I’ve written before on how fortunate I feel to have so many close friends in my Shul. Nonetheless, today is a little bit of a blue day, because at 6:00 AM this morning, a flight took off from La Guardia to Fort Lauderdale. And on that flight was one of my closest friends, TG, who was taking the last leg of his year long move to East Boca.
I don’t want this to be a dinner-like salute to him and his wonderful wife, who is a close friend of my wife, but I do want to share two thoughts which are consistent with the themes of Shul Politics.
What is wonderful about friends, and people in general, is that each one of them is a world on to themselves. A unique combination of body, heart, mind and soul shaped by years of experience. As a result, we develop different relations with each friend, often based on our shared interests. TG is my unofficial (and unpaid) growth coach. He’s the only person who will approach me in Shul with a fist pumping “Growth Baby Growth” greeting. We also share a love of the 7 Habits, NLP, Mystical Judaism, Mussar and anything that will move us, the Shul, or the community in a growth direction.
The second thought has to do with emotions. As you may have noticed, men can be a little reserved when it comes to baring their emotions. Our Shul is a little above average here, in that hugs are quite common and there is a great camaraderie, but verbal male emotional bonding still mostly follows societal norms.
When TG first came to the Shul, he wanted to sit in my section, but there was no room for him and his sons, so I pointed out some other seating options, and I told him which I thought was the best choice. He took my suggestion and every so often he would tell me “I love my seat” and I would tell him “I’m glad to hear that”. But in reality, he didn’t need to keep on telling me that, he was really expressing something much deeper.
And now that he has moved and I won’t be hearing the “I love my seat” refrain any longer, I want to give him my real response, “TG – “I love you too.”.