July 11 • 2019 5
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W
e are quite used to count-
ing off or counting down.
We all count (no, that
is not just a warm and fuzzy senti-
ment). Consider some basic ideas
associated with numbers.
One – the number
of seconds between
the light turning
green and hearing
the horn behind you
honk.
Two – the number
of turtle doves on
the second day of the
famous carol. Also,
supposedly, the number of each ani-
mal ushered into the ark by Noah.
Three – the number after which
a parent gets to the ultimatum or
comes up with another warning.
Four – the corners of the Earth,
which are hard to find on a sphere.
Five – the requisite number of
fingers for a glove, This, of course,
excludes mittens and baseball mitts.
Six – the number of courses you
could be served in a posh restaurant
(which would include
a palette cleanser)
and which no one
ought to consume on
a regular basis.
Seven – the days
of the week. One of
my punnier students
once wrote in a text;
“Seven days of this makes one weak.”
Eight – the number of the ball you
do not want to find yourself behind;
it means you are in trouble. It is all
right if you’
ve pocketed the others
when shooting pool.
Nine – the usual number of
months of gestation in humans.
Things could be worse: Elephants
gestate for two years!
Ten – usually the number for rec-
ognizing the “top” in a category: top
10 hits, top 10 reasons for …, top 10
items on a bucket list, etc. Math used
to work in base 10, but then I never
did understand any of that so forget
that example.
Twenty – the day in March set
aside, as of 2013, by the United
Nations as the International Day of
Happiness. Hey, we could try for
one day; we give a whole week to
Brotherhood in February and look
how well that works (NOT).
Thirty – the number of days
in September, April, June and
November. That whole rhyme
escapes me. I recall it as “Thirty days
has September, April, June and no
wonder all the rest are peanut but-
ter except Grandma, who walks to
work.” Or something like that.
Forty and fifty seem to be fright-
ening milestones for some people. I
say it’
s better to reach them than not.
Well, just remember that when it
comes to strange observations, you
can COUNT on me. ■
I
knew I was Jewish before I knew
what the word meant. I remember
when I was a little girl my Uncle
Ronnie’
s friend asked me, “
Are you
ticklish?” My answer was, “No, I’
m
Jewish!”
My love of Judaism
and commitment to
Jewish causes is in
my DNA — it comes
directly from my par-
ents and grandparents.
My grandparents, no
matter what their cir-
cumstances, always had
a tzedakah box.
My four grandparents came to the
United States in the late 1920s from the
Ukraine with nothing in their pockets,
but they did have faith and hope for a
better future.
My father’
s parents came as a mar-
ried couple with their one surviving
child, Sol. Their other two children
passed away from illness before they
left Ukraine. A few years after they
arrived in the states, my father, and his
sister, my Aunt Ida, were born here
in Detroit. Growing up, I heard sto-
ries about how my father grew up in
a house where he slept on the couch
because the boarder slept in the extra
bedroom. His shoes were held together
with rubber bands.
My father always described his par-
ents as wonderful and very loving —
who had very little to give, but always
managed to scrape together as much as
they could for those who had less. This
stuck with me as a young child. It is an
understatement to say I had incredi-
ble role models who taught me about
Judaism, the value of an education and
the principle of tikkun olam.
An “aha” moment came when I
attended Hebrew school as a young
teen. Many of my teachers had thick
accents and wore long sleeves. One day,
the classroom was steaming hot and
one of my teachers happened to roll
up her sleeve, and I saw her tattoo. It’
s
something I’
ll never forget. Later I
learned the meaning of what that tattoo
represented was greater than the actual
numbers themselves. The emotional
impact was powerful and was repeat-
ed years later when I first visited Yad
Vashem. My heart felt as though it
would burst with sadness and sorrow. I
realized I was given a great opportunity
to do something — to make something
happen that was bigger than myself —
to wear my Jewishness with pride and
to do all I could for those who had less.
In 1972, the economy tanked, and
the construction industry came to a
halt just as I was planning to go to col-
lege. My father, a heating and plumbing
contractor, was hit hard. In 1973, when
I was graduating from high school, we
were also changing our lives. We decid-
ed to move into a lovely apartment.
Here I was, all ready to go to college,
but not sure it would be possible. My
folks figured out a way to send me to
for openers
Number Please
essay
Supporting IDF Soldiers
Sy Manello
Editorial Assistant
Joan Chernoff
Epstein
continued on page 8
Our Story
Our Story
Click. Call. Give Now.
www.hfldetroit.org 248.723.8184
Hebrew Free Loan Detroit
6735 Telegraph Road, Suite 300 Bloomfield Hills, MI 48301
@HFLDetroit
Kevin Kellman and Marc Kellman
spent 20 years in a family business
that was doing fine, but wasn’
t what
they really wanted to do. Kevin, who
has a love of cooking, and Marc, the
practical numbers guy, come from a
long line of hard-working entrepreneurs,
so when they looked into a new venture,
pulling together a plan and doing the
work to launch it wasn’
t a problem.
“I’
ve been talking about a food
truck for seven years,” Kevin said.
“Detroit has one of the top foodie
cultures in the U.S. now, and there’
s
potential here for people who love to
cook and people who love to eat.
Those are also things we love, and
there was a business in that, just not
the typical one.”
“What’
s great,” Marc said,” is that a
food truck is far less expensive than
opening a restaurant, and with less
overhead and staff. You also need a
vision, and ours became Brother
Truckers.”
Kevin and Marc knew of Hebrew
Free Loan from friends, and when
they were looking for seed money,
they used their business experience
to research and refine their business
plan and applied to HFL’
s Marvin I.
Danto Small Business Loan Program.
Brother Truckers launched this past
spring, and is gaining a following for
the lunch crowd and catering parties
and events.
“We’
re entering a new season,” Kevin
said, “and we have the opportunity to
learn and grow because HFL was
very supportive, and their willingness
to work with us and help us to be
successful was just phenomenal.”