kol haneshama, volume 3
DESCRIPTION
Voice of the Spirit: Remembrance and SpiritualityTRANSCRIPT
T H E L I T E R A R Y J O U R N A L
O F T E M P L E S I N A I
V O L U M E 3
J U N E 2 0 1 2 / S I V A N 5 7 7 2
b"ast |uyo
Kol Ha-NeshamaVoice of the Spirit
Remembrance and Spirituality
Editor’s Note 3Ben Wecht
An Etrog Box 4David Hirsch
Autumn Memories 5 Diane Karp Rudov
Modim 6 Mimi Botkin
A Day 7Sarah M. Bett
Untitled Photograph 8 Suzi Neft
Remember…We Were There 9 Harold Marcus
Coming Out, Coming Home 10 Susan Blackman
In My Childhood Home 13Walter Boninger
Normandy, France 14John Schiller
The Pursuit of Memory 15Carol Congedo
Tribute to a Beloved Teacher 16Ruth C. Reidbord
Remembering Nate 18Valerie Bacharach
Memories from the Family Archive of Barbara Gibson 20
Say 22Mimi Botkin
Cousin Esther and Pop 23Ruth Weinberger
White-haired Ladies in Their Beds 26Ruth Stock Zober
For the Sin of Thoughtlessness 28Monica Cellio
Umarked No More 30Michele F.
Zichranot 31Ben Wecht
Cover: Rick Landesberg’s
great-grandfather, Jacob
Landesberg, in front of
his business and home.
Eva, his wife, peeks
through the window.
Philadelphia, c. 1920.
t h e l i t e r a r y j o u r n a l
o f t e m p l e s i n a i
V o l u m e 3
j u n e 2 0 1 2 / s i V a n 5 7 7 2
b"ast |uyo
Kol Ha-NeshamaVoice of the Spirit
Remembrance and Spirituality
kol ha-neshama
g / 3
Editor’s NoteBen Wec h t
As I write elsewhere in this, the third issue of Kol Ha-Neshama,
memory is identity, and without it we are nothing.
If you’re not quite sure of this, peer into the eyes of someone
losing their memories to Alzheimer’s disease or senile dementia.
There you will find bewilderment, confusion, fear. Conversely, watch
an infant as he struggles to make sense of the world around him.
Though his attitude may be joyful and his prospects infinite, his lack
of mastery perplexes him; lacking all manner of personal bench-
marks, what does any of it mean?
Of course, memory can be painful as well. For the Holocaust
survivor, the victim of childhood abuse, the widow or widower, what
pleasure is there in remembering? Or, to turn the question around,
why not forget that which brings pain? In the 2004 romantic sci-fi
thriller Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Joel, a hapless young man
played by Jim Carrey, goes so far as to submit himself to a radical,
memory-erasing procedure in an effort to free his mind from the
bereavement that has dogged his every waking hour since his break-up
with the vivacious Clementine, played by Kate Winslet. At the risk of
spoiling the film for those who haven’t yet seen it, may I report here
that said procedure doesn’t quite work? And that it doesn’t work
because memory is so interwoven into the very fabric of who we are
that removing it is roughly analogous to extricating chewing gum
from hair?
But if memory is identity, it is also something more. It is the
essence of spirituality, of belief in an unseen reality that transcends
our daily lives and connects us to one another, to the ancient past, to
eternity. And as the essays and poems and photographs in this publi-
cation all attest, to remember is not only human; it is, in the best
and truest sense of the word, divine.
d / 4
An Etrog BoxDavid hirsch
Da
vid
hir
sc
h
A box.
Lustrous multihued wood.
Red felt interior, soft and warm.
Six sides, Zion carved and Hebrew inscribed.
My grandfather’s etrog box.
Grandpa.
Born in America.
Back to the old country for a proper education.
A hard man through hard times.
A Judaism of reward and punishment in this life.
Barely passed to his four children.
Dementia and davening left for me.
Me.
Swaying back and forth in a Reform shul.
Blessed are you, Adonai our God, God of our fathers and mothers.
God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
God as well now of Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah.
God of Grandpa and me.
kol ha-neshama
h / 5
I struggle each November remembering my parents’ autumn deaths
years ago. If I believed in God, would my grief be tempered? The
sadness is triggered when I rake crunchy leaves, scratching open old
wounds. The sweeping motion, the musky smell, the endeavor itself
pulls me backward in time.
“You can push more leaves into that bag,” my father would say.
But only after he encouraged my sister and me to romp in them and
then create a colorful haystack.
“Never forget that wet leaves can be slick as ice,” my mother
would caution. But only after she helped track down the prettiest
oranges and reds for my Brownie scrapbook.
Today I, a secular Jew, hear and feel my parents within my heart.
I energetically rake and bag. But only after I build a gigantic mound
of nature’s cast-off palette. I help my husband discover the most
gorgeous ones to mail to his daughter in dry Texas, and I am more
careful than usual walking to temple on rainy days.
Now I realize that they, agnostics to the core, were teaching me
to be industrious, to dance in the moment, to protect against danger,
to recognize the truly beautiful.
“We don’t believe in God,” they would say, living their entire
lives as though they did. I practice their life lessons but crave to
cushion their losses with a belief in God.
Autumn MemoriesDiane K a r p r udov
u / 6
Modimmi mi Botki n
After “Mama” and “DaDa,” I’m fairly certain that the next phrases I
was taught were “please” and “thank you.” This is the way of the
ordered world: gratitude is important; it recognizes that someone
outside ourselves cares about us.
Visits to my grandparents’ apartment on McKee Place taught me
another lesson about gratitude. My grandmother had an unerring eye
for picking exactly the dress I would absolutely never pick for myself
and in the wrong size, wrapping it in lovely paper and ribbons and
handing it to me with a loving smile. Good manners demanded that I
open my gift in the presence of my grandparents so I could deliver an
immediate thank-you and the requisite kiss. The older I got, the more
difficult this charade of thankfulness became, but I knew I had to
keep up the pretense. This is certainly not the gift I would have chosen;
I had visions of the ridicule that would follow if I wore it in public.
But I had to offer my thank-you because it was a gift.
The prayers I learned for the Shabbat services extended this
gratitude from those I knew and could see to God. There are count-
less gifts from God that make their way into the Modim, whether it’s
translated directly from the Hebrew or expanded in modern trans-
lation as it is in our Mishkan Tefilah. Our prayers thank God for
creation, our fragile planet Earth, high hopes and noble causes, for
all who have suffered for a fairer world, who have lived so that
others might live. I’ve read and written about these particular verses
several times and am always struck by how many speak of the
betzelem elohim, our being created in God’s image and living up to
what’s best in us. “We pray that we may live not by our fears but by
our hopes.” God never promises us that life will be easy; in fact, the
Torah lays out specific game plans for those times life does not go as
we had hoped or planned.
kol ha-neshama
z / 7
These are the times I find myself asking if a modim is truly in
order. Am I to be thankful that so many live in hunger and suffering,
that disease and disaster kill those I love? At these times I talk with
my beloved friend who’s been struggling against all odds to live with
and through her cancer. Hers is a modim that blesses God for every
breath and every new morning. She often says that this turn in her
life has given her a mindfulness she never could’ve gained any other
way. She certainly didn’t choose this path, any more than I chose the
dresses my grandmother gave me. The strength to believe in thank-
ing God for both the beneficent and the challenging I silently ask for
each time I pray the Modim.
A Daysarah m. Bett
A day of loss,
A day of pain,
A day of tears.
But that is what we see when the glass is half empty.
A day of remembrance,
A day of hope,
A day of thankfulness.
That is what we see when the glass is half full.
c / 8
It was a chilly autumn day. I told my 4-year-old son he needed to put on a jacket before we went out to play in the yard. Our yard was a grove of black walnut trees, catalpas, white maple, apple trees and more. Leaves of all shapes and sizes fell everywhere. He had his first realization that there were brown, yellow and
red leaves on the ground. He asked where they came from. I told him to look up at the trees in the yard. He was shocked and scared. My son, being a very curious boy with a large vocabulary for such a tiny tyke, asked a flood of questions. Why? Will they come back? Can we put them back? Prior to this day we had already had discussions about G-d. Now I told him G-d
created a cycle of life for trees so they could grow. Every year in autumn G-d makes the leaves fall so we can play in them, the trees bud in the spring, and by summer all the leaves return. The cycle goes on every year. This satisfied his curiosity. Then I showed him how to play in the leaves.
suzi neft
kol ha-neshama
j / 9
Remember … We Were There
harold m a rc us
When Abraham smashed the idols,
Of one G-d he was aware.
He did not do it for himself,
Remember, we were there.
And when the Jews were slaves in Egypt,
Pharaoh’s wish was our command.
We felt the pain because we, too,
Were strangers in that land.
When Moses climbed Mt. Sinai
To receive The Law in stone,
We heard the words of Adonai,
Moses did not climb alone.
Does everyone remember,
On May 14th of ’48,
How we rejoiced together
For the newfound Jewish state?
When Abraham smashed the idols,
We knew deep down in our heart,
Shema Yisroel, Adonai is One,
And we knew it from the start.
My father is such a gentle man. When I invited him join me for a talk
in my brother’s guest room during a family gathering some years
ago, he followed me, obediently, looking very serious.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen next,” I said, “but I have
figured out that I probably shouldn’t have married a man. I guess
Matt and I will be splitting up, though we still love each other. The
kids understand what’s happening, and they’re doing pretty well.”
He furrowed his brows a bit and looked up at me. “OK. I just
need to know one thing. Was it something your mother or I did?”
“No, Daddy,” I laughed. “It’s hard-wired. It took me a long time
to figure it out, but I get it now. I just thought I was open-minded.”
He grinned, very slightly, and nodded his head in agreement.
“Well, that’s OK then. Everything will be fine.”
I grew up in the country in central Maryland, just south of the
Pennsylvania border, about an hour and a half from the house in
Baltimore where Uncle Sam and Aunt Ann lived. We went there at
least once a month for Sunday dinner, and when Daddy and his
brother were together, you could hear Brooklyn in their voices as
they told stories and laughed.
Back in my elementary school classroom, I was one of only two
Jews. There were no synagogues anywhere nearby. I went to Sunday
school in Baltimore for a time, but all I can remember was learning
Hebrew letters and that I needed to sell pencils for Israel.
Just the same, I felt Jewish. There was always music in the house
and everybody read. Although we didn’t have much money, Daddy
y / 10
Coming Out, Coming Home
susa n Bla c kma n
kol ha-neshama
Ey / 11
brought home books all the time. We had a full set of Encyclopædia
Britannica and an unabridged dictionary, and we had incredible
conver sations many nights after dinner that often sent us to one
reference book or another.
I watched Leonard Bernstein every Saturday morning. (I had a
crush on him; he reminded me of my father with his wavy dark hair
and proud nose.) I even convinced my parents that I wanted to trade
in my pony for a piano. Mother had grown up in West Virginia and
had loved her horses. What kind of little girl didn’t want a pony? But
it was dirty and it smelled bad, and I knew that, first, you didn’t have
to feed a piano and second, you could play it in the winter. So Daddy
got me a piano.
Although we went to Uncle Sam’s and Aunt Ann’s each year for
Passover, the highest of High Holidays, we were otherwise Jewish in
spirit but not in practice. These were the days when we recited “The
Lord’s Prayer” in public school, though, and I liked being an outsider.
But I also knew I wasn’t really Jewish. Daddy was raised in an
Orthodox home, with Latvian immigrant parents and six siblings. He
was the youngest boy and his mother died when he was 12. His
father remarried quickly and the kids (the oldest of whom was 22)
moved out and raised each other. Ultimately, he was the only one in
his family to marry outside the faith, so even though we checked the
“Jewish box” on the school forms, I understood that wasn’t enough.
In high school, I took voice lessons from the director of the town’s
Methodist church choir and in my yearbook I referred to myself as
“Methodist Jew.” I moved to Sewickley after graduate school and
took voice lessons from the director of the Episcopal church choir in
exchange for singing on Sundays. I held on to my outsider status and
viewed my participation there more as theatre than spirituality —
while I believed none of the narrative, I sang the music of Bach and
Handel with deep passion and joy. Later, I earned money by singing
with the Catholic Diocesan choir, a Presbyterian quartet, and a
Byzantine choir.
by / 12
In the meantime, I looked for a spiritual home. Since the 6-year-
old in my head knew I couldn’t go to temple, I tried the Unitarian
Church, where I wasn’t faced with the cognitive dissonance I had
experienced everywhere else. I met and fell in love with Matt there,
had three kids, and felt genuinely supported when, years later, I
came out as a lesbian. After he moved out, Matt and I often met and
sat together at church and took the kids to lunch after their church
school.
In the summer of 2010, I received an invitation to my cousin Robert’s
wedding. The son of my father’s oldest sister, he and his partner,
Alan, would be going to Connecticut first to be legally married and
then come home to Miami for a ceremony at the Reform temple
where Alan is the accompanist.
I arrived in Miami on Friday morning. That evening, we all went
to the Simchat Torah service, which was almost painfully joyful for
me. I spent the rest of the weekend reconnecting with Aunt Sylvia
and meeting new cousins and their families. I heard Brooklyn again
as my aunt told me stories, sweet and sad, about the family, and how
special “Little Jackie” (my father) was to their mother.
The wedding was beautiful. There were some funny moments as
Alan switched gears from betrothed to pianist and back again, and
they each broke glasses under the chuppah. My heart was full.
I had finally come home to a place where I had never actually
lived.
Back in Pittsburgh, I had an epiphany: if I walked up the steps of
Temple Sinai, it was a good bet that nobody would ask for my
creden tials. After a year maintaining what I called “dual citizenship,”
I resigned my membership at the Unitarian Church and have
proudly come out as a Jew.
And yes, Daddy. It was something that you and Mother did.
kol ha-neshama
gy / 13
In my childhood home in Hamburg, Germany, every Jewish holiday
was important and celebrated. The High Holy Days come to mind …
On Rosh Hashanah, of course, it was apples and honey, but
most memorable are the Senf Gurken my mother made for weeks in
advance. Literally “mustard pickles,” these words don’t describe the
delicate, mild taste I remember so well. They were large, eggplant- or
watermelon-size, and when peeled were cut into long strips. They
were always new for Rosh Hashanah, but then enjoyed for several
weeks. You can still buy them today in German delis, but in small
jars with small cubed pieces, not the long slices of my childhood.
My father was a traveling salesman and so we had a car. On
Shabbos and holidays we always walked to the synagogue, even on
Yom Kippur, but at the end of Yom Kippur the car magically
appeared (my father must have brought it there beforehand) and we
drove home. Oh, how seriously I took that last moment with the
blast of the shofar, when all of God’s decrees for the coming year
were sealed. I did not fast as a child, but was in the synagogue most
of the day.
At the end of Yom Kippur, back at home, the meal always
included herring and hot tea, and then came the telephone call to
my grandparents in Nurnberg. The conversations were always the
same. Everybody had to talk. “Can you hear me? Did you have an
easy fast? Have a good year.” The phone was passed quickly from
person to person until everyone had a turn. (Long distance calls were
very expensive in the 1930s.) It is a beautiful tradition that I have
tried to keep alive with my children and grandchildren.
In My Childhood HomeBy Wa lter B oni nger
Normandy, FranceNever far from our memory … lest we forget those who died for our freedom.
ph otos by j o h n schille r
Top: A Jewish grave. Above: A bunker bearing handwritten thanks for D-Day.
kol ha-neshama
The Pursuit of MemoryCarol Cong edo
One year ago I began leading Shabbat services at Charles Morris
Nursing home on the Ellsworth unit.
I met with the rabbi for the Jewish Agency on Aging before
beginning. “Remember, your people do not know Debbie Friedman
songs,” he said. “They won’t be able to read a siddur.”
I felt that a having a siddur made it a “real“ service. What I didn’t
realize was that more than half of my original congregants were
unable to hold a siddur and turn the pages. And despite large font
print, those that could hold the siddur couldn’t see the words clearly.
Then I had a brainstorm: I rewrote my service in Power Point format,
and that made everyone able to use the siddur.
I looked up some of the older melodies for the Shabbat songs.
We were ready to go! We started the service with niggunim. Those
who couldn’t speak, hummed or tapped their feet. One of my
congregants conducted my singing with her hands. She used to
roam through the service, but once she knew that it was OK with me,
she sat still through the service conducting the melodies in perfect
time. After the Kabbalat section, we lit candles for Shabbat. Many
closed their eyes, brought in Shabbat with their hands, and sang the
prayer with me.
Some of my congregants appeared to be sleeping, but if you
looked closely, some were mouthing the words of the prayers
silently. One, who didn’t really want to come at first, even began say-
ing the words out loud one day during the Shma and the Amidah.
Some did not know the prayers, perhaps never having gone to
shul. Near the end of the service, we made Kiddush and Ha-motzi.
Almost all my congregants recalled and sang the Kiddush with me. It
is amazing to participate in the service with my congregants. We tell
each other stories of Shabbats long past, of holidays long gone. But
the memories are there, if only we seek to find them.
zj / 16
My teacher died this past year. He was 101 and lively almost to the
end. His name was Jack Rubin. But to know who he was, you’ll first
need to know where he came from. So come back with me to Leech-
burg, Armstrong County, about 40 miles northeast of Pittsburgh,
where I grew up …
There were perhaps 20 Jewish families in town. Now there are
none. In 1937, led by my beloved mother of blessed memory and a
woman named Sylvia Braun, we joined with Jewish families from
Vandergrift and Apollo to form the Kiski Valley Religious School. It
was affiliated with the Southwestern Pennsylvania Jewish Religious
Schools Committee, and all the teachers were volunteers. The curric-
ulum and program were developed at Rodef Shalom with the help of
the late, great rabbi, Dr. Solomon Freehof, and were made available
to small congregations and smaller Jewish communities in the
region for a fee of one dollar per student per year!!
Many of you are familiar with Temple Sinai’s religious school,
filled with well-trained teachers and administrators and hundreds of
students. My children also attended a very good religious school,
Temple Emanuel of the South Hills. But I don’t think anyone received
an education comparable to mine. And it was mostly imparted to me
by Jack Rubin.
We had a “one-room schoolhouse.” It was the meeting room of
the B’nai B’rith men and it was located on the second floor of a used
car showroom in Vandergrift. At its peak, it had approximately 12
students. Though I had other teachers before him, beginning when I
Tribute to a Beloved Teacher
ruth C. r ei dbord
kol ha-neshama
zy / 17
was about 10 and continuing until my confirmation some six years
later, Jack taught me and one other student using the Rodef Shalom
curriculum. But while other schools in the district and other teach-
ers might “adjust” the curriculum, that wasn’t for Jack. He knew I
was eager to learn and he was a strict taskmaster. He had no formal
education beyond high school, and his Jewish education was mostly
in Hebrew, studying Torah and Talmud in a New York yeshiva. But
he was a superb teacher.
He studied the material and made sure we did our homework
(in the last three years, I had four hours of homework a week!). We
learned Jewish history, customs, current events, Bible and some
rudimentary philosophy. He questioned us closely, gave us tests and
explained difficult material. The other student in my class was some-
what indifferent, but I loved every minute of Jack’s lessons. It was
not easy growing up in a little town with no Jewish friends, but Jack
not only made it worthwhile, he instilled in me a pride in my heri-
tage and a thirst for Jewish education that has stayed with me.
So Jack, I salute you. You lived a long life full of blessing. May
your memory be for a blessing.
cy / 18
Remembering NateV a ler i e B a c h a r ach
My younger son, Nate, died on July 30, 2009. He was 26 years old and
trying desperately to change his life, to beat an addiction to drugs
that, unbeknownst to his father, older brother, and me, had begun
when he was only 18. He died of a heart attack, alone in a motel
room. We were to meet for lunch that day. I will never forget the look
in my husband’s eyes as he tried to break down the door to reach his
son. It took the police and fire departments to get the door open, but
Nate had been dead for hours.
Our family has been devastated, as we have struggled with the
litany of “if only” and “why?” Our love for one another and the
support of friends and community has helped us to survive and
continue with our lives. I want to see my son clearly, to paint a
picture of who he was, strengths and weaknesses. It is easy to see the
weaknesses, to remember the heartbreak and disappointments of
watching a bright, talented young man falling apart. It has been
more difficult to remember the strengths. After nearly three years, I
am beginning to see them.
Nate had a kind, generous, loving heart. He would routinely tip a
server 50 percent, saying he knew how hard that person worked. He
was a flirt with the older women who frequented the hair salon
where he worked for several months, always ready with a smile, a
twinkle in his eye, a hug, a way to let them know they were truly
beautiful. One of my friends remembered talking to him in a restau-
rant one evening. She told me Nate had a way of making you feel he
had been waiting all night just to talk to you. He gave you the gift of
his undivided attention.
kol ha-neshama
jy / 19
He talked often of his desire to have children, making sure we
had saved all of his Dr. Seuss books. I will keep them forever, a sad
but lovely reminder of what he could have had.
As the fog of grief is clearing a bit, I remember more and more
of his life — for example, his complaint, when he was only 6, of never
having flown in an airplane. My husband arranged for Nate, his
older brother, Jacob, and himself to take a ride in a small plane.
Nate fell asleep after about five minutes. I remember him building
amazing structures with Legos, dancing with me around our kitchen,
cooking all of us Eggs Benedict as a surprise one morning. I remember
his plans and dreams of opening a restaurant with his brother. They
had even picked out a name, Les Freres — the brothers. I remember
driving him to numerous soccer games, traveling with him and our
family to Paris, San Francisco, New York. I remember, I remember, I
remember … memories that are bittersweet, the perfect word to
describe our lives.
Our lives have been divided into before and after. It has taken us
a long time to begin to talk about Nate, not just the pain and sad-
ness, but the happiness and love. I will always remember my son,
with grief, with sadness, with regret, but more, with love.
k / 20
Memories from the Family Archive of Barbara Gibson
From left to right: Barbara Gibson’s parents, Ben and Betty Schilmeister; her maternal grandparents, Abe and Jenny Braunstein; and her aunt and uncle, Toby and Stanley Kuhr.
kol ha-neshama
ek / 21
Top: Miriam and David Schilmeister, Barbara Gibson’s paternal grandmother and uncle, in the family grocery store. Above: Miriam Schilmeister and Jenny Braunstein, Barbara Gibson’s grandmothers.
bk / 22
Saymi mi Botki n
My father sleeps now, wrapped in his wedding tallit,
traditional silver and blue, covered in the
shroud of his Orthodox roots.
His last breath, almost imperceptible in its shallow
wisps of air, slept him away.
Say that he lived 93 years and 7 months,
that he was not Willy Loman.
Say that he died the death of
a father, not a salesman.
Say that he served in the Navy in World War II,
A C.B.* in the Solomon Islands, seldom
talked about it with his children except
to show us pictures of bare-breasted island women.
Say that he left behind love, family,
work ethic, pride of accomplishment
and a wicked
sense of humor.
Say that he was proud of
flying all the way to Australia for
Rosh Hashanah services to declare his Jewishness
in a non-Jewish place.
Say that he was a Jew.
Say that he was my father.
*Construction Brigade
kol ha-neshama
gk / 23
I remember sitting in the backseat of our dark green Mercury sedan
with my brother, Paul, on one of our frequent trips to Rankin to visit
my cousin Esther and her husband, Pop. My parents were in the
front seat as my father once again nose-dived the car down one of
the steepest hills that I’d ever seen, then turned right at the light and
turned right, again, into the alley behind Cousin Esther’s house. The
house was a modest, three-story, red brick with a pointed roof closely
flanked by two similar houses.
We opened the back gate and walked through the vegetable
garden that formed the entirety of their backyard. I never saw a weed
in the garden, only green leafy vegetable plants and fine black earth.
I knew their yard was different from the other grassy and flowered
backyards in their neighborhood, but I accepted my mother’s
explanation that “Pop likes to garden.”
We stepped through the back door of their house into their
bright, clean, white, orderly, slightly worn kitchen. I hugged and
kissed my plump, gray-haired Cousin Esther, who always wore a
cotton dress and apron, well-ironed. Then I kissed Pop, a very large
man with a very large waistline and a scratchy, gray mustache. He
had twinkling blue eyes and always said something to make me
laugh. My mother did not know why Cousin Adolph was called
“Pop,” but she thought it was because he had five children and many
grandchildren.
After the hugs and kisses and “hellos,” Cousin Esther opened
the cupboard door under the kitchen sink and took out a small
plastic car that she gave to my brother and a small plastic frog that
Cousin Esther and Popruth W ei nberger
dk / 24
she gave to me. We said our “thank-you’s” for the gifts, then played
with our new toys on the kitchen table until Cousin Esther asked if
we would like some cookies. She brought us a plate of her home-
made jelly cookies — spoonfuls of sweet, bright red jelly wrapped in
squares of flaky, white cookie dough. We ate our cookies, drank
some milk and then walked through their dining room gazing at the
massive pieces of dark wood furniture on a dark red rug. Pop sat at
the dining room table, his half-smoked cigar burning in an ashtray
while he talked with my parents. The bits of conversation that we
overheard were quite uninteresting to me and my brother.
We walked into the living room furnished with a dark red
Oriental style rug, a piano, various large upholstered chairs and a
couch. We were most interested in the collection of framed photo-
graphs of various sizes that cascaded over the big end table next to
the couch. Cousin Esther sat with us on the couch and told us about
the relatives in the photos. We saw baby pictures of children who
were now 10 or 12 years old, couples in their wedding attire, snap-
shots of families at summer picnics. We wondered if Cousin Esther
would ever add a photo of us to her sprawling collection.
Cousin Esther told us a story about a young African-American
girl who helped out at the neighborhood grocery store owned by
Esther and Pop. She began, “I was marking prices on the things that
we sell in the store with my black wax pen. We had something new
in the store, frozen orange juice, and the pen would not write on it.
The young girl said ‘Wipe the white frost off the can.’ I wiped it off
with a cloth and then I could mark the price with my pen.” Cousin
Esther concluded, “You don’t have to have a lot of schooling to be
smart.”
I liked this story because I pictured the heroine to be about my
age. Also, I believed what I had learned in school about all people
being equal. I had heard adults say mean things about people based
on their race. I was glad that Cousin Esther was not one of those
people. Of course, I somehow knew that she would not be.
kol ha-neshama
hk / 25
I remember sleeping over at Cousin Esther’s and Pop’s house
when our parents went out of town for a few days. She and Pop were
more observant than my parents. My mother always lit Sabbath
candles and my father said Kiddush at the start of the Sabbath, but
they rarely performed the Havdalah service at the end of the
Sabbath. It seemed we were always busy with other things at that
time. Cousin Esther and Pop called us into their kitchen for the
Havdalah service. After the Havdalah candle was lit, Pop looked into
my eyes and explained that we look into each others’ eyes to see the
reflection of the flame and to see the soul. I tried to hide my surprise
that this large-waisted, gray-haired, cigar-smoking (and did I men-
tion card-playing?) man was talking about the soul.
I loved visits to Cousin Esther’s house. She and Pop created a
place where I always felt safe, happy and loved. I remember telling
my mother that I wished I had grandparents like my friends did.
I knew that my grandparents had lived in Europe and died before I
was born in 1946. My mother suggested, “Maybe we could ask Cousin
Esther and Pop to be your adopted grandparents.”
“Really? Do you think they would?” I asked.
“I think they would,” said my mother.
uk / 26
White-haired Ladies in Their Beds
ruth stoc k Zobe r
Age two
Lower East Side, New York City
A third floor walk up. Thin long white strands of hair spread
on the bed by her faithful daughter.
She clutches my mother’s hand and speaks Yiddish,
a language I do not understand.
“This is your bubbe. Your grandpa’s mother. She helped to
bring her family from Russia to the new world.”
Age eight
Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh
In the back room of a family home. She lies on pristine white sheets
perfectly coiffed by her daughter-in-law.
She smiles but does not speak.
“This is Hanna, your cousin. When your grandpa’s mother died,
she helped to raise him.”
kol ha-neshama
zk / 27
Age fifty
Stanton Heights, Pittsburgh
In my living room. She lies in a hospital bed, her once curly black
hair thin and straight, carefully combed by the hospice nurse.
I hold her hand and speak to her as what she tries to say does
not make sense.
“Thank you, Ma. You really were the ‘perfect’ mother, always
supportive, always loving, always there.”
Age sixty
Squirrel Hill and Highland Park, Pittsburgh
In new cribs with pink sheets and quilts, tufts of nearly invisible hair
carefully combed by their new mothers.
Each one clutches my finger and smiles as some unknown angel
whispers in their sleeping ears.
“This is Leah. This is Isabel. They are your granddaughters.”
And the legacy continues …
For the Sin of Thoughtlessnessmoni c a Celli o
I don’t believe that God micro-manages the universe, but I also don’t
believe that God stands apart and aloof. I believe we sometimes
receive divine nudges.
When I graduated from college, I and my classmate Adam (not
his real name) went to work for the same small high-tech company.
We’d gotten along fine as students; as coworkers, though, things were
sometimes more than a little rocky. After several years we both left
that company and went our separate ways. We did not stay in touch.
A decade later, I was working for another small company when,
shortly before what would be my first Rosh Hashanah, the director of
engineering came into my shared office holding a resume. “You and
Adam used to work together; what can you tell me about him?” I
responded immediately, not stopping to think that the Adam of a
decade ago was probably not much like the Adam of today. (I knew I
wasn’t much like the me of yore.) Later, when I realized my error, I
tried to set things right with the director of engineering. The com-
pany went on to offer him a position (which he declined for some-
thing better).
I was at the time reading the Chofetz Chayim, a book on lashon
hara (loosely defined as “evil speech”) — clearly I had not absorbed
its lessons yet! — and I asked myself whether I owed Adam an apol-
ogy. Since I had not prevented the company from offering him a job,
we had not seen each other in all that time, and he was unlikely even
to hear of my remarks, I reasoned that calling him out of the blue
and telling him what I had said would do more harm than good.
ck / 28
kol ha-neshama
God made an entry in the divine ledger.
A few days later, I was in the park with friends, and who should I
see but Adam! He approached me, we exchanged pleasantries, and
then he said “I hear you had a bad reaction to my resume.” I said
that initially I had but that I was wrong and had tried to set matters
straight. He said something like “no problem,” and then we were
both called away. I wondered if I should do more. That night, I went
to S’lichot services. The service touched me, particularly a phrase that
would be oft-repeated over the coming days: for sins against another
person, God wouldn’t forgive me until I’d made amends. Oh. Oops.
OK, God, I said, You have my attention.
The next day I called Adam to apologize and ask his forgiveness.
He brushed it off, saying he knows he can be annoying. I responded
that even if that’s true it didn’t justify my behavior; I had no way of
knowing what he’s like now. I asked again for his forgiveness and he
granted it. We talked for a while and even visited a few times before
he moved out of town. I felt much better for having had the conver-
sation, and on Yom Kippur I felt scrubbed clean — that the divine
ledger had been updated.
God doesn’t micro-manage, but I do not believe all of these
events were mere chance, either.
jk / 29
Unmarked No Moremi c h ele f .
Mama,
at last
you have your headstone,
reflecting your magnificence —
How do you like it?
I had no idea
how lovely it would be,
or how much it would matter.
We chose the granite for you
for its color,
ocean green;
we didn’t know
its polished face
would open
to Infinity —
rock mountain pathways,
endless tides —
how do you like
our last material gift
to you?
When I first saw it
it was warmed
by sun,
the front and back so smooth,
the top and sides unfinished
with their own rough beauty,
winking bits of quartz.
Study in contrasts
just like you,
just like us all,
clay lumps
both formed and shapeless
divine and human
unpolished, perfect,
all of us waiting
to turn back to dust
I hope you like it, Mama.
I’m sorry that it took so long.
Vic
to
r r
uiz
kol ha-neshama
Memory is identity. Who and where and what we come from is who
we are, and without it we are nothing. When I read the Rosh Hashanah
prayer, Zichronot, I am reminded of this simple yet profound truth
all over again.
Abraham and Isaac walking together toward the mountain …,
Jacob dreaming of a ladder to link heaven and earth …,
Moses turning aside to look at the common bush burning
with a divine flame…
These are not just lovely literary and historical images, but deeply
embedded memories from my own Hebrew and Sunday School days.
As such, they bind me tight to those who came before — my teachers,
my rabbis, my grandparents. But also, their teachers, their rabbis,
their grandparents … and on and on, up among countless generations.
The prayer speaks of “the days and years of our own lives”
constituting “a search for light in a dark and dusty time.” What
greater source of light could we ask or hope for than the knowl edge
that the faith we share has been shared since time immemorial?
ZichranotBen W ec h t
El / 31
Copyright ©2012 Temple Sinai
Published by Temple Sinai’s Neshama Center for Jewish Spirituality, Kol Ha-Neshama is an arts and literary journal created to showcase the talents and ideas of the Temple Sinai community. Writers, poets, photographers, and graphic designers with an interest in Jewish spirituality are encouraged to submit their work for consideration to the editor at [email protected]. Comments about this issue are also welcome.
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