Prelude: The Great Chanike Extravaganza

BS"D

"Rabbi, somethin' don't look right here?" Sergeant James O'Malley of the Downtown Brooklyn branch of New York's Bravest told the FDNY Jewish Chaplain, who happened to be visiting the firehouse for Chanukah.

The rabbi could hardly contain his laughter. While Chabad-Lubavitch often requested fire permits for menorahs in the downtown area, their applications were submitted in a manner far more professional than this atrocity, which scrambled the letters of Lubavitch and added hyphens to suggest love for a female dog. Besides, the whole idea of "Chabad-Lubavitch of the Bridges and Tunnels," even if spelled properly, seemed quite absurd. The rest of the application was equally as absurd, as it was a permit to set off hazardous pyrotechnics under the Brooklyn Bridge in honor of the sixth night of Chanukah.

"Jim," the rabbi laughed, "that application is either a very sick prank or the work of some fanatics in Williamsburgh who want to discredit our friends at Chabad.....but really, this is the work of a certifiable EDP. The Willy crew is a bunch of meshuggeners, but this is really....," the rabbi's voice trailed off..."it has to be the work of a real crank..."

"Umm, Rabbi, this baby is pre-approved.........who has that kind of connections with the brass in New York? This is a disaster waiting to happen. He wants to screw concrete beams onto the bridge and burn barrels of kerosene under it or something like that."

The rabbi, who once led a congregation in Queens, said: "Whoever it is belongs in Creedmoor! This is either a prank or multiculturalism gone astray...can I see the application?"

One look at the seal on the application showed just where the applicant indeed not only belonged, but also resided: "Grand Rabbi Dovid Schmoigerman of the Congregation of Unadulterated Baseless Hatred of the Independent Anti-Zionist Torah Republic of Creedmoor."

"Jim, this is a joke. File it away somewhere. If some nut from Creedmoor really wants to paddle out to the Brooklyn Bridge with a rowboat, towing a raft of concrete beams, he's not going to get too far!"

Meanwhile, in the D-ward Kever Komplex, deep in the bowels of the abandoned D-ward building that Dovid Schmoigerman called home, the fax machine whirred with confirmations of insurance policies, not only for a certain bridge that spans Brooklyn and Manhattan, but also for cancellation of a major public event due to force-majeure. All policies were payable by January 1, as they were guaranteed by the hard currency reserves of the Creedmoor republic, so the Admou"r did not even have to cash in any food-shtemplach at 60 cents on the dollar to get proof of coverage.

The Admou"r was getting ready for a real blast, and one way or the other, the insurance industry would be blasted to the point that only a bailout could rescue it.