Jog Your Memory

by David Knepler

Nancy Boxer and her family hosted the wonderful February Shabbat. About 40 people gathered to share food, wine, blessings, and thoughts. The subject for the evening was "A Shabbat You Would Like to Have Had." Although some congregants revealed their fantasy, many shared memories of what Shabbat was like in their home while growing up.

In my family, Shabbat was the night we all ate dinner at the same time. My father, who often taught or worked in the evenings, did not do so on Fridays. I don't remember any special food we ate on Shabbat, nor do I recall my mother ever lighting the Shabbos candles. But I remember the bruchos my father said that night were longer than the usual nightly blessings. My brother and I, along with my father, would wear yarmulkes, and my father would daven. While my father davened, the rest of the family sat quietly, entrapping a normal eight-year-old like me in a quandary -- the battle between non-stop fidgeting and being mesmerized by the ancient words and tune. Then my father would pour a glass of Manischewitz while we had Welch's Grape Juice. It was the only time I ever saw my father drink alcohol. We would join him for the blessing over the wine, along with the hamotzi' over the challah.

Then we would eat. We were a family of fast eaters, and Shabbos was no different. But unlike most nights, when it was a race to the TV or board game (or dreaded homework), we often went to synagogue on Friday nights. We lived next door to the shul, and the Rabbi's footsteps past our back door was our cue to get ready to go.

I was in awe of Friday nights in the synagogue. Unlike Saturdays, which were reserved mainly for junior Congregation, Friday nights were for adults. Saturday mornings I would make occasional contact with my chair, but I was usually frenetically milling about in the hallways with the likes of Mark Rubin, Joshua Rifkin, Marcia Rifkin, and Scott Zaluda. Friday nights, in contrast, were somber.

I remember all the old men, sitting in the front, their old talisim worn like a tapestry of their lives. They recited the prayers at a velocity unknown before the rocket age. Some, like Mr. Gellis, were hunched over; some, like Mr. Alpert, had bulbous noses. Some looked very frail while others were large.

These men seemed even more religious than the Rabbi. They would often continue praying in Hebrew while the Rabbi led us in English responsive reading. When we finished meditating with the Silent Amidah, and sat down, they would remain standing, in defiance to any demands of their advanced age, and continue their prayers murmuring while the congregation went on to the next section. Often they acted as one body, turning all at once in one large scowl at an offending whisperer. When we talked about the Patriarchs in Hebrew School, I thought these were the same men, or at least their designated shushers.

The Mourner's Kaddish was the most riveting moment of every Friday night Shabbat. The Rabbi would ask those who needed to pay special respect for the dead to stand. My mother, my father, all members of the congregation would notice who was standing while they themselves sat. My parents would often confer as to why so-and-so was standing. The Rabbi would lead the plaintive cry. The old men in the front always were standing, always in mourning. But they knew these words by heart, and they too would turn to survey who else was standing, who else was mourning.

There was this one family that I will always remember not for their religious observance, not for their sobriety, but for their own way of distinguishing themselves from the crowd. They were a family of 5: two parents, 2 children about 5 to 7, and a little girl, about 2. They all looked alike, kind of chubby, kind of plain. They attended every Friday night, filing into the same row every week, one right after the next, the same way every time.

But the flaw of this family was a bad digestive tract. In the middle of prayers, whether it be the opening of the Ark or the observance of the Silent Amidah, you would see the mother first begin to laugh, ripples descending down a dress bought 20 pounds earlier. Then the boy, then the girls, then the father. A silent laugh that, with every suppression they tried to make, would make their bodies shake and shimmy even more. It was my first exposure to public gas, and it wasn't pleasant. They would repeat this laughing shimmying ritual several times a Friday night, sometimes preceded by an audible sound from the culprit, sometimes not.

Without fail, this family sat in their own row, with no one around them.

The service would end with Yigdal or Adon Olam. We would then break to the Oneg Shabbat, and share bread together. My parents allowed me these moments to converse with Mark and Josh and Marcia and Scott, deaf to the plots of mayhem were planning for the morning.

I hope you can all share a Shabbat with us soon. It's a chance to jog your memory, live the present, and help chart the future of this, our own Jewish community.

—from our April 1994 Newsletter

Site design by BitJazz Inc.