Hurricane winds lifting me

They say there's a storm coming, that it's going to be big.  That it may hit New York and New Jersey with fierce, destructive winds, hurricane force winds.  But thankfully it looks like it will hit the day after Ben's Bar Mitzvah.  So we'll be spared.  The service, the kiddish, the luncheon in Montclair will go as planned. This morning is the dry run, the Thursday morning minyan, when Ben will wear the taffillin, the black leather strapped on his wrists, the small black box jutting from his far head. He will read a bit, test out his nerves.  Then we will be catering the breakfast, bagels from Sonny's and nova lox, our family practicing for the big day.

It's a beautiful sweet service.  There are just a handful of congregants, older gray-haired men, kind-hearted women smiling at us. Immediately I become the proud Jewish mother.  When we first arrive they are all congratulating me and Rob, patting Ben on the shoulder.  The Rabbi sits next to Ben and coaches him, leaning into him, explaining about the tzit, tzit, the fringes on his Tallis, his prayer shawl.  I look to my son wearing the leather, his shimmering blue tallis with matching kipah, and then look to the older male congregants wearing their well-worn version.  Ben with his soft boyish skin, davening with the older men, mouthing the hebrew.  I see the lifeline of Judaism, Ben's place in line.  It is so beautiful, I want to cry.

If I can count this morning's minyan as 1/3 of the Bar Mitzvah, I'd be content.  It went so well, the congregation were such menches, so sweet.  The rabbi was wonderful, focusing entirely on Ben, guiding him, whispering in his ear the entire service.  And despite Ben's rebelliousness to many things Jewish, his questioning of the process, his digging in his heels, today it can not be denied, he is officially a jew!

I'm just hoping tomorrow night, the Friday night service goes this well, I sort of think it will.  It's like now I'm floating along, I've done all the work, and now I'm just gliding through, the wind under me.  I can do no wrong, we are blessed.

carol

Carol taking me shopping today.  She's come back into my life with a vengence, tossing me a Bar Mitvah life raft in my hour of need. She’s my one college friend with a kid Ben’s age, her son’s Bar mitzvah just last year, and different from me, she seems to revel in the planning.  So each morning we check in, decide which store in the Short Hills Mall to meet, to begin the search for red shoes with that most rarified half-inch heel, neckless for the v-neck dress, stockings, a black bra.

We first met at Rutgers College, my last year there. She was interviewing roommates for her off-campus apartment and after talking for hours about the NJ Jewish Y camp where we both had gone, she since childhood, me following what would become an unrequited love at age nineteen, asked me to move in.  Each day we’d talk late into the night, go on egg diets together, sit on her bed as she'd strum Bob Dillon tunes, her long brown hair falling over her shoulders. Eventually I’d introduce her to her own unrequited love, my brother Paul, whom she'd date for years.  She would become like a sister to me and though over the years we'd lost some of our closeness, in the last week she had morphed once again into my closest friend.  Only she was making me tense.  Over the years we both had perfected our type A personalities but it seemed she had pushed hers to new heights.  She was on a mission, Ben's Bar Mitzvah mission, and would drive an hour from Freehold to turn her laser focus onto my daily list.  Only problem, each day that went by, I'd look over the things we had purchased together and realize it wasn't going to work.  We didn't share the same taste, actually neither of us had the best taste.  But Betsy, the sales girl from Neiman Marcus did, so each time Carol and I would say goodby, I'd take the elevator up to Betsy and show her what we had bought and she'd shake her head no. 

"Those shoes--not with that dress.  You're looking way too Chanel with that Kate Spade block heel, you need to be more Audrey Hepburn.  You need a pointy heel.  Try a kitten pump.  And forget red.  You want black. Try Stuart Weizman, downstairs to the right. "

... a few days later, "It's a cute neckless, perfect with a white tee shirt, but not for your dress.  Actually forget a neckless, earrings should be your focus."

I had to tell Carol.  Not an option to have her sitting at the temple watching in horror as I approach the bima in pointy black shoes, sans neckless.  But it wouldn't be easy, considering how many  stores she had pulled me into, how thrilled she was with each and every score, as though our wayward boat had finally reached land.  I knew I was turning into mince meat, agreeing with her mostly to reconnect, to feel the warm glow of our long lost college friendship. I had to be honest with her.  A few days later I called her.

"Carol, I have something to tell you. Betsy, you remember Betsy, from Neiman, well she said the shoes and neckless were wrong for the dress. And well, let's face it, she does this for a living. But I'm keeping the neckless, even she loved it, just not with the dress."

"Lori, it's not a problem. I understand. Are you keeping the shoes?"

"No, I returned them today."

"Oh, good."

I love Carol, I want to hug her. But there's something else I have to tell her, even more painful.

"And Carol, I asked Ben if he minded you coming by at 7:30 the morning of his Bar Mitzvah to oversee my hair and makeup. He thought it would be awkward."

"Lori, that's fine, I understand, he doesn't see that much of me. No problem."

I tell myself, it's these little things that I'm so grateful for in this Bar Mitzvah process.  Carol back in my life is worth this entire stressed-out process. I truly forgot how important she is to me, how much we have in common, how much I missed her.  I trust her with my life, in all things important, fashion not being one of them.

I awoke at 1:30 in the morning and just let the adrenaline surge through my body till 4:00 after which I miraculously fell back to sleep.  It's that awful checklist, plus now that it's down to the wire, things like will I remember everyone's names, let alone their kids who I hardly see; will Ben and Rob's paisley print ties get wrinkled in the Norstrom's bag or should I have hung them; might the leg makeup I bought at Sapphora's to cover those bright red mosquito bites and black and blue bruises from scratching to death, begin running down my leg just as I approach the bima?

But as I'm sitting here typing this morning I know that mostly everything is done, to just to let it roll and go with it.  Still,  just yesterday the president of the temple e-mailed me with a request to write something about Ben for his congratulation speech at the conclusion of the Bar Mitzvah.  Did I overdo it with the bright kid, good in math, stuff.  Did I really need to say he's in honor's math.  Put a muzzle on it Sender.  So today I wrote him asking him to send me back what he might be saying for my review.

If I can count this morning's minyan as 1/3 of the Bar Mitzvah, I'd be content.  It went so well, the congregation were such menches, so sweet.  The rabbi was wonderful, focusing entirely on Ben, guiding him, whispering in his ear the entire service.   There were only around 20 people there, I did an aliya, and mostly without nerves! Ben and the white-haired men, some in suits, some in sneakers, strapping the black leather tefillin around their far heads and wrists.  I was so proud, everyone congratulating me.  And despite Ben's rebelliousness to many things Jewish, his questioning of the process, his digging in his heels, today it can not be denied, he is officially a jew!

I'm just hoping tomorrow night, the Friday night service goes this well, I sort of think it will.  It's like now I'm floating along, I've done all the work, and how I'm on this magic carpet with Ben and Rob with the wind under me.  I can do no wrong, we are blessed.

It's been awful, I can't relax.  The clock is ticking and all I can do is go through my checklist.  Usually at 2 in the morning.  I try and tell myself it's only a Bar Mitzvah, only one day, well, technically two with Ben's kids' party a Friday night later, but still, it's just so fine wired to be stressful.  Little things like ordering beanie hats for sixty-five kids, that over-the-top added clothing bonus that all parents dutifully supply in each kid's goodie bag as they're leaving the party.  It's not enough you just broke the bank for the party, you have to hand them over a thick fleeced sweatshirt advertising that kid's Bar or Bat Mitzvah, best if placed in a drawstring nylon bag also shouting the kid's name and date of party. I'm being cheap and opting for a beanie, at least it doesn't take up an entire sweatshirt-filled row of a closet.

I'm on the phone with Branders, a customized hat company. I've just received four different UPS deliveries from various parts of the country with no clearcut way of telling which beanie was sent. I tell my salesman, Joshua, that we like the black beanie, not the blue beanie, not the black with red trim beanie, not the black with the orange logo, just the black beanie. He tells me he doesn't know which hat that is, to send him a photo of it, only that's the one hat Ben and I can't find in the house.

I tell him his system isn't exactly working, then send an email with UPS tracking numbers of each one he sent. By process of elimination maybe he can figure out which black beanie without a logo he sent us.

We haven't even gotten to the embroidery part yet, which Ben wants to say Ben's Bar est. 10-27-12 across the rim. Kind of cute in a tween soon to be drinking kind of way.

Then yesterday, in a fit of total panic that we hadn't yet bought Ben a suit or me a dress and the Bar Mitzvah only six weeks off, we all got in the car and drove to the that most expensive mall in NJ, the Short Hills Mall.  With Prada and Coach and Wilford stocking, it's  pure seduction walking towards Nordstrom's, that pragmatic choice of store. We work on Ben first, trying on a Joseph Abboud suit that in a size 16 boy's would fit maybe one week past his Bar Mitzvah, or a size 18 that makes him look like the boy in the movie "Big." We decide on the size 18 and hope for a growth spurt.  

So I'm back to looking for a job.  Craigslist seems to be the most direct way of finding independent pharmacies. Maybe it's my age, but when I see these byzantine online forms that corporations are requesting you fill out, I just say screw you, who are you to ask me to complete an application that will take more than an hour and you will never even open.  At least Craigslist reminds me of the 80s, when applying for a job was just a phone call away, where you at least get a sense of the personality of the company.  So it is that I cold call UMR Pharmacy in Jersey City and speak to the owner Zia.  Right away he sounds sweet, giggles when I say I'm looking for a laid back pharmacy, not so busy, no tension, no screaming bosses.  He suggests I start right away and then we'll see how it goes.  When I walk in I feel comfortable immediately, Zia introduces me to his sixty-eight-year old father Mohammed and to Bilal, a 23-year-old  pre-med student, who is working to earn money for coursework on a semester by semester basis.  Bilal will be my teacher.  He is so bright, knows more about pharmacy than anyone I've ever met and it dawns on me, I've landed in pure shit.  Not only can I learn from him in a stress-free environment, I have the perfect setup, I'm learning from a kid who basically has to answer to me.  And soon, he too realizes that he's lucky, that I will never be anything but thankful for the knowledge.

The little stuff

Ben won't help me on the computer.  We have just two more months before his Bar Mitzvah and we need to go over his party list and correct mistakes from the stationer.  It's the same old story, we sit side by side in the den, the annoying voice of Cartman from South Park as backdrop, and begin to go over our list.  I ask him a question and he won't lift an eye towards me.  "Ben, how do I line up the stationer's list next to mine?"  I know it's a simple minimizing and dragging, but I just can't seem to do it.  He will not make a move to help me.  I want to walk out the door and say the hell with this.  We don't need a Bar Mitzvah, what we need is a therapist.

We just came back from four days at Tanglewood before which I had orchestrated the purchase of one-hundred 65 cent stamps plus forty 45 cent stamps from Zazzle.com along with beanie cap samples from Lids.com to arrive perfectly timed when we got home yesterday.  Only nothing arrived.  I checked our stamp order and it said cancelled.  Apparently an e-mail had gone out to us while we were floating on our backs in Laurel Lake at the Berkshires explaining that the printing had gone poorly, was cropped wrong and did we still want it.  Ben showed me the e-mail once we got home and the halloween moon and cat on the 45 cent stamps had a larger boarder.  Now I was screwed.  It would take at least three days to get it printed again and by then we'd be in Seattle for the next ten days.  Which would put us a week behind schedule. Big deal.  I wonder when I got so fussy.  Somewhere around menopause I know for sure.

Rona can't believe I'd go to Zazzle anyway and pay so much for stamps.  She's right, USPS would have been fine, only our local post office only had "Dogs at Work" and a wedding cake.  But later that night I look online on USPS one more time and find a 65 cent butterfly stamp which surely would be the perfect metaphor for a boy's metamorphisis into manhood,  and a 45 cent celebrate stamp with candles and streamers which reminded me of a Chorus Line logo and is a perfect homage to the late Marvin Hamlisch.  None of which anyone will get.

I’m sitting in my living room going through a stack of mail when I see another boldface-typed confirmation envelope and hand it over to Ben. It’s an invitation to his school friend Leah’s Bat Mitzvah and right away I see there’s a conflict on the calendar.  That same day our family is invited to my friend Bonnie's daughter's Bat Mitzvah and I explain to Ben that a family Bar or Bat Mitzvah trumps any school friend’s.  

“We’ve been friends with this family since you were both babies. We need to go to this Bat Mitzvah. “

“I won’t know anyone.  It will be awful, she won’t even notice I’m there.” 

He does have a point. I think back to a year ago when I forced Ben to attend my college friend Carol’s son’s Bar Mitzvah.  It was an over-the-top, glitzy affair held at the Crystal Plaza in Livingston, NJ.  With Rob away on a business trip it would be me and Ben fending for ourselves. The invitation stipulated jeans casual, so I chose a pair of dark J Crew blue jeans thinking that would make it fancy, paired with a cotton peasant shirt and an antique sterling silver Star of David necklace.  From the moment I walked in, I felt out of place, like an over-the-hill hippie, a hick from the remotest beachy corner of New Jersey. Though a handful of women were wearing jeans, their heavily sequined jackets and  gold and diamond jewelry made a statement. Their towering spike heels rendered my Dansko’s  a blemish on the face of this lavish affair. At one point a mom approached me, introducing Ben to her son who also knew no one. As we happily watched them walk off together towards the DJ and dancers, I noticed her son veer off in another direction.  She looked at me and shrugged, saying something about his emotional issues.   Later in the evening he had a bit of a nervous breakdown, crying at the adults table, hugging his distressed mom.  I was amazed at how long she lasted, but eventually she succumbed to his pleading and they went home, hours early.  Meanwhile Ben was hanging in there, dutifully jumping up and down to the DJ impresario, being a real chump, but my heart went out to him.  I got a moment alone with him and asked if he wanted to leave early.  “Yes!” he screamed in relief.

     

It doesn’t take long for Ben to bring up Carol’s son’s Bar Mitzvah as a and I’m trying to ignore him. I tell myself this party will be different though for the life of me I can’t think of why.  The family friendships are certainly pretty similar, though I’ve known Carol much longer.  Sydney’s mom Bonnie and I have been friends since the kids were born, but after she moved to the wealthier, whiter, parking-challenged town of Westfield we’ve seen less and less of each other.  And Ben and Sydney were now mostly out of touch save for a few facebook posts here and there. I try to ignore Ben’s sulkiness and resume opening the mail when I see two more invitations.  These two fall on the same day, though one is an afternoon affair and the other during the evening.  I tell Ben we can probably work those two in, until  I give a casual glance to the calendar. It’s the same weekend as our family trip to Washington DC, where Rob is getting his architecture continuing ed credits and I’ve booked Ben and me on tours galore.  The Lincoln cottage, the capital building, a biking tour of the mall. I see I’m in for a struggle. I call over to my college friend Carol, whose son had a Bar Mitzvah just last year which I forced Ben to  go to.  I remember introducing him to another boy at that party who also knew no one. As I happily watched them walk off together towards the DJ and dancers, I noticed that boy veered off somewhere else.   Later in the evening he had a bit of a nervous breakdown, crying at the adults table, hugging his distressed mom.  I was amazed at how long she lasted, but finally she succumbed to his pleading and they went home, hours early.  Meanwhile Ben was hanging in there, dutifully jumping up and down with the dancers, being a real chump, but my heart went out to him.  I got a moment alone with him and asked if he wanted to leave early. 

The Temple Wall

I'm sitting in my car in the temple parking lot waiting for Ben's meeting with the Rabbi to end.  He's there to choose a mitzvah project, that all important finale of the Bar and Bat Mitzvah where each kid turns to the congregation and shares their good samaritan project. The Rabbi has cancelled our two previous appointments but finally last week we all sit down for our first meeting.  Right away she recommends Ben's hanging yahrzeit plaques--the plaques of deceased temple members--on the temple wall.

"They're all in boxes," she says cheerfully.  "It would be such a help to the temple. Such a mitzvah."

I keep thinking it sounds rather custodial not to mention the nice cheap kind and I can't help from wanting to strangle her.  Ben is mostly quiet.  She moves on to a mitzvah of Ben helping her on the computer.  "That would be so great, I could really use the computer help." Later on in the car, Ben is less than enthused.  "Why would I want to put plaques on a wall?  Or tutor her on the computer." I don't say much, trying to subdue my seething.

Today's appointment is to further explore mitzvah projects and for her to hear Ben read his Haftorah.   "From now on," as she explained last week, "these meetings are to be between just Ben and myself."  So, I'm reading the newspaper in the car waiting for the meeting to end, when my cell phone rings with Ben telling me the Rabbi is in another meeting with a boy and his father and that he's tired of waiting.

"I've been sitting here for over fifteen minutes,"he says in exasperation.

 "Ben, you need to knock on her door and tell her you're waiting."

"I'm just sitting here out in the hall.  She's already seen me.  I'm leaving.  This is bullshit."

"Ben, give her another five ..."

And he's back in the car.  I'm fuming.  I try and tell myself this is not so different from a doctor's appointment where you sometimes just have to wait, but it was only yesterday that the Rabbi's secretary had e-mailed me to confirm our 5:30 appointment.  Not to mention that the rabbi was clear that these appointments would only last a half-hour. Give me a break, this isn't a doctor's appointment, this is a twelve-year-old for his once-in-a-lifetime Bar Mitzvah.  For Christ's sake, the rabbi should show up.  I send off an e-mail to her new secretary.

"Hi Rosemary, today Ben went to his scheduled appointment with the Rabbi which you confirmed with me yesterday.  He just sat there waiting while she met with another family.  Finally he left in frustration.  This is just not working for us, she's already cancelled twice and now this.  If she wants to meet with Ben, from now on, the meeting will be in our house."

I find myself wondering, does the Rabbi really have to be at Ben's Bar Mitzvah?  I call over to Niki. She tells me that a few of the kids whose families have defected from the temple are finding other venues, and that having a rabbi isn't actually a requirement.  "Just having Ben read his haftorah after he turns 13 is sufficient," she says confidently.  "We'd love to have him at our minyan." I picture Ben's Bar Mitzvah above the Town Hall Deli, standing room only, insufficient parking for over 150 guests, and realize sending that e-mail to the Rabbi probably wasn't the best idea.  Let's face it, I'm stuck with her. And now I can just picture on Ben's big day, in front of all our friends and family, she won't be able to look us in the eye.

A lawsuit brewing

I worked two days in the pharmacy and as it turns out, Joey the sheister is even worse than I thought, truly without a moral compass. He and his mother work side by side as pharmacist and pharmacy tech with not a professional license between them. Both Russian born jews with thick accents, they speak in their native tongue leaving me and Claudia, the Spanish cashier, to wonder what the hell they're saying, mostly about us. The Madoffs of the pharmacy profession, these two. I'm just being used for my license to sign onto the computer.  For all he cares, I could just sit there all day and he'd pay me.  By Friday, at the end of my second day, it was pretty slow, so that's exactly what I did was just sit there.  That's when I googled something or other, a few words on Dictionary.com, some real estate site, and a virus infected both computers.  He was actually pretty calm in a why does all this shit always happen to me sort of way, though his mother kept glaring at me from the corner of the store. I assume that was my last day.

He's actually quite good at what he does, filling scripts at a lightening fast clip, but already I've caught a few mistakes.  Nothing deadly, more like too high a dose of Singulair, or one bottle short of amoxicillin suspension.  A few times I had Claudia running down the street after a patient.  On the way home it hit me, my initials are on everything he does, each direction he types, each drug he grabs off the shelf and his mother counts, it's my license on the line.  I'm an idiot.  But it's over, assuming the check doesn't bounce, this will be my first paycheck with meat on it in a very long time.  And so I'm back to looking, only now it's May, and another crop of pharmacy grads are out there competing for the piddly jobs there are in this state.  I'm depressed.

And angry. Recently I went to my alma mater, Rutgers Pharmacy school, for a speed career dating event.  The Dean stood up on stage infusing pride in this career choice, how wonderful his personal trajectory has been from working in retail pharmacy to industry to academia.  But not a word of the desperate job market facing us all, not just now, but in the last five years.  I actually knew the dean, quite well, from when we were both at the pharmacy school.  He was three years ahead of me and on a rather regular basis we would get high in my concrete-walled dorm room and have sex.  It was one of those animal attractions that was firmly in the moment, a complete understanding that there would be no future together, not even to meet for dinner somewhere later that night in town.  In that way it was one of the most honest relationships I had in college.  Looking back, I think we were actually in love but I was stuck in the dutiful meet-a-Jewish-guy mindset, quite possibly at the medical school next store.  He was mostly a diversion, which was why college sucked so much; I just never spent enough time on the diversions.

In the last few months I'd written to him asking his advice on finding a job in New Jersey. He was rather elusive, often responding after a two week delay.  Finally I mention I'm a writer interested in exposing the sad state of pharmacy, how more and more pharmacy schools are opening (next month Fairleigh Dickenson), and that he and the academic community at large owe it to these incoming classes to inform them of such dire job prospects. This time he responds right away sending me links to articles written by the American Pharmacy Association warning of these run amok pharmacy schools.  Basically covering his ass.  Well I've seen his ass.

It's a few days later and I never do hear from the sheister.  I decide to send him a test message saying I'll see him Friday and Saturday as planned.  He writes back saying he already hired an Rx.  I want to write back saying you mean an RPh, but instead I write "no surprise there,"  to which he responds "?"  I get the final punctuation in, sending him a "!"

Brushing up on Ritalin

Joey the Sheister called this morning and offered me a job as a pharmacist.  Under-the-table salary, no health insurance and a 10% profit sharing down the proverbial road.  I'm starting in two days.  Just in time to slow the bleeding of my sorely beleagered checking account.   Is it possible I can now actually consider buying a dress for my friend Barbara's son's Bar Mitzvah?  I was dreading that black woolen pencil skirt in total need of shortening which I just knew was never going to happen.  The clouds have lifted, halleluyah. I mean, thank you hashem.

It's a brand new pharmacy.  An easy thirty minute commute each way.  I picture a sparkling clean store with a beautifully tiled bathroom, a shiny new computer, and finally, a radio where I can play my favorite jazz station, WBGO, or classical or anything I damn well please.  So different from Walgreens where the ants marched single file around the toilet and you had to step over a dirty industrial mop to sit down, where the soundtrack of heart pounding top 40 hits played in a never ending mind-numbing reel.

I will be the only pharmacist there, god help me.  It's been a good 3 months since I last handed someone Ritalin or a statin drug and things are really beginning to get a bit foggy in the brain.  I figure I'll review my pages of notes from my last job and just keep my mouth shut about what I know or don't know.  Oh, and I'll iron my dyed, frizzy hair.

I answered the sheister's ad way back when on Craigslist and pursued my usual mode of follow up--hounding the poor guy.  I guess it worked because he called this bright Saturday morning sounding kind of desperate, saying he needs me to start Tuesday.  "I guess there's no chance you starting today?" I did ponder it, but just let it pass.

Not to get ahead of myself here, but I can't help thinking maybe I can now consider having an open bar at Ben's Bar Mitzvah luncheon.  I really would love for a waiter in a crisp white shirt and tie to hand me a ginger margarita with kosher salt, then one for my sister Beth, then my friends as we look at each other lovingly, give a sigh of relief and drink up.  Hey Rona, drink up, you too Sally, drinks are on the house, but of course.  I love you all.  I'm happy.  Ben did great didn't he?

Well that was kind of easy.  Powerhouse studios was too expensive anyway.  They actually invited us for a full course tasting in May, filet mignon included.  I'm there for sure.  It took a few days but I finally decompress from my poor venue choices for Ben's party.  What it does reinforce in me is that, who the hell cares, he probably won't like it anyway, so why exactly am I sweating it.  Each and every day.

A few days later Ben comes home from school all sullen, telling me his classmate Coltrane is having his Bar Mitzvah party the same day and time as our party with the same sixty kids.

"He's walking around school asking kids which Bar Mitzvah they're going to."

"With that personality is it really a problem?"I blurt out.

"His father works at a radio station and he's telling everyone that a famous rap artist will show up."

So I guess it won't come down to personality.  So we're screwed.  I call over to his mom Leslie, who actually attendied the same high school as me, fifteen energetic years later.

Going in Reverse

I drive the 40 minutes in Route 10 traffic to pick up Ben and his two friends from Ethan's Bar Mitzvah. This is Ben's seventh Bar Mitzvah, held at Powerhouse Studios in East Hanover. As they pile into the backseat of the car Ben announces, "This party was so much better than mine will be."

I'm shocked, floored, pretty much decimated. I've never heard him make such a comparison of venues before, or to put it so succinctly.

"The foods better, the dancers are better. I screwed up. I made you pick a place too soon."

His friends all agree.

What I should have said is, "well, Ben, that's all fine and good, but we already put down our deposit at the Maplewood Little Club and Maurice's Party Animals and basically we don't have a choice."  Or maybe, something along the lines of, "well you just came from this party so of course this one seems the best."

But instead I panic.  Is it too late to change everything I wonder.  It's still 6 months out, maybe I should at least try. Against all better judgement, I decide to put everything for the next few days on hold: my job search, the dishes, laundry, my writing. I will try to reverse everything I've done so far for Ben's Bar Mitzvah.

Monday morning I call over at Powerhouse Studios to see if there is availability and to get prices. Next I call the DJ Maurice to see if I can back out.

"It's so far in advance," I tell him. "I thought maybe you could fill our date."

"Is there some kind of emergency?" he asks.

Why, I wonder, does everything have to be such an ethical issue.  Why can't I just say my fickle 12-year-old son found a place he likes better.  No hard feelings.  Kids will be kids and such.  But no, I have to come up with an emergency.  Fine.

"My husband has a problem. It's medical. We may not be having a Bar Mitzvah at all."  I can't seem to stop myself. My voice seems to be coming from an echo chamber, far away, foreign sounding.  And yet, technically, it's true, just last month he was disgnosed with a prostate problem like millions of other men in their late 50's and early 60's. So, well, technically, ptth, ptth, it could turn into a more serious prostatic problem.  In which case the Bar Mitzvah would be off.  Ptth, ptth.

"Well I'm sorry to hear that.  But we already contracted out our dancers and this date has been set aside. "

Oh great, now I'm stuck with him. He knows I'm full of shit, I know he's an arse and we will now have to do the pretend we like each other dance for Ben's big day.

Okay so here's the thing. This Jewish ambivalence of mine-- which hasn't gone unnoticed that I may just have unwittingly passed on to my son-- has a basis in reality. My one-year older brother Paul, the love of my life, at the age of 40

Trope in the troughs

Ben and I are practicing our trope on opposite sides of the living room. It's a cacophony of hebrew cantation and it's grating on my nerves. His friend Spencer is sprawled out on the couch flicking a zippo lighter across his pants.  He mimics along: "Chal-che-ya-barkoo-aye-don't-know-fuck." "Please don't set the couch on fire," I tell him, as I've been saying all morning. "From the top?" Bens says, "with gum."

I'm still practicing my few lines of trope though my 15 minutes a day has shrunk to twice a week. It's just so incredibly tedious, the same thing over and over. Ben too is barely practicing. Together we are the worst role models. Meanwhile I'm paying Niki $40.00 a week for a half-hour of tutoring.

"He's not practicing," I say to her a few days later when she comes to the door. "Maybe you should start coming every other week."

"Well, it's up to you. But then there are the parents who think at least coming each week gives their kid some continuity. He actually is doing quite well."

Ben looks up at me sheepishly. "I practice more than once a week."

"What about yesterday?" 

"Yes I did. You were sleeping."

"What time?"

"After reading 'Ender's Game' in the basement."

"And the day before?"

"That was the weekend, you said I didn't have to on the weekend."

Meanwhile Niki is standing there and she doesn't add to the back end.

It's actually true what Niki says, he is doing well. I hear him in the dining room, he already knows much of his Torah reading and is nearly done with his haftorah. Ben is just one of those kids that can get away with little work. It's his memory, ironclad and intact, not like mine, an open sieve. Which is why it's actually more important for me to be practicing each day.

I guess I'm in a funk. No job, no prospects, and how will I pay for his party? Meanwhile each week we get another goldleafed confirmation invitation to some obscenely over the top country club where the dessert table is more than my entire Bar Mitzvah budget. How can we even afford Ben's party when each Saturday I have to fork over practically a food shopping bill's worth of money for one of his friends to go up to the Bima.

I guess I've officially turned into the Jewish Scrooge.  Just great. 

Passover blues

Feeling lost and lonely around this Passover holiday. I watch the women at our local Shop Rite fill their carts from the kosher section, confidently choosing the best brand of maror (apparently Gold's), blithely gathering ingredients for their homemade haroset. I'm at a loss. I've never made a seder before, have not the first idea how to set up that most formidable seder plate. How the hell does one burn an egg to resemble the burning of the temple wall, or find a lamb shank? We've always visited my older sister Beth in Harrisburg, PA, but this year she's cut back to just the second night so that leaves that first night, looming like a potentially disastrous rehearsal for Ben's Bar Mitzvah. It will be the three of us, plus Matt, Rob's thirty-two year old son from an earlier marriage, and Melissa, a friend from that marriage who's husband is forever traveling. Two Jewish women with non-jewish husbands. Both of us clueless.

I remember as a child it was our family plus my father's sister, Aunt Eileen, her husband Barney and their two daughters, Gail and Beth. It was an intimate, comfortable affair, a family gathering with no jitters attached. My brother Paul and I would mark up the Haggadah in our childhood scrawl, each relative's name next to their reading. As the youngest I got to recite the four questions, my big number, under the sweet, forgiving gaze of my family. So different from my sister's seder, with over 20 of mostly her husband Richie's relatives. Those first few awkward moments when we arrive, not just my shyness to deal with but Ben and Rob's. So much small talk, then hours of my brother-in-law dutifully going through page by page. I want to grab my sister by the hand and run out the door, laughing, just the two of us sitting on the curb swigging Manischewitz, gossiping to our heart's content. But there she is, firmly in the moment, supporting her husband as the good hostess. I have to fend for myself.

A few nights later we go out to dinner with our friends Jim and Melissa to make a final decision on the Italian restaurant I've chosen for Ben's Bar Mitzvah. We tried it a few months ago and the food was very good, but tonight, a Friday night, the place is mostly empty. The food is still good, but the staff is in a tizzy, our middle-aged waitress telling me all about her lower back pain and giggling as she reads through the specials. A few minutes later she tells us she's leaving and a younger waiter appears and can't seem to get our order straight. Melissa looks at me reassuringly but it's clear, this place can barely handle our table of four let alone a luncheon of eighty. Back to square one. And now it's almost springtime and I still haven't found a venue. In the back of my mind I figure if I'm still at a loss, I can simply have the kiddush a bit more done up and that will be the end of it. Our temple is expecting each family to pay for the kiddush for the congregation anyway, so it might be my only solution financially. But when I call our kosher deli to ask about catering a luncheon the prices that come back to me are even higher than at a restaurant: $39.00 a head for an adult and $29 for a kid. How much sable, whitefish and nova lox could a 13-year-old possibly eat that could warrant such prices.

I spend the next few days approaching any jewish woman I know in town and asking for a recommendation. Even Debbie, my baseball mom friend who has spent untold hours giving me advice on the bleachers of our sons' games through the years, who eats out not just on weekends but most days through the week, can't think of a place. And finally it hits me, this is suburban New Jersey. Unless I'm willing to spend $100 a head, I better just settle. I decide to give our Italian restaurant another chance.

And still I can't find a job to pay for just the salad.

YMCA Camp, no surprise there

Ben and I are in a tentative way. We're sitting in the kitchen with the camp director from Avoda and it's pretty damn awkward. Here's a guy who has driven an hour from some camp conference near New Brunswick, NJ, and has unsuspectingly stepped onto our minefield of Ben's jewish camp aversion. But Ben is being polite, flipping through the camp yearbook, while Jeff tells me in rather joyous prose how he met his wife. We're going through the usual Jewish geography and come up with not one person we both know in NJ. As he's about to leave he tells me he's from Needham, Mass., and happens to know my old friend Wendy. Mostly he knows her husband, Jeff who apparently attended the camp. Wendy and I spent our thirties living in Brookline, Mass., frequenting the Jewish dances, only different from the pre-USY dances of my youth, now the guys were mostly nerdy and short, often harboring a lisp impediment. It was always that scene from "When Harry Met Sally," where I'd turn to Wendy in the middle of a dance with a beseeching, "let's leave." But she was much more patient, determined to marry a Jewish guy, whereas I decided it wasn't worth the headache. And she kept at it till she married Jeff. Shortly thereafter we stopped being friends. Rob and I visited once, and Jeff kept forgetting where his wallet was, as Rob paid for bagels and lox, dinner, driving us everywhere in his car. This guy was a creep. Not a good sign for Avoda. Ben looks relieved.

A few days later I reach out to Tracy, a mom from Ben's hebrew school class who just happens to be a Jewish camp consultant. Not that I knew such a job existed, but it did seem kind of serendipitous. She tells me of Surprise Lake Camp, which will be hosting a "meet the families" at our local Strawberry Fields Yogurt in the nearby town of Maplewood. That evening I coerce Ben to go, who in turn bribes his two friends who are in the basement stumming Guitar Hero. It will be free yogurt and add-ins he tells them, "fro yo for all!" Spencer finds a yarmulka that's floating around in my car and walks in as a jew. Immediately Ben and his big, ravenous friends attack the yogurt bar, and I'm feeling guilty. I see out of the corner of my eye that the cashier is weighing the yogurt and charging the camp. But then I think of the cost of camp for a month and buck up.

On the way home, Ben tells me he's thinking of Fairview Lakes, a YMCA camp in Newton, NJ. He knows a few kids from school going there and actually sounds excited to try it. I tell myself at least I won't need to look at camp photos of him sulking through Shabbat dinners. Or reading angry letters bemoaning how snobby the kids are and how they've known each other since age seven. But I'm also aware that this may be one of the last opportunities for him to connect socially to other jewish kids in such an intimate way. But it's out of my hands and maybe, at this point, that's not such a terrible thing. There's always Jewish Birthright when Ben hits college. That one is non-negotiable.

That night I e-mail Tracy and the guy from Avoda, thanking them for their time and saying that Ben has decided on a YMCA camp. I can just picture their eyes rolling and a bit of a shudder.

The Boogeyman

Just heard about the gunman in Toulouse, France who pulled up to a Jewish day school on his motorcycle and started shooting. So far three small children and the Rabbi have died. This scares me the most, this persistent antisemitism that just won't end. Perhaps he didn't see the movie "Le Rafle" or "Sarah's Key," both depicting the roundup of Jews in the French Velodrome. Or maybe he did and it emboldened him. Who knows. Whenever I drop Ben off at hebrew school I think about this possibility. There's always a cop sitting in a car in the parking lot, reading the paper, sending out the pretense of safety. Truth be told, I often feel like turning to Ben and saying "maybe not today," and going for ice cream in town. I picture the entire cataclysm in my mind. Ben is the only survivor from his hebrew school class. We were the lucky ones, like that CEO from Cantor Fitzgerald who was with his daughter for the opening day of kindergarten. The sole survivor from his offices on floors 101 through 105.

Each year Rona and I attend the Jewish Film Festival at the West Orange JCC and sit through at least one hardcore Holocaust movie. I'm always in the head of the heroine who takes off the Star of David and walks down the street wracked with terror, her head held high. Or the mom in "Le Rafle," who moments before stepping onto the cattle car to Auschwitz, runs back to her son and implores him to escape, not to wait it out.

I remember in high school, in social studies class, being shown the documentary "Night in Fog," with it's stark, black and white footage of emaciated jews being liberated from the concentration camp. The year was 1973, and in those days, even Jewish teenagers weren't being exposed to these Nazi atrocities. When the bell rang, I couldn't move. The rest of the class jumped up, gathered their books and left. But I just sat there, going over and over in my head, how was it possible that this happened only thirty years ago. How could I not have heard more about this, as more than just a footnote in hebrew school class or from my own parents. For the rest of the day, I was in shock. But mostly what I felt was fear. I remember taking solace that since it was so recent, we Jews were most likely in a period of safety, a calm respite, no way could this happen to us so soon after, certainly not within a mere three decades.

But now all bets were off. In the last few years I find myself holding my breath, waiting for just this type of evil to come pell-mell onto a train with Ben, or another skyscraper, or maybe as a knock on my door. Crazy I know. And it doesn't seem to enter anyone else's consciousness, certainly not the confident jewish moms I see dropping off their children at the temple. Maybe it's just me, aging, a fraying of the neurons, as worry seems to creep in ever so easily. Like today, with this blustering wind bending the tops of the old oak trees surrounding my house and throughout town. Is it safe for Ben to walk home from school I wonder?

Camp Avoda

I'm thinking of a Jewish camp for Ben this summer. In keeping with his atheist leanings, it's the last place he wants to go. I tell him it's reform, not so dissimilar from any nonaffiliated camp, with sports, woodworking, sailing, only with yarmulkas on Shabbat. And that's when he says no, that he'd rather be anywhere else for the summer, even back to the adult ed camp in our middle school which he's attended since he was six. "Aren't you tired of the pottery wheel?" I ask. "Even last summer you got bored there. How many eighth graders do you think will be going back?" We sit at the kitchen table and watch a sampling of camp videos online. I squirm at the highlight of the Friday night service, kids sitting in their crisp white shirts and khakis, arms wrapped around each other, swaying back and forth to Israeli guitar music. The camera zooms out to a clear, beautiful lake, then a closeup of the rustic Star of David made of boyscout-like sticks. It's a serene, organic Shabbat. Ben wants none of it. I tell him, it may be our only shot, considering these camps are giving a $1000.00 scholarship for any kid like himself, who goes to public school, who is Jewish and would rather be anything but. A self-hating Jewish tween. Ben is perfect. The camps all want him. We're actually being pursued.

Camp Avoda is one of the first to call. The director sounds sweet, tells me he went there as a kid, as does each and every camp director about their own camp, and that his entire family works there. They have sailing and woodworking with an actual industrial arts teacher on staff, where kids build chairs and tables, not a birdhouse kit in sight. It sounds kind of perfect. "I'll be visiting New Jersey on Saturday," he says. "I'd love to come by and meet Ben." I'm wondering which is the more looming disaster, the telling Ben of the visit, or the actual visit. Maybe this is just what Ben needs, to have this down to earth guy sit at our kitchen table and explain why this camp would be the perfect match. We set a date.

Later that night I get insecure. I'm all mixed up. I don't know what to do. I have friends who send their kids to Jewish camps, my friend Bonnie is one, but she's so, well, Jewish. Carol too, Jewish through and through. I'm looking for someone like me, an ambivalent Jew married to a non-jew, with an intransigent heathen child. A child who is too clever to just go along. Not that there isn't the blatant loophole of my own mixed marriage giving him carte blanche. But even so, how many of my friends have kids who are such skeptics. Who battle them till the entire family just falls asleep from exhaustion. I know if I honored all of Ben's requests, we'd back to square one, no Bar Mitzvah, no camp, heck why not just throw in that he'd simply hang out with his friends and play Black Ops all day on the computer. I do need to set some standards. Problem being, what are my standards?

In retrospect, years back I could have quietly slipped away from all things Jewish and joined up with the unitarian church in Montclair, NJ. Just me and other bohemian families, lesbian families, fellow lapsed Jews and Christians looking simply for a home, with a laid-back intellectual religious leader; someone who would recite a moving, thought-out sermon on a Friday night. Nothing kitsch like our temple's Rap with the Rabbi. A throwback to a kind of simpler 60s "Godspell" scene, sans Jesus, some acoustic folk music thrown in, a bit of Kumbaya. But the fact is, although I'm an ambivalent Jew, I'm a jew just the same. I feel most comfortable around Jews, and let's face it, my friends are mostly Jewish. In college it was Betsy (a socialist-leaning Jew, we'd play her mother's scratched albums of the Weavers and Pete Seeger till darkness filled our dorm room); in suburbia it's been Rona (grew up Orthodox only to turn her back and marry a non-jew from New Zealand); Richard, who got Bar Mitzvah'd but hasn't really been to temple since.

Not that living in one of the wealthiest Jewish suburbs in New Jersey has helped inject much spirituality into the mix. Maybe it would be different in, say, a quaint temple outside Seattle, or Albuquerque. But I'm here, in this spiritual wasteland, this is my home and time is running out. I really must put a stop to these vacillations. I'd better get my head around this Jewish identity crisis.

Dance the night away

The long Presidents' weekend is over and I'm alone in the house, finally able to resume my search for a job as a pharmacist. I've been looking for almost two months now, with mounting pressure, knowing this job will essentially pay for Ben's Bar Mitzvah in eight short months. It's taken me nearly four years to resurrect the dusty old pharmacy degree from Rutgers College, in which I worked a total of three days back in the 80s, then quit, for three decades. After my recent, painfully oppressive internship in the Walgreens rat race, I know chains are out. I'm thinking a slow, independent store would be perfect, if that even exists anymore. I picture an adorable little pharmacy with a soda fountain, where I can listen to jazz radio or classical. Where it's so slow that when the door opens I look up in surprise. I guess it would be owned by an older retiree who would rather spend his time in Florida. I'm there to keep an eye on the place, basically, and get paid what the poor sap is getting next door at CVS. Somewhere deep down I do know I'm in denial.

I'm all good intentions, but as soon as I turn on the computer my facebook account floods with comments and photos from a group named "Bradley Beach memories." It's a jewish memory lane from the 60s and 70s, and I'm back there, to my cherished childhood home, with a smile on my face.

Many comments are about the small temple in town, an orthodox shul, where quite a few of us went. I think back to the women sitting separate from the men, the feeling of warmth, of a safe haven, my comfortable, cozy temple, my extended family of jews. A few people comment about the strict Mr. Rabinowitz, the first year hebrew school teacher. I post if he actually used a ruler on the hand. Some say he was tougher with the boys. Maybe it was used on my brother Paul, one year older than me. I remember sitting on the floor of our front porch with my beginners hebrew book open, reciting the strange looking vowels- the different ooh, ah, eeh sounds. I was eager to learn, excited to be embarking on this journey into this strange, exotic language. I can't help but feel Ben never got this kind of excitement learning the language. Or for that matter, of being Jewish, feeling such a strong connection to it. I know the town of Bradley Beach was so instrumental in instilling this feeling. It was such an insular jewish town in those years, especially in the summer, when jewish teenagers from all over the state sat together on Brinley Avenue beach, blanket to blanket, transistor radios playing in the background. I suppose it was the last time for a generation to be connected in that jewish way. I know for my mother who went to the all jewish Weequahic High School in Newark, it was highly diluted for me. And now for Ben, is there really much of a jewish connection left?

So I decide to forge a connection. A few weeks earlier, Sherri had forwarded me an e-mail from a group called Kadima, a social group for jewish tweens across the state. Our temple was to be hosting an upcoming party, and Sherri throws in the added incentive that if anyone from Ben's class sleeps over, they don't have to attend Sunday school the following morning. It does the trick.

The Saturday evening of the party, I drop off my shy, rather resistant son at the temple. When I walk in a few minutes later to check on him, I'm reminded of the pre-USY dances that I attended at his age, where we'd board a bus headed for unknown parts of New Jersey with foreign sounding names like Iselin or Rahway, and spend the night searching the disco-lit room for the cutest boys. It was a thrill, getting all dressed up, actually putting on stockings and high heeled shoes, sitting on that darkened bus in total anticipation with my closest friend Ellen.

Ben's friend Ezra won't be there. But Kalman will, and a few of the girls in his class. Rob waits in the car, reminding me to hurry so we can catch the movie "The Artist." But I can't just leave Ben there in this mostly empty room with a DJ, I feel I should introduce him to the three tall, good-looking eighth grade boys from the nearby town of Livingston. They tower over Ben and he looks uncomfortable, awkward as can be, finally turning to me, "you can leave now."

When I get in the car, Rob is upset, how could I spend so much time in there, we probably missed the movie. He's right. But I can't help myself. The last place I feel like going is to a movie, what I really want is to spend the entire night observing Ben, like Jane Goodall taking notes on her favorite young ape. Sherri was actually looking for adult chaparones but I just knew that would be a disaster. I could just picture Ben leering at me all night from the furthest darkened corner of the dance floor.

The plan is to stop at the temple on the way home from the movie and see if Ben wants to sleep over. I can barely contain my excitement as Rob and I walk into the rap-filled room with strobe lights pulsating. I see groups of girls running zigzag en masse to groups of boys, a continuous migratory shifting. I notice there is not one couple in sight. Or Ben. Or anyone from his class.

We go downstairs to another large area, and there, sitting in a row with backs against the wall and headphones on, are Ben and his cohort from hebrew school. Ben still looks shy, but it seems they all do, and are giving each other comfort. It's sweet, somehow. And then I approach, hovering over them asking Ben if he's having a good time. He looks up in horror.

"Do you want to sleep over?" I ask, as if I have a reason to be there.

He gets up and we walk. "No. It Sucks. The kids from Livingston are wearing $300.00 sneakers."

"Who cares? Why would you even notice?"

"They're snobby."

"Fine, you don't have to sleep over. But you should probably tell your friends."

From a distance it seems the girls are suddenly very animated and chatty with Ben. He comes back to me and Rob. "Fine I'll stay."

On the way out, Rob comments on the futility of saying no to a Jewish woman.

I'm sitting across from Sherri in her office at the JLC, and it occurs to me, as it always does when I see her, she doesn't like me. It's obvious. I've known it for years. Not that I blame her, I understand, she has the disagreeable job as enforcer of the JLC rules, rules I've tended to gloss over if not outright defy on an ongoing basis; the carpool line (one should wait patiently in the 15 minute snaking line, not drive over the median which I've done as Sherri runs screaming after my car; the tefillin* must-have-by-such-and-such date (where was I for that e-mail?), that Bar and Bat Mitzvah kids must make every effort to attend Friday night and Saturday morning services.

Sherri leans across her desk towards me. "We fit in so much in our Wednesday class, teaching the kids the meaning of good needs, mitzvahs, how to be productive in the community, visiting soup kitchens, nursing homes. Maybe, just maybe, they get thirty minutes of hebrew a week. Things are different now. Not like when we were kids."

She was right. What was I thinking? And the more she talked the more I agreed with her. I mean here was a woman who was devoting her entire life to Judaism, trying to mix it up for these kids, making it more interesting, whereas I was simply pussy-footing around the religion, complaining about his ability to read hebrew. What was wrong with me, why was I so difficult. I wanted to hug her, tell her I was sorry, that from now on things would be different.

". . . and as you know, Lori, Ben doesn't exactly go to all his classes during the week or on Sunday. Not to mention Friday night and Saturday morning services. Of course this could greatly impact his ability to read hebrew. "

I knew it. Ben's not reading hebrew was my fault. What about all the other kids in his class who are in need of a tutor. Are we all to blame, I want to ask? But I keep my mouth shut. I'm jolted back to realty. And the reality is, I'm sitting across from the Rabbi's right hand man, and she could be tough and intimidating. Getting on her wrong side, their wrong side, as I'd seen, could cause some major suffering.

What I certainly don't share is that Ben and I made a bargain a few years back, that if he'd go to "most" of his hebrew school classes he could miss a Sunday or Wednesday here and there. Admittedly it wasn't the best idea, but it did get him down the road a bit, and over the years it did sort of work. At least he didn't drop out like a number of kids in his class. Like my friend Rona's son, Jeremy, who made it so difficult for her that she simply threw up her hands one day and screamed, "Fine, quit." I just made it a bit more palatable is all, obviously a far cry from the pious Jewish mother that Sherri expected. And now, she wanted Ben, like his classmates, to step up to the plate, become a more grown up Jew and actually attend services.

In the words of Laura, my mother-in-law, Sherri and I were in a game of "Gotcha." In Sherri's mind, by violating the carpool line, I could run over a kid. And yet, I had been driving my entire adult life, near schools, parks, food markets, in and around suburbia with balls rolling under my car, and never once had I run over a kid, especially going 2 miles an hour in the temple parking lot looking out for a kid. One day, I walked the line of cars to get signatures for a petition to retain leveling in our middle school. From 30 yards away Sherri called out to me, "Lori whatever you're doing, stop it." But I continued, as this was a tailor-made concerned group of parents who were more than willing to sign. When I got back in my car and pulled up for Ben, Sherri and I avoided eye contact. I wondered, did I really have to invite her to the Bar Mitzvah.

*the leather straps the boys wrap around their heads on their Bar Mitzvah day. I've yet to see one except on their big day. Maybe in the Orthodox community, but the chances of that are nil. Bottom line, $230.00, and in the closet.

God help me

I leave a message with the cantor who is apparently away on a compulsory cruise of sorts, and call the other possible tutor, Nikki. A few years earlier I had met her when picking Ben up a bit early from Sunday school and sat in the back of her adult hebrew class. I liked her immediately; smart, sweet and kind, with seemingly endless patience for the many different levels of students in the class, she seemed the perfect teacher. I remember thinking if I had the time or inclination I would love to be in that class. But I was neck deep in refreshing a thirty-year-old pharmacy degree while in the midst of a heady spree of writing freelance essays for the NY Times. As usual, Judaism took a back seat. In my mind, Judaism was more like yoga or meditation, I knew it probably would add a sereneness missing from my life, but I was always way too pumped up for anything serene. Judaism was mostly for Ben, just as for my mother, it had been for me.

A few days later Nikki comes to our house and begins the tutoring. She will be coming every Tuesday for a half-hour and assures me that we are way ahead of schedule and that Ben will be just fine. "I've never met a child who didn't do well on their day," she tells me calmly. She'll send over an MP3 of my trope and promises to give me the shortest Aliya possible for Ben's Lech Licha torah reading. I want to burrow my head in her busom, tell her I can't possibly do this, that I'd be too nervous and it would ruin the nine months leading up to the big day. But I can't fall apart. It's just a few lines I tell myself. Ben has so much to learn, we'll learn together. It will be a bonding experience. I can do this.

I think back to my latest bout of stage fright, when Rob had lost his job during the recent financial crisis. I figured I'd put all those years of classical piano lessons to financial use and perform in schools as Clara Schumann, 19th century virtuosa. I write the one-woman show, force myself to practice piano every day for 45 minutes-- Beethoven, Chopin, Robert Schumann, Brahms-- and low and behold I get myself booked. But what I didn't anticipate was that standing in front of 600 students in an assembly, plus teachers, plus principals and vice principals, would cause my blood to run ice cold. Not that my wildly erratic heart wouldn't kill me first. I got total dry-mouth standing up there, would need to constantly gulp water every few minutes. The nerves actually chopped off a whole quarter of a minute from the Minute

Waltz. I was a wreck. After three years, I finally quit. Not that anyone noticed I quit, I simply stopped booking myself. And it finally hit me. Though I like my share of attention, could be extroverted in a group say on New Year's Eve, deep down, as in really deep down, I prefer one on one. It took me many years to finally admit this, to non-judgementally accept it. The truth was, I was actually very shy. And at times, the shyness could be incapacitating. So standing up there on the bima, reading hebrew, actually singing hebrew, among all our friends, neighbors, and family, might just bring out my shyness in all it's brilliant, vibrant colors. It might, very well, make me throw up.

The Temple Defection

That evening I receive an e-mail from Sherri suggesting we meet the following day to discuss Ben's issue. Meanwhile I call around and get two recommendations for a tutor, the first being our recently fired Cantor. In the last year he was forced out by the newly hired female Rabbi, along with the temple board, in a gut-wrenching coup to rival Christ's last supper, or in more secular terms, Steve Jobs' early ouster from Apple. One hundred of the oldest and most religious jews in our conservative temple boycott this decision by the controversial Rabbi, and eventually defect. How could she toss out the Cantor with the golden voice, they ask among themselves. For over twenty-years he led the singing on the bima, started the children's choir, the adult choir, taught the Bar and Bat Mitzvah class to sing the difficult trope for their all important day. In the view of many of these congregants the Rabbi was committing a true sin of the commandments: "you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor." Or if that didn't stick, Proverbs 6-16:19: "there are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him-- haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make hast to run to evil, a false witness you breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers."

During the drawn-out dismissal process, rumors were rampant, congregants pitted one against another. Our newly renovated sanctuary had become an off-broadway theater; the bima, a stage for heart-felt soliloques, as one member after another approached the microphone with quaking hands clutched to hard-written notes. Some threatened to leave in a mutinous walk-out, others implored fellow members to remain and see the temple through the hard times.

And for the first time, I find myself a regular congregant. Transfixed by the drama, I was drawn into it, felt I had to be there, at long last summoned by a higher religious calling. But mostly I knew, as the mother of a Bar Mitzvah boy, I was in the thick of it. I kept wondering to myself, why, why alienate an entire congregation? If so many people loved the Cantor, why cause such a schism. But now it was too late, our temple was in shambles. And most of my friends had left. But we, the small group of Mitzvah parents, were stuck. Where were we to go? We mostly forged through, whispered amongst ourselves of the rift, what we'd do after the Bar and Bat Mitzvahs. Many were planning on leaving too. I was unsure. My idea of Judaism still hung mostly on Ben's comfort level with it. This was, after all, his temple, these were his friends.

And my defected friends were now true wandering jews, scrambling to various delis and restaurants in and around town for the morning Minyan -- the early Saturday service. They'd meet at the town library, Giorgio's Italian restaurant, above the Town Hall Deli where the best non-kosher sloppy Joes wafted in, but mostly they'd cram into one another's houses with potluck dishes for the Kiddish. A quarter of the temple leave, taking with them the heart and soul of the temple, the last of the sweet-hearted mensches, not to mention some rather hefty financial wherewithal. I miss them. Now the temple is full of younger families, perky jews, moms with stick-straight ironed hair and fashionable shoes. I miss my shuffling religous jews, the menopausal Jewish moms with greying roots, leaning over and kissing their high school sons and daughters during services.

Not that I was ever a regular temple goer, comfortable sitting in temple reciting prayers, rocking back and forth davening. My friend Rona and I would mostly go on the high holy days with our NY Times articles hidden in the Sedur, the book, swapping clippings from Modern Love, or the Lives section, then singing the sweet songs, leaning into each other. My Italian, non-Jewish husband Rob, keeping me warm with his grasp on my leg. This was fine with me, a kind of social, earthy-feely Judaism. And now that was gone.

It's not my fault.

The problem surfaced two weeks ago. The Rabbi and her assistant Sherri had placed Ben in a small trope* class with just two other boys, both from Solomon Schechter, the all day religious school. When I pick Ben up he gets in the back of the car and slumps deeply into the seat. "Those other kids are miles ahead of me," he says with absolute dejection. "I can't even read Hebrew. They already know how to sing trope. It's not fair. I'm quitting." Is it possible, I wonder driving home. Would they have done that? What were they thinking putting him in this group?

When we get home I go to the computer and open the hebrew sing-song trope his teacher Howard had e-mailed us. Ben begins to read. I'm shocked. My 12-year-old son who has been attending hebrew school every Wednesday and Sunday for seven years now, can hardly read. He's faltering over each letter, painfully stringing together the words, going so slowly that at this rate his Bar Mitzvah would spill over to Sunday.

I tell myself it's not my fault, but still, how did I not notice this. I'm a bad mother,

not to mention a bad Jewish mother. My son can't read the language, and I was too busy to notice. I give a quick stir to my Italian mother-in-law's thick Bolognese sauce, grab the Manishewitz and begin typing off an e-mail to the JLC (Jewish Learning Center).

"Hi Sherri, today Ben came home from trope class and was so upset. He's being taught with Zach and Kalman, both of whom are at Solomon Schechter and legions ahead in terms of hebrew, trope, etc. This I believe was either poor planning on the Jewish Learning Center's part or simply just not thought through. It was just wrong to put Ben in class with these kids who are so far ahead. To make matter worse, he told me he can't really read hebrew. I thought he must be kidding, but sure enough, it's true. I think I could read better when I was a third grader learning in the 60's in Bradley Beach, NJ. I spoke to other parents in his class and was told, they too, feel this way. It seems everyone is getting tutors to catch up, or in one case, switching to another temple where apparently their child is two years behind the other kids his age.

It's not going to work with the current arrangement. Sadly the reality is that his education at JLC is sorely lacking- and this just highlighted it. I just felt my heart sinking tonight when I asked him to read hebrew. I felted duped and also a bit of the neglectful mom, in that I just assumed his hebrew learning would be taken care of at the JLC. I now see I was wrong. I will need to get a tutor. I had put my head in the sand, shame on me, but shame on the JLC for not teaching Ben and apparently other children in his class to read hebrew.

Not a bad letter. The problem being, I actually sent it. As usual, I didn't wait the requisite 24 hours, or even five minutes before pushing the send button.

*a musical embellishment of prose, a notation for musical reading of the Jewish Torah

The Countdown

My son Ben and I are in a screaming, drag-out fight. He doesn't want a Bar Mitzvah, isn't the least bit fazed by my 50% deposit on Maurice's Party Animals or the Maplewood Little Club. "I'm an atheist!" he yells, tears streaming down his face. "You can't tell me what to believe! It's my Bar Mitzvah!" I'm not falling for it, not for a minute, as if he's the first self-proclaimed atheist tween to try and worm out of a Bar Mitzvah. We've been going at it for over an hour and I'm feeling battle fatigue, conjuring displacement to any sunny, warm-island beach. I'm thinking Cozumel before the hurricane, or Chicxulub, Mexico before the kidnappings, or what the heck, Bradley Beach, NJ, exit 100 off the parkway, right now, as in jump in the car, and simply disappear to some unknown Starbucks a mile in from the ocean. I keep waiting for this little person foaming in front of me to back down, kind of whimper off to the den. But he seems so determined, so full of conviction, like a mini-Terminator who keeps resurrecting from a sniffling heap and going at me.

This fight seems different. Not like our usual I-don't-want-to-go-to-hebrew-school-today tug-o-war. There's such anger. His eyes are full of hate. I'm at a loss. He's only 4' 9", weighs under 100 pounds, still has that angelic, sweet face and soft, chubby cheeks, and yet, I know he's a force that can get me to drink. And there I am grabbing for the Manischewitz in the fridge. "You are fucking getting Bar Mitzvah!" I screech, throwing back a half-glassful of wine. My shrillness is killing me, I'm fully out of control. I tell myself I would never hit him in my rage, but I'm fully aware an irrational lunatic stands before him. Is it possible I could belt him one? I haven't hit him since he was two years old, when I forced his tiny hands to pick up a sprawl of legos across our kitchen floor. Later that day I admitted it to Dr. Gruenwald, his pediatrician, during a routine checkup, and he calmly reprimanded me, "Never hit your child. Ever." And I never did again. Never really even came close. Until today.

I tell Ben that his friend Avery will not be able to come over after school the next day, a Friday. The tears start again and unbelieveably with all the strength of my soul, I call his mom Dawn.

"Dawn, I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to cancel with Avery . . . Ben is just not listening to me. He's giving me a really hard time on his Bar Mitzvah." Dawn knows this is big. She's kind, as usual, tells me this is important, and I feel a telepathic understanding between us, an unspoken link between moms, that if he behaves the date will be back on.

The next morning when I come down to make breakfast, Ben is sitting at the computer reciting his torah Trope, the egg timer clicking in the background. I immediately call Dawn and we whisper in relief.

As Ben leaves for school, he turns to me. "If I'm going to do all this learning, tutoring, trope, I want you to learn the trope too. I want you to do an "aliya" on the bima that day."

"What? I can barely read hebrew anymore. Ben, I'd be too nervous. Are you serious?"

"Cereal mom, I'm cereal."

I send off an e-mail to his tutor Howard and enroll in his adult trope class, starting, as luck would have, that night.

The countdown has begun. Ben's Bar Mitzvah is Oct 27,2012. 9 months from now.