It is asked, What is man? One stops to consider. What is Man? And it comes to mind…

Man is a thousand-fold miracle of Creation. He is a driving force of energy. He knows of time and space; of earth and water and air. He builds and he destroys. Man is the mightiest of living creatures.

But one man alone is as nothing. He is not sufficient unto himself. He needs the helping hand, the support and companionship of his fellow beings. He needs to hear and see and feel the presence of another. He needs a sense of belonging one to another.

And that is what Emanuel Seniors [Temple Emanu El in Burbank, CA] provides. A place to come together and feel a kinship one with another. To link arms into a circle of friendship.

So we ask your blessing, O Lord, on our club; to help us thrive so we may fulfill our purpose; to bring people together with people.

My grandmother spent a lot of time pondering the essence of life. Even though she wasn’t deeply religious, and the Torah says little about the status or treatment of the embryo or fetus, she was adamantly opposed to abortion. Her premise was simple, “If you can’t create something all by yourself then you should be allowed to destroy it.”

She’d ask, “Can you make a seed grow?”

No doubt, I could plant a seed; ensure it was watered and fertilized, and received sunlight (except in the Pacific Northwest). But, no, I couldn’t make it grow. In the same vein, as she explained, I could take the steps to get pregnant, but I couldn’t definitively conceive and carry a child to term.

This premise may have induced her to write, “Man is a thousand-fold miracle of Creation.”

I think, however, her disapproval of abortion was more tied to a miscarriage she had prior to the birth of my mother. It was her first child, a boy. I don’t know at which point in her pregnancy she lost the baby; she never talked about it. However, it must have had an effect on her point-of-view on the fragility of life, and need for a “helping hand, the support, and companionship of his fellow beings.”

We are here again, O Lord, for an afternoon of sharing fellowship with our fellow members.

We are grateful that we have the use of this day for our pleasure, and for all those who have stayed away because of illness, please, O Lord, help them to a quick recovery.

This invocation, like the month of February, is short. It’s theme of health leads me to believe one of my grandparents may have been sick, perhaps with a cold, in the weeks prior. Or maybe my grandmother couldn’t come up with an engaging theme for this invocation.

For me, February 1^st hold significant importance. It’s the day Rich and I met face-to-face, after corresponding for a few weeks on Matchmaker.com, and then talking on the phone. Our first date was McMenamins Sherwood Pub. At the time, I lived in Sherwood, and Rich lived a few miles east in Tualatin.

It was love-at-first site.

The following Saturday, we went to the McMenamins Bagdad Theater & Pub where we saw “Meet the Parents,” followed by dinner in Portland’s Chinatown. We were one of the few people in the restaurant. I remember the floor was covered with confetti from the Chinese New Year’s celebration earlier in the day, and we shared several dishes, including flavorful chicken baked in a small ceramic pot with fun noodles.

For Rich and me, February 1^st will always hold special significance… and hopefully, health and happiness.