“Who are you ,anyway,” a recent email inquired and so I answer hine ani, here I am. But first a little background. We are after all, the children of our fathers and forefathers and try as we may, we cannot fall too far from the tree.

The best part of going to the synagogue with my father, was listening to the discussions he had with the Rabbi, after the service. It would always start in the same way. First, he would compliment the Rabbi on his sermon and then he would introduce the “but”. There had to be a “but” because my father was a student of the Talmud, and would follow words of Rabbi Akiva and the Mishna ( the first section of the Talmud) or some other Rabbi and some other part of the Talmud.
What impressed me most strongly was the openness of all of the Rabbis in these discussions. The Rabbis were the leaders but they were not opposed to intelligent dissension and to different interpretations and since I was quite young, that was probably my first exposure to how thinking men welcome and respect the rights of other thinking men to express themselves.

It was quite beautiful, and quite reassuring to me to know that there are leaders who – as the Rabbis – are unafraid to confront ideas that are not their own. Although I never became a Talmudic student like my father who was predestined from his early days at the Yeshiva, I did go on to be a bat mitzvah and although my Hebrew is more than a little rusty I still enjoy the prayers and rituals that I learned.

Another way that my father influenced me was his reverence for the power of education. He learned that from his father, an immigrant who started his life in this country on the lower East side – Rivington Street, to be exact – and who believed that education could achieve success in the promised land.

So I went on to graduate school, changing careers several times until I discovered my niche in health care, staying there for several decades. When the powers that be observed silver threads among the gold they offered me retirement and I, frustrated with having to deal with the shortcomings of Medicare and Medicaid and seeing how the sick and elderly deserve entitlements that they will never receive, perceived it as an opportunity to find another vocation.

I went into business with my husband. We manufactured a series of products, the last being a Bill Clinton doll, www.uptownbill.com playing a saxophone. President Clinton liked it enough to ask us to send several to his office and then to subsequently feature it for sale in the Clinton Museum Gift Shop. Although we received an invitation to the opening of the Museum, I was unable to go, having suffered a fractured rib shortly before the event. I was disappointed but I saved the invitation which I must say looks quite presidential in its affect.

Before the Megillah, I used to write for many trade publications in the health care field. I’m dabbling in fiction, but that will become more serious when I really retire, which my sons predict will never happen. Perhaps. At the moment, with a different partner, we have started an internet business, www.nastyornicebracelet.com. Our mantra is “read my wrists,” a concept which lends itself more to the viewing than to the explanation.
So as I said at the start, hine ani –here I am.