That's Life

Dear That’s Life,

In my mind, few things say ‘summer’ like a boating trip on the Delaware. Pulling into the Lander’s Boat Trips parking lot was like going back in time. All of a sudden I was fourteen again — a camper on a canoe trip packed with all of the requisite trip-down-the-Delaware necessities, such as my lunch triple-wrapped in plastic bags. Safety lesson complete, we were ready to head out.

If you’ve never been on a trip like this, I highly recommend it. There is no cell phone coverage, no emails, no texting and above all, no Internet connection. You are completely disconnected, which may be disconcerting at first but only until you realize how nice it is to be unplugged. There would be no way to enjoy the pristine nature of the scenery and setting if you were busy on your BlackBerry. You could miss the deer alongside the river, the eagles flying above, or the chassidishe guy rowing upstream — each a feat of wonderment in its own right.

As a number of men with beards paddled by wearing white shirts and black pants, we wondered aloud if we would be able to find a minyan for Mincha along the river. A friend in our group asked one of the men paddling by, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, about a minyan on the river, but he answered quite seriously that he was sure that at the end of the route there should be enough people to ‘chap’ a minyan. An hour later when we saw the same man paddling in the wrong direction we were convinced he was coming to get us for Mincha but, no, he was just looking for people in his group.

The search for a minyan became something of a joke until we returned from our ten-mile excursion down the river to the parking lot where our travels had begun. The gentleman who led our party, ever the responsible adult (and clearly that could not be me), approached three other people in the lot and asked if they had davened Mincha; they had not. With the seven men who were part of our rafting party, they were good to go. Tired, weary and somewhat waterlogged, these ten men made what I am sure was not the first minyan at Lander’s but certainly the first for me.

In the clearing, with the forest before them and the silence pervasive, there was something serene, spiritual and splendid about these men making the effort to daven together when they could just as easily have davened by themselves, as I am certain many people do.

Mah rabu ma’asechah Hashem.

MLW