Oldbook-itis :-)

An interesting thing happened the other day: I was browsing at Book Man & Book Woman on 21st. Well, this isn't the unusual part, I do that pretty often because I love books and I have developed an incurable mean case of old-book-itis. I love books that have history as objects, not only as art. I always look for little handwritten notes inside the books. Somehow these notes fill the books with "life", they were owned by someone -- or maybe they have exchanged owners over time -- and you can even feel the extra beauty radiating from these books.

This time I paid special attention to the Judaica section and bumped into a prayer book. I started to flip the pages to see if it was something that I could use. To my surprise, the book had a note on the very first page, according to which it has been given as a gift by Rabbi Randall Falk in 1984 to a David for his bar mitzvah. Under the signature of Rabbi Falk it said: Congregation Ohabai Sholom. I almost bought the book because I felt it was a calling I had to answer to but I decided to let the thought sink in for a while.

Today I am going back to the bookstore and if the prayer book is still there, I am going to buy it.