Today Is Canada Day

Happy Canada Day!

I have always felt an affinity for Canada.  I’ve enjoyed some wonderful vacation time there and found the place warm (metaphorically) and welcoming.  It’s also a beautiful country with much to see and do.

Mostly I love Canada because it’s where my partner and I were allowed to get married.  It was over a wonderful and romantic American Thanksgiving weekend in Montreal.  Many Canadians naively assumed that we could just as easily have done it in the U.S.  We had to remind them that the U.S. rarely lives up to its hype as the “home of the free.”

I’m always very excited to return.  This autumn I’ll be in Toronto as a visiting rabbi at Oreynu, the Secular Humanistic congregation there.  And once again I’ll thank our northern friends for accepting me as 100% human and deserving of 100% of my human rights.  So Happy Canada Day to all my friends there.  May your Maple Leaf Banner wave joyfully today!