Page 324 - WhyAsInY

Why (as in yaverbaum)
thereby, among other things, set some tongues wagging. This admit- tedly heady experience (one could see that the Rebells were royalty in Manhattan Beach) would have been quite enough, thank you, but there was more to come.
After probably two and one-half hours of my feigning interest and getting up and down on cue as the congregation yo-yoed in unison in order to be written in the good book for the coming year, Rabbi Letter- man started to speak. With the little experience that I had, I knew that this, the sermon, was my opportunity to nod off (after all, I saw that Harry did the same from time to time) and then hold out until Alenu, which I knew (once again, the value of camp) and loved, as it was the last prayer in the usual liturgy and was quickly followed by Ein Keloheinu (learned at camp as well), which everybody likes to sing. I also knew that Alenu was the only prayer that involved a deep and sustained bow, and that a deep bow at the end would add physical relief to the psychic relief that was about to occur—and was probably consistent with the occasion anyway.
But I could not take relief from the rabbi’s (very boring) sermon. Just as I thought that he was winding up, a broad smile crossed his face, and he told the congregation that he was delighted to be able to make a special announcement on this the beginning of what looked to be a won- derful New Year. Great news! Phyllis Rebell was getting married to Harvey Semi-mispronounced-last name. Could the happy couple please stand up? And with that, the tongue wagging could resume and would turn into kvelling, hundreds of handshakes, kisses, expressions of con- gratulations (to me) and good luck (to Phyllis), thank-yous, and the like, all of which prolonged an already very long ordeal by at least twenty more minutes. (I really shouldn’t pin it all on Rabbi Letterman’s announcement, however; I would learn in years to come that the pro- traction of already long religious events was very much in the Rebell tradition.)
Taking a deep breath, I girded myself for my introduction to the rabbi, whose wife, he told me, was a teacher at the East Midwood Jewish Center. He doubted that she had been there when I was (praise the
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