Rabbi’s Musings & Amusings

As America celebrates its 250th birthday, it behooves us, the Torah faithful, to contemplate our standing in the country that has been a haven for our people and a place where we have enjoyed unprecedented freedom and religious growth.

A few years ago, I had the great honor and privilege to publish Nostalgia for Eternity, a collection of lectures from my rebbi, Rabbi Berel Wein zt”l. Produced by Feldheim Publishers, it contained lectures I heard over many years from Rabbi Wein. Some of those lectures dated back to when I was a high school student in Yeshiva Shaarei Torah, where Rabbi Wein was our Rosh Yeshivah.

I distinctly remember two of my high school rebbeim rattling off the starting five players of the championship-winning 1973 New York Knicks. It surprised me because neither of them seemed like the type to know much about sports. But I guess that two decades earlier, they had other interests. Of course, right after recounting the starting five, my rebbi quipped, “If only I remembered my Gemara as well as I remembered that nonsense.”

This “Musings” is dedicated in loving memory of Rabbi Avi Oberlander zt”l – Rabbi Avraham Zechariah Menachem ben Tzvi Yehudah – a colleague, mentor, and friend, in honor of his second yahrzeit on 16 Sivan.

Though I can’t verify this anecdote, I can imagine that this really happened:

There is hardly anything more unstable and unpredictable than the weather in New York during March, April, and May.