Keeping Up with the Cohenses

This morning at approximately 11:00 a.m., the doorbell rang, an odd thing on a Saturday in my household because here Saturday is Shabbos, the Sabbath, and friends know to knock when visiting. But on rare occasions a carpetbagger, Jehovah’s Witness or someone selling something will make it up the stairs and press the bell only to find themselves at the wrong threshold. Today it was Federal Express. The package they’d brought apparently required no signature because I saw the courier’s truck pull away as I opened the door. I looked at the box. It had my son’s name on it.

After Shabbos, my boy unwrapped the box. From all appearances, he’d received an expensive gift. He peeled away the bubble wrap, then worked his way through several layers of fine orange tissue paper to find a 13x9x2-in. perfect-bound, four-page, acrylic hardcover with expensive fabric endpapers and a woven bookmark hand-sewn into the lining. Sporting all the detailed production values of a high-end limited edition from Subterranean Press, this publication was glove-fit into a substantial Lucite shell with a laser cutout that allowed the book’s custom monogram to peek through, while the Lucite itself was custom-inscribed with my son’s name.

My boy examined it. No, not a book. It was an invitation to a classmate’s bar mitzvah in Livingston, New Jersey. The entire production must have cost at least $30-$40 apiece to produce. Perhaps more. It weighed just over 4 lbs., as described on the bill of lading, and had come all the way from Los Angeles courtesy of Creative Intelligence on Venice Blvd.

While I may not have been bred among the blueblood of Livingston, where new money (apparently so new it still smears) grows on trees, neither was I raised in a pumpkin patch. Regardless, in all my born days, I don’t believe I’ve seen a more garish, vulgar display of conspicuous wealth. We’re talking about an invitation, folks—something you read once, then toss away. The event it heralded was once holy to Jews. This one would take place at New York City’s Pierre. A black tie affair. I allowed my son to watch me throw the 4-lbs. epistle in the garbage.

Oscar Wilde referred to fox hunting as the unspeakable in pursuit of the inedible. Never mind the environment. Never mind that the invitation for this “Jewish event” had been sent for specific overnight delivery to arrive at one’s home in violation of the Sabbath—I could chalk that up to ignorance. But the idea that moneyed Jews would throw away such money on unabashed, unblushing, unconstrained frippery frankly made me wanna womit. Only several weeks ago, there were all too many families in our surrounding communities—both mine and Livingston's—who lacked food for Pesach, and here’s my son staring at an invitation that cost over $100 each when you add in the overnight charges ($15 extra just to get it to us on Shabbos). Multiply that by 200 or 300 (or 500) invited guests. In a Lucite, custom-engraved shell no less. I can only imagine the pompous punctiliousness in store for everyone at the Pierre.

I have regretted sending my children to the Joseph Kushner Hebrew Academy since it left its modest dwellings in West Caldwell some years ago and moved to the palatial Livingston. The fig leaf of Torah Judaism they provide these days, after a king’s ransom in tuition, hardly seems protection from the pandemic ostentations that their Conservadox crowd find themselves helplessly, hopelessly addicted to. But this school's administration, like Herson's Chabad, like Ramaz, like any institution preying on the uninformed, knows instinctively like a good confidence man to pander to its wealthiest patrons; that at the end of the day, the business of business is business.

Does the presence of this bar-mitzvah invitation among the eggshells and tunafish scrapings raise the value of its neighboring contents in my trash can? More importantly, will there be anything even remotely Jewish about l'affaire à la Pierre? These are uncomfortable questions for terribly comfortable Jews.

The Bully Incident: Part II

Three months to the day after my son was forced to knock the bejeezus out of a bully at the Joseph Kushner Hebrew Academy, I received a phone call from Rabbi Daniel Price.

"Hello, Mr. Meth. I hope everything is well. I’m calling to check up on how Jesse is doing with his psychologist."

"With his what?"

"Psychologist."

"I thought you said that. My son doesn’t see a psychologist."

"I believe that was our agreement."

"And which left field did this just come out of?"

"Excuse me?" said the rabbi.

"Are you telling me," I asked, "that there’s been another incident?"

"No," said Price. "Everything is fine."

"Then why are you calling me?"

"Because our agreement was—"

"Our agreement," I interrupted, "was that my son would see a psychologist once so you could ascertain that he was no danger to your other students; that you weren’t on the verge of a Colunbine incident. And we complied. He went. Once. Your school shrink received a letter from her colleague declaring that my boy was fine, and he was re-admitted. In other words, you covered your ass. Now why are you really calling?"

Rabbi Price explained that, according to his notes, there was an agreement was that my child would attend regular sessions with a psychologist—sessions designed to help the boy deal with anger management and any potential rage issues.

Now watch two adults deal with theirs.

"Is there something wrong with your memory, rabbi?" I asked.

"I don’t believe so, Mr. Meth."

"Then you must have completely tuned out three months ago. My son didn’t have a rage issue; he knocked shit out of the school bully following your personal failure to curtail that misanthrope’s behavior. What my son did was GOOD and RIGHT and PROPER and by every stretch of the imagination NORMAL." I took a breath.

"What your son did," said Price, his voice rising, "was cold and calculated. He beat the boy senseless and without mercy."

"Exactly," I said. "After months of being tormented, and your office doing nothing about it, my son put the little fucker out of everyone’s misery. And he did it precisely because his father told him to do it."

"He should have refused," said Price. "He should have told you that it was foolish—"

"Perhaps that’s how you spoke to your father, rabbi, but in my home, children don’t talk that way to parents."

This was going nowhere. We were about to start insulting each other’s mothers. I could smell the threat of suspension for my son until I complied with this mandatory psychologist edict, so I refreshed Price’s memory once more. Apparently he hadn’t paid attention in October, 2007, when I warned him that if he didn’t solve the bullying problem in his school, then I would. Apparently he hadn’t heard my warning that I was ready to level a negligence suit against his school, and him personally, for ignoring repeated warnings that my son was being tormented by another boy with a thick file of complaints from yet other parents. Apparently our young rabbi doesn’t read this blog!

So I painstakingly refreshed his memory, yet again, concluding with the lawsuit.

"It’s not something I want to do," I said, meaning sue a yeshiva, "but if you leave me no choice..."

"Are you serious?" Price screamed. "You’re going to sue us? Your son beats up another child and you have the audacity to threaten a suit against us? If anything, the other parent should be suing you!"

"They can certainly try," I replied, "but that’s not what we’re talking about. I have a solid case against you for the months of neglect, despite repeated warnings, which forced this situation to a head. And my attorney is only too happy to take this case on a contingency. He smells a payday. And don’t think this won’t hit the papers and internet, rabbi. That’s what Tiggers do best."

I can’t remember who hung up on who first. I suspect it was mutual. No one actually said fuck you but it was in our voices. Two things were clear: Daniel Price was going to chase this up a tree. He was going to borrow trouble just to prove that in his role as “educator” he didn’t have to take shit off nobody.

And I was going to sue his ass.

This morning, I entered the Joseph Kushner Hebrew Academy at 8:20. I signed in at the security desk, then proceeded to the school office and requested that the yeshiva send my son’s transcripts to the local public school. On the advice of my attorney, pending our lawsuit, I was withdrawing my boy from the yeshiva before they had an opportunity to harass him further.

Two hours later, my ex-wife phoned. I was sitting outside the office of the Kalever Rebbe, shilta, waiting for my appointment with the Ohave Yisroel when I got the call.

“They don’t want any trouble,” said my ex.

“They who?”

“Kushner. The school. Mrs. Deitsch just called me. They’re backing down.”

“And they called you?”

“Apparently they’re afraid of you. Please don’t sue them.”

Uncle Harlan loved this story. And I loved bringing him good news for a change. He said it was a monument to personal responsibility. Had his missus call me 20 minutes later just so I could repeat it.

I was going to end it with, and then I went in and got a brocha from the Kalever Rebbe. He told me to be more b’simcha.

But I’m going to end like this:

If this school ever forces my hand, I'll sue them—win, lose or draw. And I’ll report on it. And I’ll expect all of you—my friends with blogs and newspaper columns and other media at your disposal—to report on it, too. And to name names.

I’ll owe you one. Or perhaps you’ll be repaying one you owe me.

And I’ll enjoy every moment of it. B’simcha.

Personal responsibility. With fanfare.

That’s what Tiggers do best.