I had a nice time this evening. My three choices were A) Go with Mommy to Rabbi Wasserman's 30 B) Squeeze with Noms and my dad in the back of Bubby and Zayde's car to watch ten minutes of the Maccabiah in Haifa or C) Stay home with Shifra.
I went with A, and we left early enough to hang out with Shifra.
Rabbi Wasserman was the Rabbi at Saba and Savta's Shul in Passaic. He was also very good friends with them, and by relation, with us. I vividly remember him making Kiddush, and giving out Kedem grape juice. (I think my love for Kedem grape juice comes from there.) But my favorite memory, and thing that I remember him for, was how he knew how to talk to children.
Somewhere around 2007, we flew back to Passaic. There was a day I woke up at basically noon (Maybe after Aliza or Moshe's wedding?) I had learned in school that you can only daven Shacharit in the first 4 hours of the day, which I proudly told my mom. She was impressed, but told me to go ask Rabbi Wasserman what to do, he was sitting at the table. So I went to him, all shy, and asked. He said "What *I* do when I wake up past noon, is I say Shema and then daven Shmona Esrei of Mincha". Now, thinkint back, Rabbi Wasserman probably never woke up that late, but he made it seem so legitimate that I would.
It was easy to connect with him after that. He was a calm, collected man, who I learned so much more about tonight, on a personal level. I can see why the Starrs historically have been friends with him. My favorite stories shared tonight were about "Chaim" the sibling, husband, and friend. I think my favorite story was when he was young, and he played with his brother's basketball, it popped. So he folded it up, and made the case that he had got his youngest brother a new football.
Amazing to think about the fact that Rabbi Wasserman was able to balance very important public positions, and still be a brother, husband, son, nephew, friend, and mentor. The world is a better place thanks to him being in it.
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