Tuesday, September 19, 2006

The Tale of the Birnbaum Machzor...

My new cantor position has led me down an interesting path. Someone pointed out to me I should find out what machzor the congregation uses
( even though they never told me). This would help be better prepared as far as pyutim etc.. When I made the call the reply was "the Birnbaum Machzor".A friend of mine had mentioned that he used that machzor when he led the tefilah but I didn't recall what it looked like. I went to a couple of seforim stores and was told they no longer carried it. I became a bit nervous and wasn't sure where I could pick one up locally. Realizing that a different freind worked in Brooklyn I put in a call to Eichler's ( who intially thought that they too had no copies) and was told they had a few left. My friend picked it up and I was in good spirits. Leaving Maariv last night I told a freind about my difficulty in locating the machzor and his reply was I should turn around. As I looked behind me I noticed a long row of of machzorim all of which were, you guessed it, Birnbaum. He said I could borrow one since the shul had hundreds. I kindly called my friend in Brooklyn and apologized but explained I would no longer be needing it ( escpecially since they wanted almost $40 bucks for it!)

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