Fire Commissioner Thomas Von Essen
(left) and Rabbi Joseph Potasnik. |
BOARD
OF RABBIS
A Grateful City Honors
Heroes of Ground Zero
Story and Photo by Tim Boxer
 EW
YORK Fire Commissioner Thomas Von Essen got some unexpected
praise at the New York Board of Rabbis annual Thanksgiving luncheon.
Rabbi Joseph Potasnik, board vice president and a fire
department chaplain, declared, “Von Essen is a household name in
Boca Raton. That’s all you hear there – essen, essen [eat].”
Von Essen joined NYPD Chief Allan Hoehl
of Patrol Borough Manhattan South (standing in for Police
Commissioner Bernard Kerik) and Richard Sheirer,
director of the Mayor’s Office of Emergency Management, as they
were honored for their role in guiding the gigantic ongoing cleanup
at Ground Zero, the destroyed World Trade Center.
Rabbi Alvin Klein, chaplain of the New
York Police Department, said the Big Apple has become the city of
heroes.
Rabbi Marc Gellman, president of the New
York Board of Rabbis, gave each honoree a tzedaka (charity) box as a
token of appreciation from a grateful city.
NYPD Chief Allan Hoehl, Chaplain
Alvin Klein and Board of
Rabbis
president Marc Grellman.
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As this event took place on Thanksgiving Day,
Gellman pronounced it an appropriate holiday for Jews. “We are
told that in the Messianic Age, all prayer will be abolished except
the prayer for thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is the spiritual
equivalent of breathing.”
Not so other holidays. He told of the time he
taught philosophy and headed Hillel House at Northwestern
University. He once scheduled a party for Feb. 14, not realizing it
was a special day on the calendar.
A professor sent Gellman a letter: “Sorry I
can’t attend the Hillel St. Valentine’s party, but look forward
to the Hillel Easter egg roll.”
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