In the world of Jewish learning you’re not supposed to purposefully teach new material on Shabbat. You can review and you can dabble in what some would call “irrelevant” material. What’s “ir” to one is “relevant” to another. I’m going to use this Shabbat to offer totally random and, as ALL will agree, irrelevant information.
When Suzy and I moved into our home 38 years ago I happened to glance in the attic on the second floor, the attic being parallel to living quarters. That had been an add-on, the entire floor built to be an in-law apartment for the builder’s parents.
I saw something I couldn’t identify when I opened the attic door. Against a small window was a large something-or-other. I know what it looked like, but it was gi-normous. We called an exterminator who, upon opening the door, immediately slammed it shut and deleted not one of a string of expletives.
“I’ve got to call my supervisor!” said he. The supervisor and a couple of other exterminators came out post haste. They, too, couldn’t believe their eyes. They gingerly walked into the attic towards “it,” studied the form for quite a while and
scratched their heads on the way out. “I’ve never seen anything like this in all my years in the business,” said the supervisor. “Would you mind if we took it with us?” I replied, “Sir, that’s why I called you in the first place. Get that thing out of my house!”
It took quite a while, but they accomplished the task without destroying it. They had take it out of the attic, walk down a long flight of stairs and carefully lift it through hallways and out door and onto their truck.
The next day we received a call informing us that they weren’t going to charge us for the job, but wanted us to know that the thing was now on display in the office foyer in case we wanted to see it in the light of day.
The thing was a four-foot tall wasp’s nest, thankfully out of commission, but so tall and wide it could have been the home of an inestimable number of wasps (“Wasps” in a Jewish home?).
Now there’s absolutely nothing Jewish about that story but I just wanted to share (now there’s another term I do not like one iota…”share”).