For the life of me, I could not fathom what was so distressing to Rabbi Friedman

Y

ears after graduating elementary school, I was still haunted by the image of my principal rummaging through the lunchroom garbage.

Tall and imposing in his immaculate navy suit, silver hair combed precisely to the left, Rabbi Dr. Armin H. Friedman had an impeccable appearance and formal demeanor that were vestiges of a European upbringing. Most striking was his impossibly erect posture, so straight that as a child, I imagined an invisible book perpetually balanced on his head. Which made the lunchtime ritual all the more incongruous.

Midway through the chatter and laughter of lunchtime at HALB, Rabbi Friedman would stride in, quietly surveying the tables packed with his young charges. Then, almost as an afterthought, he would approach the massive wheeled garbage bin dominating the center of the room, bend to a right angle, and begin to sift through the layers of discarded food.

Usually it was a half-eaten sandwich callously tossed, or a succulent apple rejected after the second bite, that caught his eye. At this point, sensing the inevitable, the rowdy lunchroom plunged to near silence as we waited apprehensively for Rabbi Friedman's response. Holding the spurned food high above his considerable height, guttural voice ringing clearly through the vast space, he would declare: "Whose mother packed them a good lunch and they threw it away?" Or, "Who threw away a good apple?!"