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A Few Clouds David Seidemann: Getting it right the second time around
From the other side of the bench
Issue of Feb. 6, 2009 / 12 Shevat 5769
So Justice Roberts flubs the oath and the Democrats call a “do over.” Can you do that in politics? And what about the executive orders Mr. Obama signed before the “do over?” What about the parade and the inaugural balls? Maybe all those have to be redone? Just think about how many Americans we could put back to work staging the whole affair again.
Actually, the President’s term began at noon on Jan. 20, with or without the oath, but the episode reminded me of two experiences I had with do overs. I performed a wedding years ago at a very ritzy country club in New Jersey. The bride and groom were newly observant and none of their friends had any connection to traditional Judaism. In fact, most of the tuxedo-adorned men and evening-gowned women were not even Jewish.
About two weeks before the wedding day I had reviewed the entire wedding procedure with the bride and groom. One point I made sure to address was to inform the groom that the ring he was going to give to his wife that night had to be his, purchased with his own money.
As we stood under the chuppah canopy that evening, the hushed, respectful, debonair crowd chuckled when I asked the groom again, “Is this your ring, did you pay for it with your own money?” The crowd thought I was being humorous, so I quickly explained why it was important that the ring was purchased by the groom and owned by him. Under the chuppah the groom once again assured me that the ring was his.
Some two hours later, amid the drinking, eating and more drinking, the groom staggered over to me and confessed. His mother in law had insisted that he put aside the ring he had purchased and utilize the ring she used on her wedding night, the ring that was also used by her mother and grandmother. It had been in the family for years, and according to the mother in law, it would be “bad luck” if the chain was broken. Not wanting to disappoint his mother in law, he left the gold wedding band he had intended on using at home, and used the family heirloom. I almost had the groom believing that the good news was that he was married, but the bad news was that he was married to his mother in law.
A do over was in order, and our choices were limited. It was in the days before EZ-Pass, so I went to my car to fetch a roll of quarters. The “oath” of marriage laws was administered again and Mike and Cindy returned to the dinner party without any of the guests, save two witnesses, aware of what had transpired behind the scenes.
The second do over story is a bit more compelling. Thirty seven years ago, my father bought me a Megillas Esther scroll as a Bar Mitzvah gift. He told me then to make sure I used it every year to read for someone who could not make it to shul. Since then I don’t believe a Purim has passed when I did not read the Megillah for someone who could not make it to shul due to illness or other circumstances. I have read it for new mothers and I have read it in Sloan Kettering.
One Purim night, I believe in 1981, I was living in Jerusalem and was asked by a family to read the Megillah for a bedridden woman. She was suffering terribly with “that” disease and was not expected to live much longer. In fact, I was told by one of her sons to read the Megillah as quickly as possible as they did not expect her to last through the night and possibly not even long enough for me to finish the Megillah.
I read the Megillah that night with the hope expressed in the parchment but with sadness filling the room. I left a half hour later, with a really eerie feeling; a mother’s eyes closed throughout the reading, nodding periodically, surrounded by her family.
About two hours later there was a knock on my apartment door. One of the woman’s children was there, I thought, to share sad news with me. I was stunned when the child said to me, “My mother is fully awake now and thinks she faded out totally for a few verses when you were reading. She wants you to come back and read it again if you could.”
I had wrongly assumed that she heard nothing of my first reading and that the family was just going through the motions.
I returned to find the mother of the household once again surrounded by her family. This time however she was sitting up. Still in bed, but sitting up and talking. The light and the joy in the room matched the light and the joy of the Megillah as we experienced a “do over” of Megillas Esther.
When I left Israel months later, that woman was still alive, tending to her husband and children instead of them tending to her. It was a “do over” I will remember forever.
David Seidemann is a partner with the law firm of Seidemann & Mermelstein. He can be reached at (718) 692-1013 and at ds at lawofficesm.com.
