In the summer of 1961, I turned 16 and got my driver's license, and following family tradition, I applied for work at one of our uncles' stores as a delivery driver. At that time, my brother David was capably holding down the 24th Avenue Market job, and I was interested in the White Kosher job. Al S. Maimon had been the driver, but was going to do something else, perhaps going East, so there was an opening to pursue.

My mom gave me a little push to build up the courage necessary to go into the butcher shop to see Uncle Jack. I was a little intimidated by him. I didn't really know him very well, and he was not a "glad hander" or a "small talker". Uncle Solomon had taught me my Bar Mitzvah parasha just three years earlier, so I did not get to see Uncle Jack in the role of teacher as some of the cousins may have. It was probably more my imagination than reality, but until that day, I had viewed Uncle Jack with a fearful respect. I'm not sure we had ever really spoken one on one.

I went to the shop and, with my head barely protruding above the showcase, with a breaking voice, I asked about employment. Uncle Jack asked: "do you have a license", sounding somewhat skeptical that I was old enough. I replied that I had just gotten it that week. He looked over at his partner, Marco Calvo, A"H, and said a few words in Ladino. ( He could not have guessed that I understood, but I had been studying Spanish in high school.) He told Marco that he had told a neighborhood kid who had worked there before to come see him about the job with Al leaving soon, but, after all, this was family! Marco wholeheartedly agreed, and Uncle Jack turned back to me and said, "the job is yours. Come in tomorrow so Al can start showing you the route"------

That began four years of learning from Uncle Jack. Not at a table with a book in front of us, but out in the real world where he put his beliefs and practices to work. I saw him enjoy hard work. He worked tirelessly not only to support his family, but doing the extra things because in making sure that the Kashruth in the shop was impecable, he was also living a mitzvah. His customers were dedicated to him, but he was more dedicated to them. He was scrupulously honest, down to the correct half-ounce, Has V'shalom that he might invadvertantly overcharge a customer. He welcomed people of every level of observance with equal enthusiasm, and they felt it. He took care to listen to people's special requests with a patience it is hard to imagine today, and did not try to impose his views on others, even in the seemingly trivial matter of how they liked the chicken cut up. He was a patient teacher. He put up with my many mistakes, without criticism. He gently said, let me show you how I would do it, never to suggest that his way was the only way. He always prefaced a statement reflecting that he had been right about something, or that something turned out as he had predicted, by saying "en primero el Dio". He never lost sight of his deep faith, and how it should cause one to behave in the business world.

I will close with an anecdote about Uncle Jack. We were working very hard one day in preparation for a Holy Day, and the chicken supply was running very low. It would be touch and go whether we would have enough fresh chickens to fill all of the customer orders. One chicken at the bottom of the crate had a large red blemish on the inside of the thigh which I discovered while cutting it for a customer's order. He looked at it carefully, and concluded that he could not tell whether the blemish rendered it unkosher. We were terribly busy, running way behind, and customers were calling looking for their orders. He called a Rabbi and discussed the damaged bird. Then he wrapped it up in plain paper and sent me to see the Rabbi for a decision. I was amazed. We surely didn't have time to stop and ponder the fate of one lonely chicken. We would be working until the wee hours as it was already. But off I went to see a Rabbi, who was expecting me, and had some books out at the table. The decision was that the chicken was kosher.

I later asked Uncle Jack why this had been important enough to stop in the middle of the busiest day of the year. He told me that if it were not kosher, and he had his doubts, he could not sell the bird. But if it were kosher, he could not throw it out!

He took pride in his work. He went the extra step to see that he cared for his customers and that that they got the purest, best product he could sell. He took patient pains to remove even the slightest vein in the meat which may possibly be unkosher.

We have heard a great deal about how he conducted himself at Kahal, either studying, praying, or leading others in prayer. In those times, he was a Haham, not a butcher. But when he was a butcher, he was still a Haham. He showed by example how you can put your beliefs to work in the most mundane setting, and in so doing, demonstrate the teachings of the Torah while earning a living and bringing others closer the mitzvot.