Here's a bit:
It was really the Hollywood Bowl, and the LA Philharmonic. I don’t do that too often either (the last time was seven or eight years earlier), but a member of my Derech Hashem shiur had been graciously prodding me for the better part of a year to join him and his wife at their box. Given that my wife majored in music back in the old days and we don’t get opportunities like this too often, I gave in.
The weather was picture perfect, and the seats better than that. The box was literally right in front of the stage (which did mean that all we could see were the strings), valets carried our take-out dinners from the car and set them on a table bedecked with white linen and a rose. An MBD concert this wasn’t.
Now that I mention it, MBD helped me with the guilt. I kept fretting about what the neighbors would think if they learned that I was at the Bowl. After the music started, though, the sheer beauty, elegance, and sensibility of the music (all Brahms and Prokofiev) just dwarfed the pop-star wannabe supposedly Jewish music I’ve had to listen to for years as the kids grew up. Push come to shove, I probably did much less damage to my soul listening to that performance than the mind-numbing stuff I’ve been subjected to on long family trips in the car.
