December 2, 2016 – Sarasota, FL
When our son, Jake, was an impressionable adolescent, we hired a mentor, Eli Weiss, for him. Eli was not the perfect young teenager. He was mischievous, edgy, competitive, and not exactly compliant. When thinking about mentors, this should not be the guy you hire, but he was exactly the right fit for Jake. Their time together was 1-1, and Eli took his mentoring very seriously. Jake was shielded from Eli’s shenanigans, and while I knew about them as he was my client, I never felt like Jake was unsafe. Eli is approaching 26 years old now and Jake is 20. I got a call from him on Thursday, and he was coming to Sarasota to go flying with his dad, Peter Weiss, and hoping that we could get together. I invited them to our Shabbat table.
Lesson – You never know who will be at your table. Just wait for it.
Luckily it was a magnificent and we set the Shabbat table on the lanai. Conversation was filled with past, present and future conversation. Eli is engaged; Jake has a girlfriend and completing requirements for Fire/EMT for the state of Florida. There was talk of EVP – Emergency Volunteer Program sponsored by the state of Israel to get firefighters and their boots on the ground in Israel. Apparently, word has it from other firefighters who have participated, “They have the best firefighter training in the world.” By the end of the evening, unbeknownst to us, Jake had signed up to volunteer. Much of the discussion focused on Eli and his entrepreneurship which, of course, thrilled me. Eli graduated last year with an ASL (American Sign Language) degree. The Deaf community is underrepresented and needs a boosted education plan. Who knows, maybe this will be the speciality extension of The Thinking Center.
Dinner was simple, full of hearty veggies and robust juicy fruits, and delicious; all Whole30 approved except for the wine that flowed – a large Riesling and the 2 Publix challahs that were devoured. Prior to dinner on this night, I had to make a paradigm shift about how to help my mom celebrate Shabbat since these dinners were originally about ramping up her quality of life. So I picked up a twist off top bottle of wine, a fresh challah and met her at her residence, Brookdale. I filled our styrofoam cups, ripped the challah, and there we (my mom, her caregiver, Tonya, and I) sat at the entrance way outside of the building reciting the blessings over the wine, challah and fake candles. She drank two cups of wine and had two rips of challah. She was just delighted. She still can recite the prayers…fascinating.
Shabbat Shalom!