My husband just called to say hi from the bar mitzvah celebration of the son of one of his friends from high school where they are getting set for a nice dinner. Cute story from the morning service: At a point towards the end of the Torah reading part of the service before the bar mitzvah was going to read the Haftarah, the boy whispered urgently to his father that he had to go to the bathroom. (Probably just nerves: I used to make many trips to the bathroom before races when I ran cross-country in high school.) His father thought there wasn't really time for it, but then there was the break in the service for the Misheberach (prayer for healing) in which all in attendance were invited to give names of those who are ill. The son ran off, but as it was coming to the end of the names supplied by attendees, his son had still not returned to the sanctuary. So the father started to give his own names and gave many, many names until his son slipped back into the sanctuary. Who were all those people who were named? The dad is a general surgeon, so they were the names of all his patients! And clearly those people were indeed in need of healing.
