Photo Credit: Jewish Press
Why do certain childhood memories stay fresh in our minds while others are stashed somewhere in the recesses of our subconscious?
I’m the oldest of eight, seven daughters and one son. My mother, a nurse by profession, became a full-time stay-at-home mom. During summer vacation, my mother would take us to one of the public libraries (this was before the days of Jewish Youth Libraries). I loved to read, and sometimes the library provided free arts and crafts workshops. Then we’d take the shopping cart to do a food shop at either Kosher City or Waldbaum’s.
My father worked in Manhattan, at a government job, and he always carried his black briefcase with his well-worn Mishna Berura to learn on the train.
I remember my father sitting at the kitchen table very early in the morning learning Gemara, with his light blue cereal bowl, that my mother had put out for him nearby. Every day, same bowl, same kind of cereal.
My father was the gabbai in our shul. He’d daven Ma’ariv with the minyan. Later in the evening, in accordance with the time of Rabbeinu Tam, he would find a quiet place in the house, and loudly and clearly say krias Shema emphasizing the last word, echad.
Decades passedâ¦
I sat at my elderly father’s bedside. He was sedated and on a respirator. The hospital had given him a private room. I knew that on some level he could hear me.
So, I sang to him Torah songs. And I spoke to him. I’m not such a warm, gushy type. But at that point, I felt I could share with him thoughts that I would’ve never felt comfortable expressing when my father was conscious: how I appreciated what he always did for us, how we loved him.
Since I give a parsha class in a senior citizens home, I had brought the sefer, Vehegadeta, by Rav Yaakov Galinsky, with me to the hospital.
It was the week of the Torah reading of parshas Bo. I wanted to share divrei Torah with my father, so I sat on the armchair in the hospital room and opened up the sefer to parshas Bo, and started to read some of the sections.
Rav Galinsky shared an event that happened when he and other yeshiva bochurim were taken from their yeshiva and sent to Siberia. Their only consolation was their tefillin and their seforim.
And then the Russians took the tefillin and seforim and burned them!
The boys gathered after a day of backbreaking labor to sit together. Each boy was given a minute and a half to give the other boys words of encouragement and strength. The young Yaakov Galinsky told his friends a comforting explanation on the pasuk, Shema Yisrael and on the last word, echad.
I looked up excitedly at my father. “Da, I remember how often you recited the krias Shema, and lingered on the last word, echad.”
My sister, Avigayil came to the hospital to take over the afternoon shift.
It was a difficult afternoon. The electronic screen which monitors a patient’s vital signs did not bode good tidings.
That evening, one of my sisters drove my brother-in-law, Yisrael to the hospital to take over the night shift.
Several minutes after entering the hospital room, my father gave a tremor that sent them running for help from the nurse’s station.
The nurse called the doctor. The doctor told them that my father’s systems were closing down, hinting that perhaps the respirator plug should already be pulled.
Adamantly, my family members refused. One of the hospital staff opened the window in the room. While my sisters cried and said Tehillim, my brother-in-law said the viddui.
All those numbers displayed on the screen were already gone. The only thing left was the pulse which was declining. My brother-in-law recited for my father, Shema Yisrael.
As he finished the last word, echad, the screen went blank.
May the memory of my father, Rav Gershon, z”l, ben Rav Aharon Sadowsky, z”l, be blessed.