Dov Levi - Alan Veingrad

COVER STORY
One day, during his new search for
inspiration and meaning, Alan received a
telephone call from a cousin.
In 1994, I was married for about two
years and we had our first child. One day
my cousin called to invite me to his home
for Shabbos. He is an Orthodox man and
a very successful doctor. He is a ba’al
teshuva and is raising a yeshivish type of
family.
During my football days, he used to
help me by offering to look over my x-rays.
He is a radiologist. When you’re a football
player, you often suffer injuries, and the
official doctors are usually reluctant to
tell you the truth about the extent of the
damage and the true state of your health
because the team (who hires the doctors)
wants you to play. Officially, they are
there to protect the health of the players,
but they also don’t want a player to leave
a game too early.
So I always felt I had to get a second
or third or fourth opinion. I did have
some concerns over some of my injuries. I
wasn’t getting the answers I needed, so I
had a go-to guy, my cousin. Compared to
my tall frame, he was a pretty short guy,
but as a radiologist I looked up to him
and consulted with him often during my
playing days. He gave me advice on my
injuries. He is a brilliant guy and all he
does is read x-ray films.
If I sustained an injury and the team
doctor recommended that I take a threeweek
hiatus before rejoining the games,
and my cousin advised to wait it out for
six weeks, I went with my cousin’s opinion.
In any case, at that point, I was already
retired and living it up in Fort Lauderdale
when this cousin extended his invitation
to me to join his family for Shabbos.
My instinctive response was, “No, I am
not interested in coming for Shabbos.”
However, I couldn’t just pretend that
our close relationship and his years of
devotion during my days on the playing
field had never happened. I felt it would
be too rude to decline.
Shlomo signs autographs for children.
So that was how my wife and I, along
with our little baby, found ourselves
traveling to his home for Shabbos. Today,
when I describe my first reaction upon
entering his house, I joke about it, but it’s
not really a joke. It’s the truth. When I
walked into his house I was overwhelmed
by this very unique aroma and I asked
him, “What is that smell”
And he says, “It’s homemade challah.”
The aroma that was wafting out of
the kitchen where his wife was preparing
all sorts of delicacies for Shabbos was
something out of this world. It was literally
a heavenly smell.
This was at a time when I knew next
to nothing about Torah Judaism. I couldn’t
have repeated a Torah thought to save
my life. I had always viewed anything
to do with Torah as an intensely boring
subject. The way I, and millions of other
Jewish children, were taught about
Judaism in Conservative Hebrew school
destroyed every last vestige of interest
we might have had in our heritage. Our
teachers delivered their lessons with a
cold detachment that was not lost on us
impressionable kids.
When you go to a Conservative
synagogue and there is an old person
teaching it to you, and you are a nineyear-old
kid, they don’t move you, they
don’t inspire you. So you can imagine that
anything related to Torah or Judaism
always failed to spark my interest.
My cousin made kiddush and I did
know enough to say amen, but that was
just about it.
A warm and friendly atmosphere
permeated the meal. The children, all
four of them, each said a Torah thought,
but I was totally tuned out. What I was
very interested in were the Shabbos
delicacies coming from the kitchen in a
continuous stream. I could not get enough
of these delectable Shabbos foods that
were nourishing much more than my
body. My hosts were incredibly nice to
me, encouraging me to have some more
of everything -- challah, fish, chicken, beef
and kugel. And I was thinking, wow, I have
never eaten such delicious food in my life!
When the meal was over, I cordially
thanked my host. That was when he
mentioned to me very casually, “Maybe
you would like to attend a Torah class”
Again, my instinct was to say, no,
absolutely no, but I felt deeply indebted to
him, not only for the many years during
which he had provided me with medical
assistance, but for the extraordinary meal
he had just served me. You can’t refuse a
host’s request, certainly not when he has
just wined you and dined you like a king.
And so I consented. I was willing to attend
a Torah class once, I told him. That was as
far as I would go.
So he said, “There is a Rabbi in South
Florida who heads an outreach program,
and he travels to your neighborhood, so
that will make it easier for you to attend
his Torah class.”
“That’s a deal,” I said. “Tell him to give
me a buzz.”
Most Boring Lecture on
the Planet… or Was It
Shlomo Veingrad remembers that, forced
to accept his cousin’s offer, he began berating
himself. Why hadn’t he realized earlier that
this was coming By accepting his cousin’s
invitation, he had indebted himself to him
and couldn’t in good conscience refuse his
simple request. But he wasn’t going to be an
ingrate, and he would attend the class.
So what do you think happens next
The following Monday, I receive a phone
call from a Rabbi Moshe Gruenstein of
Young Israel of Bal Harbour. He was
heading an outreach program called,
“Project Heritage,” and he informed me
as to the time and place of the next kiruv
class he would be giving, inviting me to
attend. I went.
The class was held in the home of a
wealthy doctor, and there were 10 people
in attendance, including myself. The rabbi
began speaking, and I grunted silently
in despair. He was going to give us a
one-hour lecture on the weekly parsha.
This week he would be talking about the
Shlomo coaching children.
Jewish nation’s exodus from Egypt and
their subsequent travels in the desert.
I remembered how I felt back when
I was a kid when they talked about that
boring, long story. I was totally not
interested. So I just shut the rabbi out of
my mind and did not hear a single word
he was saying. I didn’t deign to give him
another second of my attention. I was
simply NOT interested.
For the next 59-and-a-half minutes,
during that one-hour class, my gaze
wandered around the house. The rabbi
is standing there talking, and these nine
146 | ZMAN • July 2011
ZMAN • Tamuz 5771 | 147