Pesach was great, thanks.
I spent the holiday, and a couple days before and after, in Tosh. We arrived onאור לארבעה עשר באורתא דתלת נגהי ארבע after a nice and pleasant drive.
We schlepped along the whole house, as if we were going to wander the desert for forty years. The Tosh liquor / mikvah store is unreliable and overpriced, so I crammed in a case of merlot and chardonnay under the back seat of my Honda Accord. Amazingly, I totally forgot about the wine at the border. Not that I mind paying the Canadians the few cents per liter; it’s just that I hate being pulled over and having to undergo the waiting, form-filling, and who-knows-what-else process.
Kiddush HaChama was very special, if not for the ceremony itself than for its rarity. It warmed my heart and frostbit my fingers. Ironically, the onset of the spring season was celebrated under a light snowfall. Well, the Vernal Equinox wasn’t really on April 8; it was two weeks before that. The sun played hide-and-seek. It thought it was cool to peek-a-boo out of clouds every ten-fifteen minutes to tantalize the celebrators. But it did expose its whole body upon the recital of the blessing, just as it was on the day it was born. Happy Birthday!
Right after the morning prayers, the crowd gathered in the court to the east of white synagogue. The Rebbe appeared shortly thereafter. A dais, decorated with banners, was built for the dignitaries, three long rows of tables covered in white disposable tablecloths were prepared for the congregants, and scaffolds for the young flanked both sides. The crowd was black, except for four people who were wrapped in a tallis. Those were R’ Yoel Zvi Moskowiz, the dayan, R’ Yoel Yechial Cohen, the Rov’s son-in-law, Hershey Fekete, and me. Women were banned, for modesty reasons, but a dozen women stood there, nevertheless. Some came in feminist protest, and others had nothing better to do on Passover Eve. The Rebbe no longer leads the services, so his son R’ Meilach substituted. After the service, the Hadaser Rebbe, R’ Avigdor Fisch, publically made a sium, (finished a Talmudic tractate), thereupon, tuna and egg sandwiches were served; L’Chaim!
The sun above Hershey Fekete's grandparents' home
Dais. The Dayan in a tallis to far left
Photo courtesy: Hershey Fekete
Mid-Passover the unbelievable happened. I fell in love with Tosh. The place I abhorred for better than decade as obnoxious and inhabitable suddenly appeared serene and delightful. Its residents walk around carefree and seem to live off nothing. Besides, I like those Canadian socialists. You get child benefit cheques, (Canadian English, all you spelling freaks), free health care, and you even get paid to learn French! I couldn’t think of one possible advantage Kiryas Joel possesses that Kiryas Tosh lacks. What about my job? Ha, nothing to lose here. Well, Tosh has no available apartments anyway, so not relevant; move on.
What else? Chol HaMoed I visited one cybercafé in Montreal and another in Laval / Vimont, (city names are screwed up in Quebec.) It got me thinking if I could open a similar place in KJ. Many folks don’t have Internet access here or even a computer. How about a cozy place to sip and browse? Nah, they will bust it down sooner than a page loads with DSL here in Monroe. Okay, so not a storefront-like leisure-oriented hangout that may lead to mixed dancing, but a discreet dark-alley basement with no available parking and furnished with five computers running JNet Internet service that sounds an alarm whenever a patron attempts to click a non-kosher site. I could make a buck here by selling overnight kugel every Thursday night. Maybe it’s not such a bad idea, after all.
What do you think?
2 comments:
Hi Hershy
good quick short article, althou i didn't expect you to write as a news reporter but more as an analizer and thinker, non then less, the best line i found was what i felt too, when i went erev pesach to Mathers sports complex just about a 5 minutes drive from shtetl, i used their beautiful gym for a good workout then cleaned out the chometz from my body in their hot sauna's bathtubs and pools, all for the price of $17 canadian, which is about 60% more expensive here in the metro area with less ammenities, i said to my self "i love tosh",
dreaming awake when i sat in the sauna, fantasizing with reality pictures from our youth, i wasn't thinking of how i'll finance it and how i'll bring my son over, but i was dreaming of spending my life in this beautiful town, where life is (almost)free, but you can still practice your religion to the most of your adventure, the wheather is not so sticky in the summer and i never hd a cold o fever in yeshiva from the terrible cold, the air is pulotion free, a place where the gas emision of a motzi shabbos is more then all the trucks and busses from the whole week, even now the nastalgy is so hi in me i almost wanna fly down there now, we live alot more restricted -govermentel and religion- in monroe, williamsburg, jerusalem, london, even monsey, (i'm not familer with antwerp) then they live in tosh, and it's only gonna get more free when the unfurtunate and unwanted to think of might happen,
can we go back to tosh hershey my good friend and chavrusa from yeshiva? we will learn in the mornings the joyfull gemora we so loved then smoke weed and cigarets with coffee's, cocktails and beer for the rest of the day?
even fantasis in a hot bathtub could'nt come up with a better place for that kind of day then OUR SHTETELE TOSH
I LOVE YOU TOSH, ALWAS WAS AND ALWAS WILL!!!
Hershey Fekete
now in monroe NY
Hershel:
Nice piece keep on!!!
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