The Penthouse

Jews

Help me out here, please

The rules, the regulations

The meat goes here, the dairy there

Friday night, the sun's going down, you turn on the radio to listen to the ballgame, fine

A couple hours later, you reach for the same knob on the same radio

And God forbid God actually forbids it

Like God, who presumably has more consequential things to think about

Is gonna curl up in a ball and blow away if little Heschy Bogen turn off the Dodger game after dark on Hester Street?

Nuts, all of it, right?

Except maybe not all of it, not absolutely all of it

Not for example, gatherings like this one

This is us, just us

Without the fish eyes and sneers

And all the crap that comes at us from out there

Here, we are

Shema Yisrael

And this ritual, this particular ritual, this pause

To recognize the exact moment when a boy steps across a line

From childhood into another world with no way back

There's nothing nuts about this one

Shema Yisrael

Adonai Eloheynu

Adonai Echad