The Incident

Short attention-seeker

We were temple-hoppers.  My family went here, there and everywhere, in search of a nice cozy unpretentious synagogue to call home.  With each new temple, we grew less enchanted.  It would start out well, but then there would be an Incident, involving one of us.  No names mentioned.  (One of my brothers.)  Once they'd been Bar Mitzvahed, the onus fell on me.  It was my turn to have an incident.  My moment.  All mine.  And finally it happened and it was huge!  One day, the  uber shy, uber sensitive eighth-grade SJG was at Confirmation, actually having fun for a change.  A rare occurrence.  And on this day, while I was goofing off with a friend, giggling a bit, being silly, the assistant rabbi pulled me aside and began to analyze me.  I sat there, staring at the ground, while he told me my problems.  "I notice that you're short," he said, "and because you're short, you cry out for attention.  You want to be seen.  Does that sound right?"  It didn't.  So I went home and sobbed and told my parents about the assistant rabbi.  My dad called up the head Rabbi, an old friend, the reason we'd left the other temple because he was starting this temple, and laid into him but good.  Soon after, I got a letter of apology from the assistant rabbi.  But it was too late.  I was out of there.  A temple drop-out.  Never to step foot in a synagogue till I found a nice cozy unpretentious one to send my boys to, and I landed us a hamish one.  Sometimes, it takes a few decades to find the right fit.