OyChicago blog

I have a confession to make. It's practically treasonous, so prepare yourself: I do not want a billion dollars.

Please don't have me carted away. I know that's the most un-American thing that you've read today, and that I sound like a brat. It's the truth, though. I don't want that much money.

Well, maybe that's not entirely true. Like everyone else, I desperately want to win the Powerball Jackpot. The $950 million or whatever $1.5 billion eventually whittles down to after taxes sounds incredible, but I cannot be trusted with that much money.

Think about it. One billion is a completely ridiculous number. I can't even comprehend what one billion actually is. It makes no sense. Google tells me that if I need help wrapping my little head around the number, I should use the term "one thousand million." I guess that helps a bit, I can almost visualize what that means, but I still find it difficult and now my eye is twitching.

One billion is a lot. It might be too much. Did you know that it's estimated that it takes approximately 95 years to count from one to one billion in a single sitting? One billion seconds is nearly 32 years. One billion minutes ago the Roman Empire was alive and well. There are 15,783 miles in one billion inches, that's a little more than half way around the Earth. This game could go on forever, since Google apparently knows everything. Let's be honest, nobody cares what one billion of anything means unless you're talking about money.

What would you do with one billion dollars? Like you, I've spent a lot of time fantasizing about what I would do with all of that money. I suppose one of the first things I would have to do is pay off my student loans. If I had anything left I'd go to Hawaii until June, or maybe forever. I also want a house with a backyard, a new car, my own masseuse and a chef. All of those things are doable and mostly responsible. The trouble is that I know myself and it wouldn't take long for me to get out of control.

I am not someone who would be responsible and coy about the money after I got those first necessary items out of the way. I'd probably end up with a Girl Scout Cookie factory in my back yard, the cast of Hamilton performing on my front porch every morning, and an apartment made entirely of cheese. Guys, I really like cheese. Like, a lot.

After I bought all of the cheese in France I'm guessing my book and magazine addiction would get woefully out of control. What else would I do with my time? I am also not the sort of person who would humbly return to his job. The money would be my job. I'd spend it, count it, stack it, and roll around in it. When I'm tired of this, the only thing left for me to do would be to rescue all of the dogs from all of the shelters. I'd be the crazy old dog man. And listen, when I say "all" I really do mean all. I am a billionaire now, after all, so I can do things like ask for all of a thing and have it happen.

Surely you weren't expecting me to solve any problems. Oh, I guess I'd give a ton of money to causes and organizations I care about. I'm not sure what I'd do beyond that. Maybe buy some new politicians? It certainly wouldn't be the first time that has happened. I mean, that is a thing I could do, right?

See, being a billionaire is hard. I'm tired from the stress, and I'm just pretending from my couch in Rogers Park. I definitely do not want that money. I do have $20 in my pocket, though. That will buy me 10 tickets, right? I can walk to the convenience store on the corner and buy the tickets right now. They do sell cheese -- fine, I'm buying tickets. Those dogs need me.

Making cookies with Grandma

Sometimes the journey makes you appreciate the destination that much more. I know many of us have received this advice, and it applies to so many situations: Becoming a bar/bat mitzvah, graduating college, navigating your first "real job" and things like what I experienced just last month -- traveling from Washington, D.C. to central Illinois with an 18-month-old.

The car was fully loaded with the luggage, the cooler stocked with snacks, the child resting in his car seat. The clock read 8:33 a.m. Wow! Most weekdays it's a fight to get out the door before 8:00 a.m. Considering we were leaving for a week-long vacation and it was only 30 minutes after the usual departure time, this was a Nobel Prize-level accomplishment.

At our first stop, the clock read just before 11:00 a.m. We were making excellent time. I wondered aloud to my wife about the possibility of getting to her parents late that night instead of having to stop at a hotel along the way. At the time, we were on pace to arrive before midnight. As we pulled out of the truck stop in Breezewood, Pennsylvania, it sure seemed plausible, but it would only take about 30 minutes for our exciting and optimistic plans to completely unravel.

My son, Johnny, gets carsick sometimes. The doctor says it's a normal thing for infants and they usually grow out of it. Well, Johnny proved to us three times on the way to my in-laws that he refuses to grow out of it.

After each incident, I would look at the clock as we pulled away from another gas station, truck stop or highway shoulder and do the math in my head. We were laughably behind, yet neither of us wanted to stop at a hotel only to wake up and deal with this all over again the next day. By about 9 p.m., we finally got him to sleep and resigned to push through, taking turns sleeping ourselves so we could just get there.

It was shortly after that decision that the annoying rattle our car had been making for a while -- the one our mechanic assured us was nothing to really worry about -- started gaining some, umph. Before long, it was more of a roar, and then there were funny car smells. It was after midnight, somewhere in Indiana. We pulled into a truck stop in Mclean, Illinois for some snacks to keep us going, and then the car wouldn't start up again. We were just over 90 minutes from our destination, it was after 1:00 a.m. and we were stuck.

Here is actually, where the story starts to change for the better. We dragged a very confused 18-month-old into a truck stop to try and figure out what to do. The people there were really lovely. They offered us free juice and cookies for the baby. When my wife ordered a sandwich they refused to let us pay. One of the employees actually locked her keys into her car while trying to give ours a jump and refused to take any money for the kit she had to buy in order to break into her own car. They basically let our family loiter for over three hours while we got ahold of my mother-in-law, who picked us up around 4:30 a.m.

We finally made it to bed just before 7 a.m., so almost 24 hours (accounting for the time change) after we had left home. As my head hit the pillow, I took a deep breath before nodding off to sleep and took in the familiar smell of the wood-burning stove used to heat the home in the winter. The fire had burned down hours ago, but the faint, smoky smell was still in the air, surrounding the home with its tender warmth. Just before nodding off, I heard sounds from the kitchen of Johnny babbling to his grandpa, who took over childcare for a few hours so we could sleep. We left the two of them eating cereal together.

Cousins

I can't say I learned some grand lesson from all of this. Maybe we learned it's time to start flying home or just give up long trips for a few years. In all seriousness, however, there were two moments during the whole ordeal that stuck with me, and they weren't low points -- they were times when I caught myself smiling.

At one point we were coming upon a traffic jam on the highway, and at that very moment Johnny got sick again. With no exit in sight, I just pulled over to the side of the highway. I imagined what the drivers slowly passing by were thinking as we frantically pulled our kid out of the car like there was a fire. We ripped off Johnny's clothes and as we went through the luggage for clean ones, he stood there in his diaper, smiling and waving at the cars and trucks rolling by. Everyone, including the people in those cars, was laughing.

The next moment was when our car broke down, and it became clear that we were stuck. In my weary head, I turned to gratitude. I was grateful that we were at a brightly lit, clean and familiar truck stop. I appreciated that there was a repair shop next door that confirmed they would be open the next day, Christmas Eve. We would have a way to repair our car in time for our trip home. Lastly, we had somehow made it far enough that my mother-in-law could actually retrieve us.

I think Johnny was especially glad about that last part. He smiled like an angel when his grandma finally arrived. After a long and perilous journey, over rivers and through woods, it truly was a wonderful visit to her house.

Paul with his family at Israel Solidarity Day in 2015

I love Israel Solidarity Day and the Walk with Israel, but while a participatory walkathon is important, I want a parade -- floats and bands and a grandstand, the whole schmear.

A Jewish Parade, with a capital P.

Every year in Chicago, we see the St. Patrick's Day and Gay Pride and Columbus Day parades, among others, and they are great fun. But there are 300,000 Jews in Chicago, too. So where's our parade?

Yes, we have the Jewish Festival every other June, when we head out to a forest preserve and stuff our faces and groove to live music. I love it, I have attended almost every festival, and I think I have certainly at least written about it every time.

But I want a parade. Down Michigan Avenue or State Street. Haven't we earned it?

We can tie it into a holiday, like St. Pat's or Cinco de Mayo. Now, no one wants to schlep around outside in Chicago during Chanukah; we already bought our High Holiday tickets; and we promised Bubbie we'd be home for Passover.

So I nominate Purim. The Purimshpiel was the original Mardi Gras anyway. Think about it -- a free-for-all costume parade in early spring? Shushan is a much older city than New Orleans, people.

OK, so for next Purim, I want a huge, brash, proper parade. I want to tie up traffic for miles while people throw confettti at us.

I want klezmer bands and Sephardi oud ensembles and Israeli dancers promenading down the street. There could be an All-Shofar Ensemble and the Cantor's Assembly float, which would not need microphones. There would be floats with Jewish a cappella groups, both college and pro.

I want one band made up of all the Jewish students in all Chicago's high school marching bands, all wearing their own school's uniforms, but playing the same songs. They would be led by a similar array of cheerleaders, all from different schools, but leaping and tumbling together.

I want baton-twirling, and juggling -- and the One-Hundred-Gragger Brigade, made up entirely of kids, graggering the entire way (like we could stop them).

I want guys with kibbutz hats in teeny tractors zooming around; you can call them the Geshrai-ners.

And not just performers; local celebrities -- activists, scholars, athletes, broadcasters, officials -- leaders from all fields in convertibles, simply waving and being there. Showing up because they are us, or just because they stand by us.

The Shomrim Society of Jewish police officers would march. And the Jewish War Veterans. Even great Jews from history could attend, in the guise of actors in costumes.

Synagogues would have floats, and so would organizations, and unions … and restaurants and hospitals and retailers, everyone. I want corporations and public officials sponsoring floats. Religious, political, social groups -- anyone who has benefitted from the work and wisdom of Chicago's Jews.

There could be floats representing Jewish holidays; Jewish history; Jewish inventions; Jewish movies; Jewish achievements in every field.

Overhead, I want gigantic balloons of Jewish cartoon characters like Feivel Mousekewitz and Krusty the Clown.

Last, I want Mel Brooks and Natalie Portman commenting from the grandstand, spicing their remarks with Yiddishisms and Israeli slang.

Imagine it: Ten miles of floats, all poised and glittering. Tens of thousands gathered on the sidewalks, with graggers and toy shofars.

Then a drum majorette brandishes her baton -- with a Magen David at the tip. She starts to march, followed by Haman leading regally dressed Mordechai on a huge white horse. "Thus shall be done to the one the king wishes to honor!" he calls on his megaphone. At this, the first band bursts into a raucous "Hava Nagila!"

After them, hundreds of people -- Jews and others -- follow behind, winding their way through the heart of one of the most important cities in the world.

Purim in 2016 is on Thursday, March 24. We have mere months to make this happen, people.

Oh, and I get dibs on inviting Mel.

Abby Mueller playing Carole King in the Chicago engagement of Beautiful: The Carole King Musical. Photo credit: Joan Marcus

There's a moment at the opening of Beautiful: The Carole King Musical, currently playing in Chicago, when the character portraying Jewish singer Carole King remarks that even life's hardest parts can turn out to be beautiful.

Indeed, she was on to something. Most of us have lives that overflow with blessings and we should thank God for them every single day. But it's just as much the struggles that shape us into the people we are. When I think about the challenges I've been through in my life -- family illness, the loss of loved ones, and relationships that ended -- those are the times, with a little distance and hindsight, that have morphed into unexpected blessings. For it's not the just the smooth sailing, but the tough stuff that makes us stronger, kinder, fuller, more empathetic human beings.

My sister used to joke that she wanted to wrap her three young sons in "bubble wrap," to shield them from the dark parts of the world. She's given up on that motherly mission, and considering the state of the world these days, there isn't enough bubble wrap on the globe for that anyway. No, we not only can't hide our children from the pain of life, but it's often their struggles that help form them into the mensches we hope they become. 

We've all heard the old adage from Jewish folklore that "This too shall pass," indicating that current conditions in life are always fleeting. When bad things happen, I think about those words that my grandparents and parents would often tell me, and it reminds me that most people are resilient and the bad times are only temporary.

At the same time, we can't live our lives in constant joy either. The joy, too, shall pass. But in times of pain, we should try really hard to hold onto the faith in knowing that happiness will return.

As author and success coach Jen Sincero says, "Faith is having the audacity to believe in the not-yet-seen."

How lucky we are as Jews to ring in two new years -- the secular new year that we just celebrated and the Jewish new year in the fall, two chances for a clean slate, two chances to start the next chapter in our stories.

When some Jewish girlfriends and I met for dinner recently, we took turns going around the table and sharing the biggest lessons we learned over the course of the past 12 months.

We'd collectively charted all kinds of new paths in 2015 -- exploring our spiritual lives as Jews, forging new friendships and deepening older ones, starting new romantic pursuits and closing the chapter on others, raising little children, and taking on new professional challenges.

For many, our past year played out differently than we'd envisioned, filled with simcha, but also sadness.

As we watched some doors close these last 12 months, we'll see new ones open with unexpected blessings in 2016. Each of us will take a journey in the year ahead, and there's something hopeful and exciting about the unknown, the beckoning prospect of many varied paths and possibilities that will unfold for each of us this year, with new people waiting just around the corner to enter our lives.

Yet while we embrace the sweetness of our hopeful futures, we know all about the bitterness too, in our own personal lives and in the world at large, a world that seems to be shattering in chaos before our eyes. We know all too well the world confronts us with human turmoil, strife, and disaster, a world crying out for repair -- for tikkun olam (repairing the world).

Here's wishing all of us faith and resilience to triumph over our personal and collective struggles, with whatever growth and insights they may be bring in the year ahead -- and wishing to all a new year overflowing with blessings.