I'm a bit bummed that I didn't blog every night during the bar mitzvah festivities. A lot seemed to be going on, and everything went so well and beautifully and meaningfully and full of joyful tears. They started arriving on Wednesday, the 23rd... Auntie Em and Uncle Doug, Grandpa Jack, and then on Thursday the 24th, Aunt Sylvia and cousin Kenny, cousin Helaine and Ari and their kids, Aunt Susan and cousin Ruth, Aunt Joan and cousin Lynnie, and Helena, and of course Uncle Louis and cousin Josh, Grandpa Stan and Grandma Peggy were already here.... Thursday night was really special. We had everyone over to our house for dinner. There was a spectacular double rainbow or was that on Wednesday night? I thought I took some pictures of that, but I couldn't find any on my camera. I wasn't taking a lot of pictures, but I did take a few of the people that night. Besides the wonderful meal and the wonderful people Jackie surprised me. I was sitting in the living room talking to Auntie Em when all of a sudden I see Jackie pulling out Micah's tallit to show everybody and I look at Auntie Em and say, that's weird, I wonder what she's doing. At first she presents and shows everybody Micah's tallit which we tied the tzittzit to a couple of nights before. She shows them grandma Pearl's batik star and tells the story of how Micah had asked if he could have something that Grandma Pearl had made on his tallit. Aunt Susan had offered to buy him a tallit from Israel and he had this idea and Aunt Susan ran with it... the story is in the siddur from his bar mitzvah, the book that took me a good month to put together... if anyone wants one who missed the bar mitzvah, let me know, we had a bunch left over, anyhow to get back to our story. Jackie shows everybody Micah's beautiful tallit with one of my mom's stars and then she starts talking about how in this process I kept saying that I didn't have a tallit of my own and then my Dad, Stan said the same thing and so Jackie got thinking and she got another one of my mom's jewish stars, stars that she had quilted before she had died, but had never used for anything, no one remembers what she was going to do with them, she had made a few of them, so Jackie commandeered a second star for me and had Susan Schorr our tallit maker make a special tallit for me and a special tallit to Grandpa Stan from Micah on his bar mitzvah and she's telling everybody this and I'm sitting there in total shock, completely surprised, tears streaming down my face... as I get up and try it on... my wife.... how did I get so lucky...
there's just so much meaning in all this, I'm not sure I'm explaining it all, but my mother was a quilter, and it was really all Micah's idea to begin with, and it started with Aunt Susan's generosity, and the tying of the tzittzit (the fringes) by Micah, Jackie and I, And all the family there for the surprise presentation...
and then at 5:30 in the morning I look out at the driveway and there is a van that looks like our van, but it can't be... and then I see a little girl wandering up the stairs and look who's here! Look who drove through the night and showed up early! Ella, Cassie and Nolan!!!
...and then that morning Micah and I tied tzittzit on my tallit and grandpa's tallit.
Tallit for you, A wide selection of traditional prayer shawls. ... Modern tallit style prayer shawls in many colorful designs.
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