Monsey, New York

I recently visited the great large apple of NYC and the beautiful state of New Jersey on a recent sales trip. One of the highlights was seeing my rabbi friend Heshy in Monsey, NY. Since it was the night before Sukkot - Heshy wanted to take me out and see the community and how different it would be for someone like me coming from a secular background.

Joseph Berger of The New York Times said in a 1997 article that Monsey in the 1950s "was a small rustic intersection with a single yeshiva." By 1997 Monsey had 112 synagogues and 45 yeshivas (Wikipedia).

I saw a number of interesting things but surprisingly my biggest cultural shock moment was going to the Orthodox supermarket at about 11 AM on a Thursday night, bussling with people. This 100% kosher supermarket was, not joking, a slightly reduced in size version of Cosco. My friend is not Hasidim (see pic. above) but almost all of the other shoppers were (and were men). The majority of these folks speak the dying language of Yiddish while the people working there were almost all Spanish speaking. Given the product mix - which was also almost entirely foreign and in Hebrew and the noise level of so many people speaking and yelling things accross the aisles at once, I really thought I was in another country. I also wasn't sure whether my Spanish or Yiddish needs more improvement - oy gevalt what am I saying I don't speak any Yiddish!

Anyways, I'm walking around in awe when all of the sudden I get hit with the worse heart burn (reminescent of a previous occassion - I should probably do something about this at some point) and fell to the floor clutching my chest in pain. It wasn't like I wasn't already receiving a wide range of stares dressed and looking the way I was. After Heshy finally found me and finished his shopping we were able to leave with only slight embarresement. No one did offer any me help, Sukkot was too soon around the corner (actually I sort of ran off an hid between cash registers in a crouched position)
This entry finally connected my two favourite things to write about - heartburn and Judaism. Coincidence? I hope not