Weekend in Brooklyn

A few happy encounters from one of my first weekends in new home, Brooklyn.

*I tried on a couple of dresses over my clothes at a flea market in Park Slope. The tiny Carribbean vendor seemed pretty determined to find me one that fit. She quickly rejected the first one, which I actually thought would have fit fine when it wasn’t worn over my day’s outfit. However, she took an immediate liking to the second one, which I thought looked too big when I caught a glimpse in the mirror.

“Too big?” she said, incredulous. “Yeah,” I said apologetically. Then, she started muttering words under her breath. She did not heed my continued explanation about how the sleeves were too long but just kept shaking her head and saying “too big” disgustedly. As I walked away, I could see her muttering and looking my way as if she were putting a curse one me.

*This morning, I went to visit my brother at a coffee shop that he works in a lot. One of the other regulars there, a middle-aged Hungarian guy, greeted us this way: “It’s the Chicago Mafia!”

*This evening, as I was returning from the store, I was greeted with a question I don’t get every day. “Are you Jewish?” a young Hasidic man who was standing on the street accompanied by a boy asked me. “Uh, yeah?” I said. “Can I blow the shofar for you?” he asked. “It will take two minutes.” Me: “Sure, right here?” Him: “Well we can go over there.” He pointed a few feet away from us.

And indeed, this Hasidic Jew proceeded to blow a small shofar for two minutes and then, when he was through, go through the reasons Jews blow shofars on Rosh Hashanah. It was all coming back to me: Abraham’s near-sacrifice of Isaac, God creating the world in six days and resting on the seventh and something else. As this young man left to go to his synogogue fifteen minutes away, I felt a little less guilty about not going to one myself this year.