Page 494 - WhyAsInY

Why (as in yaverbaum)
Hart; someone else held that title. So, this is clearly an appropriate sub- ject matter for a Shabbat sermon, right? Something that the Rabbinical Assembly had featured in its weekly distribution to the Conservative rabbinate, because there is a lesson for everyone somewhere in the cir- cumstances? Hardly.
Nevertheless, with Peter sitting on the bimah, having done a very good job, and Harvey and Phyllis sitting with Danny and Rachel in a show of family unity, Turetsky somehow found a nexus between Pesach and presidential politics and commenced to inveigh against the unfair treatment that the media had accorded to Hart. One might take the position that some pathology underlay this none-too-subtle gambit, but Turetsky, who fancied himself to be elusive and smarter than everyone else, just couldn’t resist placing himself at the center of events and hav- ing what he probably believed to be his unperceived good time at the expense of others, while defending himself and chastising those congre- gants who had any idea what he was talking about or why.
As for Phyllis and me, we comported ourselves well, overlooking both the sermon and the disputes that we had had about who was to pay for which portion of the cost of the luncheon. I didn’t care for being on display and among her friends, but I spoke, and I hope that I spoke well. That evening, I attended the separate party that we gave for Peter and his friends, an event attended not just by our kids and Peter’s friends but also by a number of Phyllis’s friends, a fact that was not announced to me in advance. I was not comfortable.
While the fact of newly divided loyalties would pervade, it would result in only a few distinct memories. There are, on the other hand, a number of events not related to divided loyalties that still stick out pain- fully, each because it spoke directly to or exemplified the pervasive pain of divorce. Four such events are referred to below; they are briefly described, but searingly indelible:
It was far from pleasant to drive up to the house on Farragut Road to drop off the children and be greeted there by a mound of my posses- sions, which could not begin to fit in a two-bedroom apartment, covering
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