The family story
How do you say "I love you" in German?
This is how our story begins, in the Chicago Congregation.
What are we called heroes? Grandpa and Grandma, Dad and Mom, Whitey and Leah? Does not matter. Anyway, there at that college in Chicago on a German course, the gazes met for the first time. Between lessons in the distorted Yiddish of Schiller and Goethe, the novel began to take shape.
And on the way home Dad carries Mom's books and the conversation flows over everything in the world. A big thing and a small thing until the world is forgotten and only they exist.
By the time they arrive near the house of the Rebbe, R. David Lifshitz, then suddenly a mother receives a library in her hands, spaces are opened like a rainbow, and the humble yeshiva boy is seen walking alone, memorizing the beings of Debbie and Rabba. A few more meters and the books return and the eyes meet and return to the original issue - the Kiddushin Tractate.
Grandpa David and Bobby Goldie welcome the uninvited guest in divided comments. Grandpa David looks at his blond hair and his clear eyes - and asks: Is he a Jew at all? When Mom announces to Bobby that she has found the choice of her heart she smiles calmly and says: that nice. In short: beauty.
Young couples did not have conditions after the wedding. The luxury life of an apartment and furniture, kitchen and stove was a distant dream. In a small room in New York and then in Boston, they built their home with most of their livelihoods - a vision. The desire to learn and teach. Growing up in the Torah and building a house of Torah, she gave all the vigor and all the joy of the early years. An ideal satisfies a hungry soul but not a rumbling stomach.
While Dad worked and spent nights, Mom made a living as a gardener. At a time when a woman earning a living was a completely unacceptable phenomenon.
Since their eldest son did things at his own pace and he decided to perform only six years later, Mother's work with the children served as a good preparation for motherhood.
The longing for Eretz Hemda attracted the young couple to Eretz Israel together with Grandpa David and Bobby Goldi, and after a few months in Jerusalem, the period of Kfar Haroeh began. Something of the life of these days was recorded by Yitzhak Mordechai, rumor has it. And we will present things as they are:
At Hadera's maternity hospital, Eli finally decided it was time to go out into the world, and the joy was great. What's more, in those days of austerity and scarcity, a new baby earned his happy parents a special allowance of sausage and chocolate.
In the small hut, a pulley mechanism was arranged so that by pulling a rope, the baby stroller would swing to calm the little screamer so that Dad could continue to study and teach. Not many months passed and reasons for various reasons led the small family back to the foreigner and the period of the first aliyah ended.
The magic moments of family life
The magical moments of the warm and sweet family experience of the beginning of the journey, are innumerable [but are especially well remembered those regular hours of family togetherness.
Wiping the dishes on Saturday night while playing "ghost" or "geography" with Mom is etched in my memory as well as Sundays in the evening the sausages and burgers are tucked deep in rolls, lined with relish and we are with Dad in anticipation of Football Game. Conducted standing and sometimes even physically accompanying identification with what is happening on the small screen.
The breakfast room was one of the family hotspots where we had breakfast and of course dinner and where the tattered TV honor really lay. Although we did not often watch it (although we had several TVs, one with sound and one with a picture and one for decoration. We did not buy it but received it), but half an hour a week with mom (always in the middle of ironing, I think) and Doc Van Dyke (entertainment program Cosby) and the rolling laughter of both of us shaped the joke channel without which I would not have made it this far.
In general, Mom's sense of humor and sensitivity to the ridiculous and entertaining gave their signals in all children. I can not remember Dad ever really making a joke, but the unstoppable enjoyment of Mom's jokes made him a wonderful audience and Mina and Mina things were happy.
(Apropos, the breakfast room, one can not forget one of the boys who calmly and without batting an eyelid poured a carton of milk into a plate full of food instead of a glass. It is impossible to mention his name, but a hint is given - he has a son named Hanani).
Also the trips north for the summer vacation - trips of formation all the children are gathered together in one block in the back, dad drives long hours and mom keeps us busy with license plates of different countries, puzzles, snacks and the like - all this was a source of childhood pleasure. Dad made sure to stop only at the hotel with pool and air conditioner.
One Sukkot holiday I begged Dad to allow me and my friends to sleep in the Sukkah. After serious promises that we would behave properly and properly, Dad agreed. But the lights went out in the parents' room and my friends took dice out of their pockets and the clouds of honor hovered over a small gambling den - a temporary casino. It was midnight. The sounds of amusement rose from our games and suddenly a shadow appeared in the doorway of the sukkah. Dad, or maybe it was Amos or Jeremiah, stood without saying a word but his expression in the best tradition of the prophets of wrath, (as it appears in the illustrated bibles), he took the dice and threw them with all his might. He turned and went back to his room.
And we - without exchanging a word, returned home ashamed and upset one by one. For weeks we searched the cubes in the yard until we found out beyond a shadow of a doubt that they had hit the ground just like the biblical calf.
Every Saturday night, in almost any weather, we went out after a hearty meal for a walk in the fresh air. Sometimes quietly and mostly while having a lively conversation. We walked together and enjoyed - the night silence, the flower fragrances of Florida, the Sabbath. To this day I miss those moments.
One time Dad walked in front of me and pushed a prominent branch of a bush that stood in his way. After passing the branch came back like a spring and hit me in the face. My immediate response was:
"that will teach me not to follow in your footsteps" -
It will teach me not to follow you. Dad laughed at the speed of the response and said to me, "well see."
Dad and Mom, each in his own way and both together, have always been involved in educating the children.
When I once failed a test in social studies and felt a total failure, my mother volunteered to help me in the profession for hours on end. Day after day she examined me in the natural treasures of India and China, the upheavals of the Congo regime and the commercial balance sheet of Liberia - until I finally got on track and gained a lot of success in this bullying profession.
With Dad, there was not always smooth sailing, and if Mom's motto was patience is avirtue, then Dad's moral lexicon instead of patience was perfection or err ishumen, that has nothing to do with you.
Sometimes I was wrong and thought he identified with the packers' coach - winning is not the most important thing. it's the only thing. Until after a not-so-successful speech in a recitation contest, instead of the cold shower I was expecting, he showered me with praise and wrapped me in a warm, empowering envelope of encouragement, and somewhere deep in my personality I realized that Dad was willing to accept me as I was - on limited warranty of course.
As parents, we have all learned from experience that educating children sometimes requires a hard hand and a captain's stick and in the economical language of the wisest of all men: the darkness of his tribe hates us. When Toby Ari and I locked ourselves in a closet in Toby's room that had no handle and we could not get out, we screamed very impressive screams for help. Mom completely ignored. When finally after desperate efforts we managed to open the door and found Mom in the breakfast room reading a newspaper and eating grapefruit peacefully, I erupted: Why did you not come, we could have died there. She answered without pathos: Fact! but you'rw here.
Every gray hair has an address and I seem to have donated a part of our parents' hair which will turn white like snow. But even as I strayed a little from the family path, Mom did not prove me wrong and always tried to understand the method in my madness, and Dad even stepped up to do and took me to work at the school where he served as principal, believing I was not lost.
The time to say goodbye to them at the New York airport I will always remember. Dad gave me addresses of some smart students and suggested that I contact them when I arrived in the country. Mom just asked me to be Manch.
Both of these trends were completely foreign to me and the words of Dad and Mom fell on deaf ears, but things that come from the heart - and especially from the heart of parents - and especially from the heart of our Dad and Mom - enter the heart. And if not today then tomorrow and if not tomorrow - another vision for the date.
Eli
