Shabbos Mozart

Yesterday was Shabbos. I went over to Joel’s apartment. I always go over to Joel’s apartment on Shabbos. Not because either of us is religious, or at least not in the sense of minding the P’s and Q’s of Jewish observance. What do we do on Shabbos? What we’ve always done on Shabbos for the past forty years since graduating law school. We play duets: Joel on the piano, I on the clarinet. Music is our Shabbos prayer to God, who may or may not be listening, who may or may not exist.

I walked in, put down my case. I gave Joel a hug. He told me to get rid of my paunch (what else is new?) and then we got down to business. Joel moved from his walker to the piano bench and we started to play. But after about ten minutes, he said, “Jack, much as I love this Mozart piece—”

“You’d rather talk, right?” Joel nodded.

That’s the other thing we do on Shabbos, we talk—endlessly, effortlessly. We talk about anything and everything, including stupid and trivial stuff. Our marital lives, our kids, our music, politics of course, sometimes the God-thing—we talk about all of it. And it never goes stale. I mean there are off days. After all, we’re only human, not above getting ticked off at one another on occasion. I figure we’re like Antony and Cleopatra with a mutual craving that doesn’t involve sex. Sounds odd, doesn’t it? That a bond so strong doesn’t include the physical or at least...