With Apologies to the Caterer

By Susan Esther Barnes

A few years ago Rabbi Lezak was trying to convince me to read “A Spiritual Life: A Jewish Feminist Journey” by Merle Feld, and I was trying to tell him I wasn’t interested in reading a feminist book and I certainly wasn’t interested in reading poetry. So he pulled his copy off the bookshelf and read me a no-nonsense poem from it called, “Mazel Tov!” I loved it; I bought the book.

The poem “Mazel Tov!” is the story of Feld at a wedding reception, telling the band leader to play traditional Jewish dance music when the bride and groom come in so the guests can lift the two of them on chairs and dance, a core tradition at Jewish weddings. But the caterer interrupts and says, for a variety of reasons, they can’t dance until after the soup. Feld says they’re going to dance anyway. The last line of the poem is, “And screw the caterer.”

I love the message this poem communicates about what is important. The meal is there to help the guests celebrate with the bride and groom. But nothing is more important than the main event, which is the wedding itself and the traditional dancing with the chairs, without which it just wouldn’t feel like a proper Jewish wedding. The food is secondary.

Still, I feel for the caterer. He or she is trying to make a living, and to some extent has a reputation riding on whether or not the soup is cold or the main course is overcooked. As anyone who has put together a Thanksgiving or Passover dinner can tell you, when serving an elaborate meal, timing is key and an unexpected glitch can throw everything off.

Of course, on this day, the happiness of the bride and groom is paramount. The rabbis even tell us that if a wedding party and a funeral procession arrive at the same intersection at the same time, the funeral procession should pause and allow the wedding party to pass first. I agree with all this, but I still wish the caterer didn’t have to feel screwed.



On Shabbat morning this week there were two girls having their bat mitzvah. Near the front door of the synagogue is a long table. The top of the table opens, and inside are hearing devices, nametags, kippot (or yarmulkes, the skullcap men, in particular, commonly wear in synagogue), and some other items. Before services this particular morning the tabletop was down, because the family of the bar mitzvah girls had provided their own baskets of kippot for the guests.

It was an overflow crowd, so the partition at the back of the sanctuary was open, allowing us to set up extra chairs, extending the congregation into the social hall. Generally when this happens I stand near the back of the extra chairs, handing out prayer books to late arrivals and answering their questions. This allows me to see pretty much everything going on, including the service itself, the congregants, and the activities of the caterer in the social hall, setting up for the lunch that follows the service.

Part way through the service, I saw the caterer and one of her helpers carrying trays with cups of wine for the kiddush toward the front door. I didn’t know why they would take the wine out there, instead of keeping it in the social hall, but I didn’t think much of it at the time.

Moments later, a man who had just arrived asked me if we had a yarmulke he could wear. I replied, “Of course,” and went to get one from the table by the front door. When I got there, I found that on top of the table were four trays, with a sign on one side saying, “wine,” and a sign on the other which read, “grape juice.”

“Oh,” I thought, "the caterer just put these here so guests who aren’t staying for lunch can still get kiddush wine (or juice) on the way out.” The problem was, the baskets of kippot from the bar mitzvah family were empty, and the synagogue’s kippot were all trapped inside the table under the trays of wine and juice. I couldn’t lift up the tabletop even a little bit to reach inside for one without risking everything sliding off the back and spilling all over the floor.

I looked around hopefully, but the other table near the front door was full of other items, including what looked like food covered in foil, so I couldn’t put the wine trays there. Years ago I worked for a restaurant company; I know one of the ten commandments of the food service industry is, “You shall never put food or drinks on the floor.” Just then, in my head I heard Rabbi Lezak’s voice saying, “Screw the caterer,” and I knew the importance of the man being able to wear a kippah outweighed the matter of a temporary displacement of the wine, so I began to move the trays onto the floor.

That’s when the caterer came around the corner. Imagine the look of horror on her face as she saw her carefully poured and artfully arranged trays of wine strewn about the floor where no consumable should ever be. I was so busted.

Immediately I apologized to her, and explained that I needed to get a kippah from inside the table. She said, “It’s a little late, isn’t it?” and I nodded, and mumbled, “Yes, well, he just got here, and he asked for one.” She lifted the last tray of wine from the table for me, and wisely suggested I grab several kippot instead of just one, and put the extras in the empty basket, in case anyone else needed one. I did as she recommended, and helped her return the trays to the table before apologizing again and bringing the kippah to the man who had so innocently asked for it.

This is a caterer who often serves at functions at the synagogue, and I was a little concerned she would be upset with me, but later on she asked me whether it was the first girl still reading from the torah or the second one, in order to help her with the timing of the last lunch items she was preparing. She didn’t seem angry, so I suppose she must have taken it all in stride.

And frankly, although I still love Merle Feld’s poem, this is as it should be. We must do our best to honor what is important about the day, and yet, whenever possible, it is still best to make an attempt not to screw the caterer.

Delivering a Fresh Batch of Hope

By Susan Esther Barnes

I actually wrote the following story over a month ago, but I didn't want to post it until after it was published in our synagogue's newsletter. All I did was take out a few names in the interests of privacy.
--------------

These days, teenagers lead busy, complicated lives. What with homework to finish, social and athletic activities to participate in, and numerous text messages to send, it seems they have time for little else. Why is it, then, that every Tuesday night Monica can be found baking cookies she won’t even get to eat?

Monica and her mother, Jessica, have always enjoyed spending time together in the kitchen. When Monica was preparing for her bat mitzvah last year, she was able to use her cooking skills when her class made a meal for the men staying at our synagogue as part of the temporary rotating winter shelter. “The best part was hanging out with the guys after they ate,” Monica exclaims, “I learned a lot of things from them that I wouldn’t have assumed. One of them even spoke Hebrew!”

Monica’s Torah portion, T’zav, was about making sacrifices, so for her mitzvah project she decided to sacrifice some of her time and energy each week by baking cookies for the men she had met at the homeless shelter. Now that it’s more than a year later and her obligation to do a mitzvah project is long past, Monica has faithfully continued to bake for the men every week again this winter.

“She does it all,” says Jessica, “All I do is drive her there to drop it off.” Asked why they do this every week, she says, “Everyone wants to do good stuff, but sometimes it’s hard to know what to do. At the synagogue they make it easy to do things for other people.”

Jessica also finds meaning in a term Rabbis Lezak and Kushner use, “hiddur mitzvah,” or “beautiful mitzvah,” which is about not only doing a mitzvah but doing it in a beautiful way. As Rabbi Kushner explains, “It is the difference between doing kiddush with a paper cup or doing kiddush with a cup a child made or someone gave to you.”

As Jessica describes it, “For me giving is purposeful and fulfilling. If someone took the time to help me and my family, it would give us a tiny bit of hope. You can’t live in your own head, in your own bubble. You can’t wait for someone else to do it.” And so, week after week, Jessica drives Monica to the synagogue to do a hiddur mitzvah; to drop off a freshly baked batch of hope.

The First Day of Spring

By Susan Esther Barnes

Two weeks ago my friend Mark, who has been grappling with cancer, announced that for the first time in two years he would be able to work five full shifts in a row.

That day my friend Gail’s mother, who had been ill for a number of years, died.

About the same time, my friend Joanne’s brother, after playing cards with some friends, developed a sudden headache, began to throw up, then was rushed to the hospital with a massive stroke, where he died a short time later.

We sat shiva for Gail’s mother and Joanne’s brother on successive evenings.

Last week, Mark went to the hospital for a treatment to burn out a tumor, and emerged saying he didn’t know it was possible to be in so much pain. The doctors are trying to readjust his medication.

My husband caught a cold and snored so much, I spent much of the week sleeping on the couch downstairs.

On the windowsill in the kitchen the orchid is sporting six soft but strong white flowers, while in the pot beside it the first basil sprouts are peeking out from the damp dirt.

This morning, two 13-year-olds were called to the Torah and became b’not mitzvah. They are now considered to be fully responsible members of our community.

And today is the first day of spring.