2. How many of them make it fun? Not just enjoyable - but actually FUN???
At my father's yahrzeit celebration this week, several of his old friends spoke about how he would do things that most people would be too inhibited to do.
For example, in the summer of 1965 he left his pregnant wife and traveled to Neshoba County, Mississippi to provide legal services to civil rights workers.
In case you forgot, Neshoba County was the least welcoming county of the least welcoming state to Yankee Jewish civil rights workers.
If he were visiting a museum and there was a closed gallery that he wanted to see, he might just ignore the "gallery closed" sign and go in.
As long as he felt he wasn't breaking any laws, he lived as though every day might be his last. If that museum gallery had a guard on duty - and he very much wanted to see it - he would try to talk his way in (although I never once saw him resort to actual bribery).
I believe that what drove him was a tremendous sense of carpe diem. He would say, "Why not do it today? Who knows if you'll have another chance?"
For him, daily exercise was a given - because (I think) his own father used to say, "Take care of your health! If you don't have your health, you don't have anything!"
But it was never a chore; he would always find ways to make it fun. For example, he would play tennis or squash or any game that got his legs moving.
He never ran on a treadmill or even around a track - that would be dull - he would run outside. But each run was a different route - let's go this way and see what there is to see!
Eventually, in his native Tacoma, Wash., he proudly discovered that he could run over seven different bridges without repeating, and this became his jocular authenticity-test for anyone claiming Tacoma blue-blood: How can you run over seven bridges downtown without repeating?
In his memory, the downtown Y holds an annual Denny Seinfeld Seven Bridges Run on one of the Fridays in August. This year it will be on Friday, August 16 at 5:45 am. If you'd like to exercise your own carpe diem muscles, maybe I'll see you there.
If my dad knew you were going to show up, he'd be honored, but even more honored if you made up your own.
For your table: What's your seven-bridges run?
Shabbat Shalom
Shabbat Shalom
PS - the buttons in the image above are worn by the Seven-Bridges Run runners (and the image is, as always, clickable).
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