Should We Evacuate?

Krusty's Bar Mitzvah:  Happy 500th to the Simpsons

There's nothing like a fabulous bar mitzvah to send the SJG back in time.  As I sat in my temple yesterday, watching my neighbor's son Colin ace his Torah portion, naturally, I thought about my own sons' bar mitzvahs.  I think we're still paying off the catering bills.  Our people do love a good buffet and demand an open bar.  But that's not all I remembered about these joyous events.  At Billy's bar mitzvah, something altogether ooky happened, something otherworldly.  Please remain seated for this portion of the blog.  Everybody good?  Okay, here it is:  at the exact moment we said kaddish for my mother, the synagogue started shaking.  That's right.  We had an earthquake.  Coinky-dink, or my dear sweet mom checking in?  Everyone in the room knew this was our personal quake.  The Rabbi, however, thought it might be the Big One.  "Should we evacuate?" he whispered in my ear. "God, no," I said.  "Let's finish this thing."  The earth settled and we carried on.  At Scotty's bar mitzvah, after thanking the rabbi and the cantor and the best parents ever, he gave a shout-out to none other than Antonio Banderas.  It got a huge laugh.  Had any bar mitzvah boy in history ever thanked Antonio Banderas?  To this day, I'm pretty sure Scotty was the only one to go there.  Thank God, it worked.  The day before, he'd thrown it in while rehearsing his speech, just to make me laugh, and I told him to keep it in there.  Had it missed, had he done a big belly flop on the bima, guess who would've been blamed?