“Is it ready yet? Is it done yet? Has the printer finished printing?”

It had become an almost daily ritual to call my publisher to find out if my book had finally gone to print.

What began as a dream was now becoming a reality; the publishing of my first book The Elephant in the Room.

When the word finally reached me that the “Elephant was ‘really’ in the Room” — meaning that printing had been completed — I could hardly believe it.

As Chanukah was approaching my wife and publisher encouraged me to have 200 copies air shipped to the States for Chanukah gifts.

A few days later I called the shipper; the books were in Brooklyn! How to get 200 books from Brooklyn to Passaic…. Joel my assistant was there to deliver them.

On Tuesday morning 24 Kislev 5772 (2012) just a few short hours before everyone would light the first glorious light of Chanukah the boxes arrived at my shul in Passaic New Jersey. As I unwrapped the packaging I gently and lovingly lifted a precious single book and slowly and endearingly hugged it to my chest.

I tenderly felt the texture of the jacket cover. I yearningly admired the fine graphic artwork of the cover. Even more gently and reverently I brought the book up to my eyes and not so quietly said “Hashem thank You. Thank You!”

As I focused on that which up to this moment was still a dream many thoughts began to flood my mind.

“I’ve written a book? I have written a book?”

I recalled my sixth-grade English teacher who gave me a creative writing assignment on the subject: “Imagine being a garbage truck.”

I wonder if she would be proud of my book.

Other thoughts entered my mind. The book’s beginnings …

The Elephant in the Room began as e-mails of my Torah thoughts that I sent to my shul’s mailing list. At first I confined myself to standard divrei Torah but very soon began to focus on my own musings and observations.

When a piece I wrote after the 2008 Mercaz HaRav massacre on the Belzer Rebbe went somewhat “viral” people began encouraging me to publish.

A few years passed and still no book.

But then I found a publisher and suddenly the dream was starting to become a reality.

What to name the book was next. It includes many pieces on many different topics some politically correct others not as much. Some difficult. Some needing parental discretion.

One of the pieces was called “The Elephant in the Room.”

I felt like that title sums up the entire essence of my book and the vote was unanimous; The Elephant in the Room it would be. However now the question was “Can we really place an elephant on the cover of a Jewish book?”

Then on a visit to the Diaspora Museum with my daughter Shifra I came across a recreation of the ceiling of the wooden synagogue of Chodorow a shtetl in Galicia Poland (today Ukraine) and guess which animals were used to decorate the ceiling of that shul?

There were unicorns griffins rabbits monkeys and … yes you guessed it: elephants.

If an elephant was acceptable on the ceiling of a shul in the alte heim of Poland then an elephant could be on the cover of my book.

And that which was conceived years before was now born into my waiting hands.

I held the book and fondly looked at the elephant on the cover.

I smiled to myself and affectionately embraced the book. My book.

Dreams do come true.