The news from America was not good. Shmil's wife, Hendel, was
sick. Very sick. My husband made me promise not to tell Pa,
to spare him the aggravation.
When Hendel died, Shmil was devastated. They had been an
unusually devoted couple. To fill the emptiness in the once
happy home, Shmil's daughters spent all of their evenings
together with him, but they were little comfort. The Rebbe
advised Shmil to visit his father in Israel.
In the past, Shmil and Hendel had always visited Pa together.
Now, when Shmil came alone, Pa kept looking to the door,
expecting Hendel to follow. When nobody else came in, Pa said
nothing, then closed his eyes in dread. The entire visit, Pa
never asked about Hendel or mentioned her name. But he kept
sighing deeply.
The next morning, we couldn't wake Pa up. He just opened his
eyes when we nudged him and went right back to sleep. We
called the nurse, Zippora, to come see what was wrong. She
tapped him and poked him and measured his blood pressure,
then straightened up and said that she didn't see that he was
in worse shape than always. If the man wanted to sleep, let
him sleep.
Pa slept all day Friday, breathing so heavily, snoring so
loudly that we were all certain, despite the nurse's
examination, that there was something terribly wrong. Maybe
he was in a coma, we even feared to think. But when we shook
him, he responded, then again, went back to sleep.
Meyer and Shmil sat near their father the whole time. I went
to the Hebrew Book Store and bought Gesher Hachayim, a
study of the bridge between this world and the next and the
pertinent laws and customs of death in a family. I had no
doubt that this was the end. For Pa not to get up to
daven?! He had to be in very bad shape for that!
Shmil and Meyer both slept on beach chairs in Pa's room that
night; they refused to sleep in their mother's bed. Shabbos
was the same. After havdola, I called our family
physician, Dr. Weiss, to come over, but nobody answered the
phone.
Since Friday morning, the children had been coming over in
dribs and drabs; nobody said a word, each just swallowed
tears and whispered whatever prayers and Tehillim he
knew by heart.
In desperation, I called Magen David Adom and a doctor
arrived. All he could say after examining Pa was that so long
as he was comfortable and in peace, we should do nothing.
Sending him to the hospital would only upset him. When I
pressed the doctor to be more specific, he added solemnly
that to him, it looked like the beginning of the end.
Everyone was crying. I started reading that Gesher
Hachayim real fast.
It was after midnight. Meyer and Shmil got ready for bed.
They stretched out on the beach chairs and smiling in the
dark, reminded one another of funny things in their
childhood: how Mima Channale would hug her head and wail,
"Lukshin, lukshin," whenever she'd inspect the boys'
torn trousers; how Pa would insist that Meyer nap together
with him on Shabbos afternoon, in the hope that if the
biggest troublemaker went to sleep, peace and quiet would
prevail long enough for him to also enjoy a Shabbos nap; how
Meyer would wiggle out from under Pa's down quilt the minute
his father's breathing came in slow, even rhythm, slide down
the slanting roof outside his parents' bedroom window into
the pear orchard and run as fast as his feet would take him
through the Jewish-Italian neighborhood where they lived, in
search of his brothers, who always managed to dodge him. How
Pa would give them their monthly haircuts; how Pa would shlep
all the boys to the Stretiner Rebbe's Friday night
tish regardless of the weather. It could have snowed
and hailed, but they had to absorb the Shabbos Song 'round
the Rebbe's table. What else did they have in all of Toronto,
Pa would ask them. The street was goyish, the school
was goyish. If they couldn't have a Shabbos to
remember, how could they grow up Yidden?
The lights of passing cars slid down the wall as the two
brothers, separated for years, laughed and cried in the dark.
They were so full of love for each other and for their
father, who with an iron will and stern, angry face had
filled them with love and laughter.
There were hushed footfalls in the corridor. The door opened
slowly. "It's me. Rivkie," came a whisper in the dark. "Is it
all right for me to put on the light?"
It was after two. She couldn't sleep. She wanted to see Pa
once more.
She went over to his bed. "Zeidy, it's me. Rivkale," she
shouted softly in his ear. "Shoin genig geshluffin.
You've slept enough, already. Come, sit up. Eat a leben."
Pa blinked his eyes, opened them wide, sat up and washed
neigel vasser. He let Rivkie feed him the leben and
when he finished, and she asked if he maybe wanted another
one, she fed him that one, too.
The next day I took home the two volumes of Gesher
Hachayim. It didn't look as though we'd be needing them
anymore. And nobody really has an explanation of what
happened... except that maybe it had something to do with
Hendel not coming, after all.
*
A year later, Shmil came again; this time with his new wife,
Esther. She was a Bobover chassidiste who'd survived
the Holocaust and had been widowed several years before. The
Bobover Rebbe had `spoken' the match.
When Shmil went into Pa's room, Esther sidled in
unobtrusively and sat down in a corner of the porch. Pa acted
as though he hadn't seen her, made no mention of her the
whole time that he talked to Shmil. But as soon as they left,
Pa called me over and asked, "Ver iz zee?"
When I told him, he listened quietly, sighing deeply the
whole time. Then he fumbled in his pocket for his
handkerchief and, eyes very red, blew his nose...
Ma's yahrzeit was that evening. As customary on this
day, our whole family met at Ma's graveside for Kaddish and
prayers. It was the first opportunity for the family in
Israel to meet Esther, Shmil's new wife.
At Ma's graveside, Esther cried louder than us all. It seemed
strange, since she'd never even known the deceased. Her grief
seemed so out of place, we were all a little embarrassed.
Tehillim was recited, Kaddish was said. As we left
Ma's grave, Esther held onto my arm, and still very shaken,
she told me:
"I never went to a parent's grave before... Both of my
parents, as well as my first husband's, were killed by Hitler
in the gas chambers. There is no remembrance of any of them
in the whole wide world. This is the first time that I have a
parent's grave to pray at..."
As was customary, after visiting Ma's grave, I paid my
respects to Mima Frayde and Feter Duvid Meilech, who were
buried two rows away. To better acquaint Esther with the
family, I read aloud the inscription on both tombstones. But
wait a minute... Hold on... Was I seeing things or did it
really say that Mima Frayde was a descendant of the Taz, the
author of Turei Zohov, a great and sainted scholar of
the eighteen hundreds who had written a brilliant commentary
on the Shulchan Oruch?
How was it possible that for the last eighteen years I'd paid
my respects at those two graves and never before noticed what
was written on Mima Frayda's tombstone?
I stood there flabbergasted, excitement mounting. My heart
beat faster. A pulse in my throat throbbed. If Ma's sister
was a grandchild of that great scholar, then Ma was also the
grandchild of the Taz. But why had we never been told?
I dragged Esther along to where the men stood on the top of
the mountain. Being kohanim, they were forbidden to
approach the grave area, and said their prayers from
there.
"Did you know that Mima Frayda was a grandchild of the Taz?"
I confronted Shmil, who, I figured, being the eldest of the
children, might know more than the others about the family
roots.
He lifted his eyebrows and puckered his mouth.
"Whenever Feter Duvid Elimilech visited, he always spoke of
his prestigious ancestry, but I never paid too much
attention. I was young and not very interested."
"But Shmil, listen. This is very important. I'm not talking
about Feter Duvid Melech's yichus. I'm talking about
Mima Frayda's yichus. On her tombstone it says very
clearly that she was a grandchild of the illustrious Taz. If
Mima Frayde was descended from the Taz and she was Ma's
sister, that means that Ma was also the Taz's grandchild. And
that means that all of Ma's children are also grandchildren
of the Taz. Isn't that exciting! All of a sudden, our family
is big yichus. You and Meyer and all of our children
are the grandchildren of the Taz!" I was practically dancing
for joy. I grabbed a pencil from someone, ran back to Mima
Frayda's grave and wrote down every single word engraved on
her tombstone.
That year for the first time, Pa had not come along to Har
Hazeisim for Ma's yahrzeit. Now I couldn't wait to get
back to Bnei Brak and ask him about my discovery. The whole
way I kept chattering that my husband and children were of
distinguished ancestry, meyuchosim, descended from the
Turei Zohov! It was impossible for me to calm down. I was
beside myself with the discovery and simply could not contain
my excitement and joy.
The whole way home, the men couldn't figure out what I was so
excited about. Big deal. So we're of the gentry; so we're
grandchildren of the Taz! What difference did it make who
your ancestors were? What counted was who you were, yourself,
in your own right, by your own deeds and actions.
But it wasn't exactly the way they said. I remembered that as
a student in seminary, and much younger than the others who
were already in shidduchim, I would get so upset when
a girl without lineage would be rejected for the girl whose
family shone, despite her being far inferior. And I was
enraged, thinking how unfair the system was. Of course,
ancestry counted. Why did all the Rebbes have their family
trees hung in such prominent places? So that everyone would
know that they were descended from the Baal Shem Tov or Rashi
or Dovid Hamelech. Of course yichus mattered!
And now, suddenly, bright rays of sunshine had pierced
through the clouds. My husband and children could now also
lift up their heads and proclaim in the world that they were
somebodies, that they were the grandchildren of the Turei
Zohov.
Of course, being pedigreed didn't mean that you could rest on
your ancestors' laurels, as was often the case. It meant
that, precisely because you were of noble stock, you were
supposed to assume added responsibility and continue the
great chain of tradition that linked you to greatness.
All the way home, I kept up a steady prattle over the great
treasure that I'd discovered. My sons-in-law, who,
incidentally, happened to be meyuchosim, themselves,
looked at each other as though I was a little cuckoo, but
nothing could dampen my enthusiasm.
I couldn't wait to get to Pa. He was the only one who would
be able to explain why nobody in the family had ever been
told of Ma's proud heritage.
When I confronted Pa with my exciting discovery, he smiled
and told me, "Yes, Ma was a grandchild of the Taz, but as the
Taz, she, too, hid her greatness and never went around
boasting her noble lineage. The only one she ever told was
Moishe Shea who, at the end of World War II, was the only
survivor from her sister Frayda's entire family. She hoped
that the information would give him the necessary strength to
want to rebuild his broken young life. And she asked him not
to repeat the information to anyone else."
"But I suppose that now that you've found out, it's all right
to tell the other children," Pa ended with a smile.
When I told my girls, they were equally excited. Bruchy
remembered reading about her ancestor in one of her history
books and immediately went looking for it.
It was a story about the many years that the Taz kept his
greatness hidden: the people of his time treated him like a
simpleton. I thought of my mother-in-law, of all of her
children, and suddenly, I realized that they walked in the
modest footsteps of that great man.
