By Frank Ponder (5-9-09)

Today is thirty days, which is four weeks and two days of the Omer.

 

It is a tradition to count the days between Passover and Shavuot, as we mark our freedom from slavery and celebrate our freedom to accept Torah. This is called "counting the omer." This year we will observe the tradition of "counting the omer" by sharing stories about the many different ways that we have been turned on to Jewish learning, and through Jewish learning to Torah.

In 1956, as I was preparing for my Bar Mitzvah at Temple Emanuel, I asked Ted Sharfman when he was going to give me the music for the prayers and maftir.  He told me that because my cousin couldn't carry a tune, he figured I was tone-deaf, too.  I insisted on learning the melodies and trope.  After my final rehearsal for my Bar Mitzvah, Ted suggested that I become one of the Temple's junior Cantors.  We would meet several times a week in the basement with an old piano where Cantor Eddie Krawll would first loosen his tie, and then with one finger bang out the notes to teach us the melodies.

 

Every Shabbat we would rotate the duties of leading the services for the Saturday Religious schools.  After services, we would go into Hoffman Hall to greet the Bar Mitzvah, whom we usually knew.  We also feasted on the wonderful spread including chopped liver and herring.  (Once someone even handed me an envelope, thinking I was the Bar Mitzvah boy.)

 

Another early Temple Emanuel memory I have is going to the High Holidays at the Shrine Auditorium.  The kids were sent upstairs to watch Shirley Temple movies.  As I was older, I remember sitting behind my aunt wearing her fox stole with its face and beady eyes staring at me. I could see the large stage from where the Rabbi, Cantor and choir led us in prayer.  Above, there were murals of Bedouins trekking through the desert.  However, I mostly looked forward to hearing the Cantor and choir performing the Avinu Malkaynu prayer.  Its beautiful melody stayed with me for days, weeks, yes, even months.  I had a red LP recording of it, which I constantly played.

 

Jewish music has continued being so meaningful to me.  I loved music at camp, and I love music at services and on holidays.  Unfortunately, I never learned to play an instrument or read music, so I attend the minyan to get my music "fix," and the nosh isn't so bad, either. 

 

 

By Frank Ponder

These stories are brought to you by the Temple Emanuel RE-IMAGINE project, an 18-month initiative sponsored by Hebrew Union College, devoted to re-thinking and re-structuring our religious school.