Editor's Corner: Beyond the "Outback" - My kind of shul...

Rumor has it, no, maybe legend, that the Outback minyan was named for Fred Bielsky’s hat. The steakhouse had just been opened, "No rules, just right" all over TV and the airwaves, so the subculture was attuned to the name, and Crocodile Dundee was somewhere between movie one and movie 2. The name stuck.

We had a lot of good times at the Outback. Mostly we had services on Friday nights - at the Bielsky’s and the Abidor’s, later at the Sherman House, where we were often joined by residents to make up a Minyan. It was around the time Josh, my eldest, had his Bar Mitzvah, and he would often lead the Friday night services. We bused the Sherman House residents to his Bar Mitzvah, they had gotten to know Josh so well. In tandem with a grass-roots program called Shlep (Shabbat Learning and Experience Program), we had a number of very memorable shabbatons in the Rice Hollow area. For the Shabbatons, we were lead by various Rabbis, or the shlichim. I recall sitting into the afternoons at the Bielsky’s, chilling with Rabbi Muken, or with Rabbi Galinsky or Rabbi Radinsky, in turn. Those Shabbat afternoons had a tranquility and joy about them that is rare indeed.

Howard Stein and Stan Chepenik were regulars at the Outback, and one of them created a design for an Outback T shirt - a kangaroo wearing a kippa and tallit - though we never took it any further. I recall thinking, though, that an ad campaign could have gone - "The Outback Minyan, where to get back in...."

Well, we are a ways beyond that, now. If I have the count right, and it is getting harder to remember, we are coming up to the 7th Shabbat for the ...... well, it still doesn’t have a name. I refer to it as the "New West Ashley Minyan", but I am told that the "New WAM" is not going to have the right resonance out there. So we’re having a harder time with the name, this go-round, but let that be our biggest worry.

Last Shabbat, the weather was georgous - (did I just write that? don’t quote me! well, if you must, please use a false name....) so the walk to the Cohen’s for services was invigorating: blue sky, bright sun, crisp, fresh air. Services were overflowing, with people, with singing, with smiles. Yes, we’re well beyond the Outback now,
but it’s still the place you can "get back in"......

Be good,

Peter R

(PS: So, I am back to blogging, and working on some new ideas -
here is the first,
"My kind of shul...."
Check it out, add to it, I dare you!