My daughter-in-law Shaindel keeps calling for us to come to
them for Shabbos Chanuka. "It's a made-to-order opportunity,"
she tells me, sensing my reluctance to burden her with so
much company. Her next-door neighbor will be going away for
the weekend and we can have her apartment for sleeping.
"This is the perfect Shabbos for you to come," Shaindel
continues convincingly, working herself up to a sales pitch.
"You'll be able to spend time with Tante Shanny who's flying
in to help Estie out with her new baby. You'll be able to
attend the Kiddush that they're making in the baby's honor,
and you won't have to rush back right after Shabbos as you
always do because the kids have school on Sunday and...
and...we'd just love to be together with you all. So...so
please say that you're coming," she ended limply.
Both my son and my niece lived in Kiryat Mattersdorf, a
religious, considerably American community in Jerusalem. It's
a very closely knit neighborhood, as intense as you might
find in out-of-town American communities, where strong
togetherness is necessary to foster one's Jewish identity.
As famous as Mattersdorf is, it actually is no more than one
main street, crowded with five-floor apartment houses
[numbering from one to seventeen] that tower high above the
Judean hills. The street is closed to traffic on Shabbos and
Yom Tov, when the place is overrun with children of all sizes
and ages (may they increase -- and they do).
When we stand on Shaindel's porch, we can see the Tomb of
Shmuel Hanovi, three miles away, and whenever we're there, it
is always with guilt that I go to sleep instead of continuing
to feast my eyes on the breathtaking panorama that after so
many years still brings me to tears to have been granted the
realization of a life-long dream to live in the Holy Land.
*
Halfway to Jerusalem, we suddenly heard sirens behind us and
were signalled over to the side of the road by a young
policeman. Despite the fact that my husband didn't think that
he had done anything wrong, we figured that we'd have better
luck if we spoke to the officer in English. The maneuver
didn't help us much because from all the documents that the
officer asked to see, it was obvious that we had been living
in Eretz Yisroel for the past seven years and were not
ignorant new olim.
We were guilty of two sins, the traffic officer sadly
informed my husband. Sin number one: there were far too many
people in the car. Sin number two: the car was overloaded,
besides.
But the police officer was young and happy to practice his
own scanty English on us and willing to listen to my
husband's explanation before he handed him a summons.
"Look," my husband began, "this was the largest car for sale
in Israel. What was I supposed to buy for my size family? A
bus?"
The policeman leaned into the open window of our station
wagon and, eyes jumping from one member of the family to the
next, did some mental addition.
"And we're going to visit our married son and his family. You
wouldn't expect us to come empty-handed, would you?"
His eyes shifted from the children to the back of the car.
Boxes of cakes, trays of gefilte fish, pans of potato and
lukshen kugels, rolls of meat, plus pillows, quilts,
high boots and winter coats were piled till the ceiling.
Valises and shopping bags containing all of our personal
belongings pushed out from every empty space.
By that time, the children, with their newly acquired measure
of Israeli chutzpa, had also entered the conversation, and
though my husband and I both cringed in discomfort at the
familiar way they spoke to him, the officer seemed to find
them very amusing and made no motion of giving us the summons
that he still held in his hand.
Before sending us off, and still feasting his eyes on the
sight of all the assorted sizes of children, the policeman
made a little speech,
"Today you're lucky. I'm letting you go. Maybe someone else
might have also let you go without serving you a ticket,
hearing you all speaking English. But I know enough English
not to be intimidated by that. English or no English, my job
is to give you the summons. The story you tell to the
judge."
"Now remember what I told you about overloading and be
careful how you drive. And have a happy Chanuka," he ended
magnanimously, smiling at each child.
*
So it was pretty late by the time we reached Mattersdorf. The
first thing we had to do was bring in the cakes and
kugels we had made for the Kiddush over to Estie's
house, wish her Mazel Tov and hug and kiss my sister, whom I
hadn't seen in ages. When we were finally ready to leave, the
baby woke up and then began a session of oohing and aahing
the beautiful child and trying to figure out who in the
family she resembled.
By the time we left Esty's house and got to Shaindel's, the
day was already waning. We could see bearded young men
already dressed for Shabbos standing on their porches,
preparing to light their Chanuka candles.
As my son chanted the blessings, his year-old daughter stood
alongside him, swaying and bending, eyes tightly closed,
every few minutes opening them a tiny slit to peek up at him
and see if she was doing it right.
Three-year-old Layee, already in kindergarten, had her own
Chanuka menora, which she proudly lit, afterwards singing
Maoz Tzur in an impassioned monotone.
While the men sat gazing at their Chanuka lights, Shaindel
and I rushed to light our Shabbos candles.
The room was lined with bookcases. The table was spread in
white. Shaindel's home-made challos pushed out from
beneath their embroidered velvet cover. The crystal wine
bottle sparkled in the bright candlelight.
The men, dressed in black satin caftans and fur
shtreimlach, were ready to leave for shul.
"A guten Shabbos. A freilichen Chanuka," they sang out
as they left. There was a mad scramble as the three little
ones climbed over their Zeidy for a good- bye kiss. Three-
year-old Layee patted Zeidy's greying beard and offered to
sing him another song.
"Not now," her father said laughingly, "or we'll be late for
shul. But when we get back home, that's the first
thing you'll do."
Neighbors came in, the house filled up with children. Little
boys ran through the rooms, climbed up on beds, pulled toys
out of closets. The little girls played "Abba-Ima."
One little boy stood up on a chair, near the table and
stacked the Shabbos glasses one on top of the other. By the
time Shaindel realized what he was doing, there were no more
glasses left. It would have to be disposables for this
Shabbos.
The men were back, Kiddush was made, hands were washed and
the meal began. And, of course, everyone sat at attention as
Layee treated us all to another Chanuka song.
Shabbos zemiros could be heard throughout Mattersdorf.
I went out on the porch to hear better. Standing there,
surrounded by Jerusalem hills, I realized that every
apartment in Mattersdorf mirrored my son's own: families
sitting round a large table full of children and Shabbos
guests. And they were all eating and talking and singing and
enjoying Shabbos in its special way. The children were
probably enjoying the bonus attention they were getting from
doting grandparents and aunts and uncles not much older than
themselves.
In the morning, the men went off to shul again and the
rest of us rushed over to help Estie. Guests started
dribbling in after the first minyan ended, the traffic
getting heavier as the others finished. Couples came
together, followed by children in graduated sizes, along with
house guests, many of them hippy-looking young men in lumber
jackets and flowing tresses.
With the array of sweets and treats, the children were
deliciously quiet and occupied. The ladies tasted this and
that, bemoaning broken diets. They talked about jobs, books
they were writing or illustrating, teaching schedules, piano
lessons and so on. Soon it was time to bundle the children up
again and tell Estie how delicious everything was and that
she should know she had the most adorable baby.
"That's what you say to everybody," she laughed, and stuffed
the children's pockets with goodies.
In the afternoon, Shaindel suddenly looked at her watch and
said, "If we hurried, we could make it to the Kosel in time
to see them light the menora right after Shabbos."
We decided to give it a try but it seems we overestimated our
strength. Pushing two baby carriages plus shlepping eight
other children, all non-hikers, plus a huffing-puffing
grandma over forty was too much. By the time we arrived, the
Kosel menora had already been lit.
I gazed at the lights, overwhelmed with the realization that
I and my children and children's children were standing on
the very ground where miracles had been wrought for our
ancestors so long ago.
Not without a struggle, the struggle against alien forces,
Hellenism then, something else in each generation. But
somehow, the flames of the menora continue to burn, no less
miraculously now in our generation.
We arrived back in Mattersdorf after a breathtaking ride
around the hills of Judea, white in the dim moonlight.
The night rang festive with latkes and doughnuts and gallons
of real American coffee that a guest had left behind. There
were tears as a child learned that one does not always win at
dreidel. But the loser was comforted when three-year-old
Layee sang another Chankua song, specially for her.
