Dad (Paul F. Vang) wrote this remembrance of a darned sweet black lab, whom I named (see below) and will always remember as the best lap-lab ever. There was nothing quite like relaxing in a recliner with Flicka stretched full-length on your lap. We miss you, Flicka.
Tag: dads
the stones I cannot place
My mother’s ‘passing’ has crippled my writing. And apparently that’s not all. It would be unfair to blame her, per se, because that would be rude. But I’ve had a sneaking suspicion that she’s had a hand in it. Some lesson left to teach. I thought what would be fitting (I had this brilliant idea…
daily kaddish: for deer-hunting season
My dad plays horn on this Kaddish, nearly a year after doing his first stint as the guest hornist for a daily Kaddish, again while visiting for Thanksgiving.
like an addiction, it’s hard to stop—
I can’t quite take the pictures down. Can’t quite stop staring at them. Can’t call it an altar exactly, but I know others do. Others have. And others will. How do we stop mourning and put the pictures away? And the candles. And the little mementos and ritual objects that surround those photos that remind…
avram and the not so barren sarah — 1.1.8
It was not that Sarah was barren—it was more, perhaps, that she had had enormous difficulty holding a child to term. And those she had lost had all been girls and were not counted by the fathers of her lineage, nor troubled over by the master of her house. The rebbe retreated to manuscripts and…
daily kaddish: back to stunts again
I’m back to stunts alone again tonight. I’m in training to play the opening lines of kaddish while lying on my back, and I’m having trouble figuring out how to do this without exacerbating a finger injury.
daily kaddish: on Mira’s dad’s birthday
Thank you, Mira, for tonight, and for joining me in this project. It’s an honor to be here with you. May the Tzaddik rest in peace.
the tzaddik’s dollar — 1.1.4
The rebbe sighed frequently when he thought of the enigma of his daughter the so-called Yesodite, but in the end he felt that this too must surely be exactly as it should, and that Vavah, too, must needs be perfect in every way, and that any fault in her lay primarily in his own blindness…
almighty one, rebbe zero — 1.1.3 —
The third daughter of the rebbe tended to be called (affectionately) Vavah. It was one of those perhaps unfortunate infant names conferred upon her at long-last, after her sainted mother claimed to have witnessed her utter those long-awaited first sounds, not even words, but — ו ו ו ו —va-va-va-va. That the chatty babe…
the rebbe’s queer daughters
—מגילת מלכה— This post marks the beginning of a new feature at beitmalkut.org and that is the inclusion of a tale that will take, I think, a very long time to tell. This is something I’ve been writing for my father. It started a number of years ago in time for him to read sections…