Dais Ex Machina
SCHULWEIS, HAROLD
DAIS EX MACHINA HAROLD SCHULWEIS Purim brings to mind thoughts of banquets, and my own experience at banquets suggests that Ahasuerus may well have been upset by more than Vashti's behavior that...
...That's a wise decision...
...It is not that they are dull nor, for that matter, refined...
...With that exchange a kinship of kashruth was established and I forgave her my emaciated fish and absent catsup...
...They sit alone and stare straight ahead...
...He would be wise to mention them by name...
...The president ordered roast beef, not kosher...
...Poise on the dais is further complicated by the mandate to the secular equivalent of priestly robes, i.e., a tuxedo...
...The singular advantage of sitting on the extreme side of the dais is that the pent-up applause of that part of the audience heeding the instructions and awaiting the final name accrues to the one seated on the edge of the platform...
...The dais is the pinnacle of organizational success...
...Do you want to exchange dishes with me...
...Liberated rabbis who have long championed the disrobing (not defrocking) of the medieval and un-Jewish pulpit robe are now seated, among Harold Schulweis, a contributing editor of this magazine, is rabbi of Temple Valley Beth Shalom in Encino, California...
...This admonition is meant to save time and the embarrassment that might be suffered by those damned by faint applause...
...Still, all (most...
...Consider, for example, the ordeal of eating and drinking while seated on a raised platform: In full view of an audience of spectators, it is hard to dismiss the feeling that all eyes are riveted on your hands and mouth, judging your alimentary etiquette...
...A speaker is only as good as his dais companions...
...it is fear that freezes them...
...the row of penguins, starched, strait-jacketed and cummerbunded...
...It's just that, well, you know my mother kept kosher...
...Dais personalities are visible critics...
...to engage both in conversation is to turn oneself into a spectator at a tennis match...
...Mine too...
...My place was on the extreme right of the dais, traditionally reserved for the rabbinic invocator (as the opposite seat on the extreme left is reserved for the rabbinic benedictor...
...At that moment she chose to see me as a martyr to the cause of kashruth...
...They are watched and emulated, imitatio dais...
...In fact, I don't know why I ordered the roast beef...
...it gets worse...
...No, no...
...rules have their exceptions...
...Persons on the dais are individually introduced somewhere during the program...
...She was developing twinges of conscience and compassion, probably intensified by my insistent request that the waiter bring me some catsup...
...The dialogue between us was unforgettable, the highlight of the dinner: "You know, Rabbi, we rarely eat meat these days, what with cholesterol and all...
...I asked the waiter for salmon or sole...
...My dinner companion grew...
...A warm smile can draw a speaker's feeble attempt at humor into a wild guffaw...
...Institutions insist that daism is a harmless bit of patronage doled out to keep their members upwardly mobile...
...I challenge anyone to sit relaxed on a dais, knowing that if he moves his chair but one or two inches back he risks plunging to some unseen depths...
...Usually your name will be announced while you are in the middle of a mouthful of food...
...To turn to one companion is to ignore the other...
...as such they can make or break an event...
...I really prefer fish...
...It will keep them alert...
...I have learned at the sound of the first syllable of my name to remove with a napkin all traces of catsup, rise gingerly from my seat, careful not to lose my footing, and smile warmly but modestly at the assembled...
...And worse still: Who can make easy conversation while flanked on either side by dinner companions all facing outwards...
...A yawn from a listener on the dais signals an audience and can devastate the speaker...
...Therein lies no small irony...
...Persons on the dais do not speak to each other...
...My most memorable one happened this way: I was seated at dinner next to a charming lady, president of a regional Jewish organization...
...Neither the logistics nor the dress of dais participants is conducive to a Buberian I-Thou dialogue...
...Just last week I was invited to sit on a banquet dais...
...That is why persons on the dais appear stonily immobile...
...DAIS EX MACHINA HAROLD SCHULWEIS Purim brings to mind thoughts of banquets, and my own experience at banquets suggests that Ahasuerus may well have been upset by more than Vashti's behavior that night in Shushan long ago...
...Prior to the introduction, the chairperson will have made the traditional request, never adhered to, to withhold the applause until the last of the list of names has been read and the last dignitary on the dais has risen...
...None of the foregoing is to deny the power wielded by those who serve, who wait and sit on the dais...
...In the name of safety, digestion, conversation and democracy the dais must go...
...But I think that the philosophy of daism is faltering...
...The physical arrangements alone are designed for embarrassment...
...While the dais may be a place of honor, it is surely no place of joy...
...But I have perforce become skilled in such matters by now...
...Pity poor Ahasuerus...
...A rising egalitarian spirit cries out: one God, one people, one law, one level...
...uncomfortable, first because my order arrived late (she had almost completed her meal) and then because it came in the form of a dry, flat and thin fish...
...His article, "The Uses of Aloneness," appeared in the January-February 1982 issue...
Vol. 7 • March 1982 • No. 3
