A Special Accomplishment

You wouldn't believe what I'm capable of

Today is my 49th birthday. I have to say that in my family, birthdays receive nothing more than a “happy birthday,” as opposed to my wife’s family, in which they require rituals and ceremony on par with the dedication of the Beis HaMikdash. Also, with everything going on in Israel, I can’t say that I’m feeling in a particularly celebratory mood. (Though someone did comment that Hashem gave me a birthday present, with the High Court’s unanimous decision today that charedi exemptions from the IDF are illegal and cannot be funded.)

Still, a milestone is a milestone. On our children’s birthdays, we ask them to recount their accomplishments over the last year, and list their aspirations for the coming year. I’m not going to get into all of that, but I will share an anecdote about what it means for me personally to have attained this stage in my life.

On Friday afternoon, I was occupied on the computer, and my wife reminded me to do my weekly job of putting the tray of chicken into the oven, and removing the soup from the stove and putting it on the hotplate. Half an hour later, she asked me if I had done it. I found myself in an unprecedented quandary. Part of my brain told me that I had indeed done it, right when she asked me. The other part of my brain told me that I hadn’t done it.

I went into the kitchen to investigate. The tray of chicken was still on the countertop, cold and untouched. The soup was nowhere to be seen.

Where on earth was the soup? Hadn’t I gone into the kitchen and seen it on the stove? What had I done with it?

I wondered if perhaps I had absentmindedly fallen into my Friday night role of putting the soup in the refrigerator. Nope, it wasn’t there. I checked our second refrigerator in the basement. Nope, not there either.

What on earth had happened to it?

I could not make any sense of how the soup had dematerialized from existence, but with Shabbos rapidly approaching, at least I could make an effort for us to have hot chicken. And so I took the tray of chicken and opened the oven, but of course I couldn’t put it in because there was a big pot of soup there.

I suppose while that’s a rather unique accomplishment, it’s not something of which to be particularly proud. For that, I’ll have to list my institution, the Biblical Museum of Natural History, which aside from its annual success in inspiring and educating many tens of thousands of people, has shown itself to be amazingly beneficial during this difficult year as having therapeutic value. We’ve hosted endless evacuees (for free!) along with animal-assisted therapy sessions and all kinds of subsidized tours for Israeli schools and other groups. But reduced tourism (and therefore fewer visitors paying full admission) due to the war has been a huge challenge, particularly with all that we want to do to help. If you’d like to do a mitzvah along with honoring my birthday, you can donate and support our work! Please click here to donate. On behalf of everyone whose face you help put a smile on, thank you!