Because it is there!” the rabbi coins a phrase when asked by baffled congregants why, of all places, he chose to go to the Indian subcontinent for his summer vacation. The truth, nothing but the truth…but not the whole truth. He also went to sniff exotic art, architecture, landscape, music, and theologies. Shocking to admit, he decided on India because that's just about as far away as you can get from the normal daily realities of his life: Jews, that is. A guy needs a change.

Easier said than done. Remember Jonah and Nineveh and the big fish. Evasion of responsibilities does not seem to work. You buzz off to forget (temporarily, therapeutically only, you chirp) your fellow Jews. So they come traipsing after you (physically, figuratively; who's counting anyway?). I was positively haunted. A small mercy though: at least I did not bump into the standard, Hilton-circuit, American Jew in his flowered bermudas and her sequinned sunglasses. If they were around, they must have been safely tucked away in their airconditioned buses or in their gaggles of guided gawkers at mandatory sites. No, it was a very different presence of Jews that kept stepping on my heels.