I couldn't help myself, I haven't been fishing in days because of my hurt back. But yesterday it felt almost back to normal. And there it was, getting toward sundown, a sun growing weary of the east, a holiday approaching, (no, not Ramadan), Rosh Hasanah, The New Year.)
Now in the past, growing up, we would go to services and then binge eat for two days with relatives and I'm not talking platters from the Olive Garden either, I'm talking the best food in the world ever! My Nana and all the aunts were cooking their Jewish hearts out for the holidays, (notice I didn't mention my Mother, my Mother was of the next generation of Jews who don't cook, but worship instead at the altar of take out.)
This was real food, full blown food with taste! Liberal use of fat, real butter, sugar, eggs! Who used saccarin or sweet and low? That was a freebie you stuffed into purses when you dined out! This was food better than any 5-star restaurant, Food that the new commericals try to wipe out with their five second, plug in whiffs of floral. This was presentations of tender baked paprika chicken breasts, prime rib falling off the bones served on Silver platters, steaming matzah balls with noodles and taste, noodle and potato kugles puffed like clouds and desserts homemade by Jewish angels in heaven. food that created the term "thunder thighs"!
Okay, reality check, that was then, this is now, (I had just come back from my New Years dinner at Wendy's take out, (the take-out legacy continues))and now the sun was setting, New years approaches, does God want me stuffed inside a building listening to the same old same old traditional rhetoric of the ages OR does he want my full appreciation for the world and all her glory down at the lake? No brainer!
I rolled dough-balls with the love of a Jewish mother, shouting a "barukh atah" as I loaded and closed a sandwish baggie. I grabbed my tackle box, pole and camera and headed down to the lake where God had already blessed me by leaving a clear opening around an otherwise seaweedy body of water. Good sign. I fished for a while and brought in nothing, nothing and more nothing. Okay, I could accept that maybe old Yahweh said I could go to the lake, but that was no guarantee of a catch, so I kept at it, doughballs were being eaten, but nothing to show for it. I was ready to give up as the sun was growing impatient, threatening to turn the night with her sliver of a moon loose upon me. So I eased one more doughball onto the hook, and said something like "Adonai Elohaynew" and tossed it out -- (Oy, I'm such a lapsed Jew excuse me, I have not seen the inside of a temple since 1991 and that was for a funeral.)
A fish took notice and bit, I could feel the jerking of it, but then I could see movement of something making its way through the shallow like jaws, a fin headed for my catch! Then it struck! My line was going, slicing it's way through the weeds, making it's way right to left like some Hebraic, Kabbalist message! The drag was singing too as I tried to reel this monster in. I thought for sure it might be a big water turtle. But after quite a struggle through sea weed and aquatic plants, I pulled in a huge bass. he was a beaut! If I had a shofar close by I would have blown it, (except I don't want that many people to know I have such good fishing here)
Well, "Avinu Malkenu" -- what a whopper! I could only measure him with my size 9 shoes for comparison as I grabbed the camera to document God's mitzvah upon lowly me.
What fun it was being in the big open synagogue of land water and sky! That's the way to pray! I would have high fived someone of the 'flock, but there were probably no other Jews within a five mile radius.
I threw the big guy back into the lake humming 'Shana Tova' and took my box and pole and big smile and went inside to get the pictures off the digital. A little while later I could feel that maybe I had been a little too exuberant with my body as my back was feeling the pain of days before. OY! That's God for you, he giveth and taketh away. Where's the motrin? Happy new Year...
