Praise be G-d.

I just found out that the one who sings the hip-hop is not April Levine but Avril Lavigne and she's not Jewish like I was afraid she was. Who knew Levine was Lavigne?

That music she does is just noise. No melody and you can't understand even a single word. And dancing, her dancing? Smut.

Park Avenue on Madison.

I walked by, this morning, Park Avenue Synagogue which, of course, is on Madison Avenue. Inscrutable are the ways of synagogue presidents. This I learned over 54 years in the Rabbinate. Barricades they have surrounding this House of Worship, barricades against terrorist car bombs, and so also they have barricades at Sharay Tefila, Emanu-El and most of the other large synagogues in New York, though my shul, Beth Yuiz Miwom Annow, being on a secluded side street had no such concrete protection. Oy, I don't understand. Even at the heights, or the depths, of Nazi evil, barricades we didn't need in front of our Temples. Yet, now they are there.

They are there. But where, I ask, are my fellow rabbis? Where is there outrage? Where is Bloomberg, Clinton, Schumer, Maloney, Bush and other political leaders? Where are decent people who may, it is to be hoped, decry this persecution. No other religion, not even Monks in Burma have to worship behind barricades. But Jews, in America, we must. And who is protesting?

Dirty anti-Semites.

My doctor says...

I woke up at usual this morning with more aches and pains than a tallis has fringes. Then I recalled something my internist, Richard P. Cohen (not Richard T. Cohen, who does feet) told to me many years ago. "If you're over forty and you wake up and nothing hurts, you're dead."

Where have all the supermarkets gone.

Everywhere I look, I wonder as I wander. Today what I was wondering is what is the big deal about Starbucks? Personally a good cup of coffee, I believe, is a pleasure, but to my taste buds, I'm not so sure that anyone has ever improved on the taste of a nice cup of Savarin, in the big red vacuum-packed can so it should stay fresh, not the flimsy bag you get for $10.99 at Starbucks. Slow, also, Starbucks is. Me, I'd rather have a Yente than a venti!

All this Starbucks and I started to think about supermarkets. It used to be you could pick up a two or even three pound drum of Savarin in a dozen different supermarkets, now it's as hard to find as Vitalis. There was Bohack's, King Kullen, Waldbaum's, Finast, Daitch Shopwell, the A&P and more. Now, zilch. The Italianishe D'Agostino and the Food Emporium. Emporium, my tuchas. Emporium we don't need. A nice grocery with Savarin, we do.

There are helicopters outside, says my wife.

My wife, my Sylvie, 55 years we're married this April, just came back from getting the bagels and she says to me, "Must be some tsurus at the UN," which we live near in our junior four. "There are helicopters outside." "So," I say to her, "better they should be inside?"

e.e. cummings.

Despite what you may have heard, I have it from a good source that he is not Jewish and neither was, they should both rest in peace, Sean Connery. Those are just rumors. Henry Fonda no. Barney Miller with the mustache, yes.

A banana you should eat.

If you can't fall to sleep at night, many people, learned or otherwise suggest maybe some warm milk or a glass tea. But Dr. Richard P. Cohen, look for the P. in the middle, not Richard T. Cohen who's a podiatrist, P. is the internist, tells me that the potassium in a nice, ripe banana is better even than a pill, and will put you out like a baby.

And by the way, if a banana doesn't look good, if it's too much brown and mottled, it still, in many cases is ok to eat, even if it should taste a little fermented, it won't kill you and you shouldn't waste.

So, I got a free ice cream. Butter Pecan.

On the Upper East Side I was taking a stroll and I traipsed by a shop with people waiting in line out the door. Ice cream they were selling and it didn't look bad what with the heat and the humidity outside.

Then I notice they have no Kashruth certificate in the window. So, I find the manager. You're kosher, I ask? Yes, the manager tells me. So where is your Kashruth certificate in the window? I inquire? Listen, I tell him, I'm a rabbi, a Kashruth certificate I can get you, signed. Your business with the Jewish people in the neighborhood, will go through the roof.

For my offer, Mr. Manager gives me a Butter Pecan in a wafer cone. And tomorrow, I'll get him a certificate from Weintraub.

What's the deal with Cholent?

How is it that in the second largest Jewish city in the world, you can't find a decent cholent. There was a time, back when I was still wearing short pants, you could hardly spit without hitting a crock of cholent. But today, with the coloreds and the puerto ricans and the chinese popping up everywhere, there's not a cholent to be had. No Wolfgang Puck haute cholent. No California Cholent Kitchen. Nope, it's sushi this and tiramisu that, and not a thing that sticks to your kishkes like glue. And G-d forbid the women today should make a cholent. No way Moshe! If you can't order it in or microwave it, it's no good. What I wouldn't give for just a little schtickle. Right now. Even cold.

Nu?

Today I am a blogger. A blogger, my mother would say may she rest in peace. Vu den? a blogger.

Well, for the first time in fifty-four years, I have no congregation. Yes, Mr. and Mrs. Wall Street Macher hotshot, you think you're the only ones who can be forced out by cheap politics and sharp elbows? Hello, Mrs. Betty Friedan, you think age discrimination happens only to you and your ilk? No. Feeling like Willy Loman can happen to a Rabbi, too. Though it shouldn't happen to a dog. Feh.

So, my wife,Sylvie like the wife of the aforementioned Loman, says this to me when the schmendricks at Beth Yu Iz My Woman, strip me of my position. She's sounding like the Jewish playwright, that Miller fellow, who married the blonde shiksa, the Baker girl. Sounding like Artie Miller, a nice boy, from The Death of a Salesman.

"Attention must be paid," Sylvie tells me. "You must not be allowed to fall into your grave like an old dog. Attention, attention must finally be paid to such a person as you. So Moshe, you don't have to be very smart to know what the trouble is. You're exhausted. You've no one to talk to. Start a Blog."

Blog, schmog, I say. But Sylvie is right. Attention must be paid. So, pay attention, you. And visit here everyday, and listen. Because the good son, he listens.