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Mittendrinnen*,
out of the blue, Arthur sent me a message on Facebook: “Are you the
David Raphael who went to Camp Ramah in the sixties?” And, in fact, I am
such person. This opening line led to a flood of back-and-forth. Arthur
(then Artie) and I were camp friends for four years at Camp Ramah and
then years after. As young teens, Artie and I would meet at the Port
Authority in New York and spend the day walking the streets of Manhattan
snapping photos with our new SLR cameras (Can you imagine parents
allowing a 14-year-old to do that today?). In 1969, we traveled to
Washington DC together to join the March on Washington to protest the
Vietnam War. We lost touch somewhere between high school and college. A
half-century later, Arthur and I have now renewed our friendship.
Over the course of my life, I have been blessed with wonderful lifelong
friends, some of whom I’ve known for over half a century: Richard, who
became my “bestie” playing basketball for the Jewish Center of Bayside
Oaks team at age 16 (1968). Today we share photos of our grandchildren. I
am still close with Jonathan, my apartment-mate when I was a senior at
college (1973). I reconnected with Bob, head of the waterfront at Camp
Masada when I was a counselor (1972). Marc and I first met in 1977 on
the Staten Island Ferry on our way to the first day of our field
placement at social work school. And of course, there is my dearest
friend, my wife Jo, who I have loved deeply for 45 years.
These precious relationships have and continue to frame and enrich my
life. I am a far better person because of them. I have learned of the
importance of attending to these and relationships – regular phone
calls, birthday cards, and being there in times of need.
A recent passing health scare, (the seemingly ubiquitous backdrop of
aging and, these days, the primary content of our conversations) caused
me to reflect on the inevitable passing of time and, in this context,
the urgency of relationships.
And it is with this mindset that I think not only of time but of grandparental time.
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There are photographs everywhere. Children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren;
Ensconced, or perhaps engulfed in a motorized lounger he sleeps often. A push of a button and the chair reclines to a full sleeping position. It is in this position that he often spends his nights. He moves infrequently – once or twice a day to eat at the nearby dining room table – although, meals are often eaten on his lap in the chair. Two or three times a day an arduous trip to the bathroom is required. He moves unsteadily clutching a walker and the home care nurse and I guide him as he goes. The danger of falling is quite real, perhaps even fatal. He struggles to retain his balance, so fearful – even with my constant reassurance “I will not let you fall. I will not let you fall”. But who can truly offer full assurance of safety to another?
The house, that I visited first as a teenager more than a half-century ago is still beautiful but shows signs of wear. A kitchen cabinet door falls off at the hinges. The kitchen and bathroom faucets drip incessantly. A recessed fluorescent light fixture is missing in the den. Perhaps they are all metaphors for the man that sits for hours in the living room chair. Still beautiful but showing his age.
The Sabbath begins seven hours earlier in Israel where three generations of Fensters live. Thus, beginning at 11 am on Friday morning, the phone rings almost non-stop. “Hello Zayde”, Good Shabbas Zayde”. His eyes come alive, and his voice lifts up with joy as he greets his beloved and loving family members from near and far. “Hello beautiful, how are things in Jerusalem”. “Zak, wonderful to hear from you, what’s the Parsha (the weekly Torah portion)? A long-distance biblical exegesis ensues. His memory of Jewish texts and verses is extraordinary.
He shares with me his most recent writing; “The Blessings of Covid-19”. Its core message – we are impelled to be aware of the holiness of each moment and the sacredness of relationships. We study Jewish texts together. We begin with this text from the Talmud (Berakhot 17a)
When Rabbi Yoḥanan would conclude study of the book of Job, he said the following:
A person will ultimately die and an animal will ultimately be slaughtered, and all are destined for death. Therefore, death itself is not a cause for great anguish.
Rather, happy is he who grew up in Torah, whose labor is in Torah,
who gives pleasure to his Creator, who grew up with a good name, and who took leave of the world with a good name.
His mind is on death. Ever since the passing of Aunt Ricky after 70 years of marriage, it is his constant companion. Perhaps it has always been. In his own words, from a recent essay “Sometimes I felt that the “angel of death” was chasing me throughout my life”.
This became eminently clear to me the day his son, my cousin Jonathan, was buried days after a massive heart attack. In a cemetery in Elmont Queens, in the shadow of Belmont Racetrack, I watched as his body was laid to rest next to Uncle Myron’s parents and his brother Elliot, who died of encephalitis at age 11. Elliot’s death was an exponential amplifier of the trauma and sense of loss and powerlessness engendered by his coming of age during the Holocaust. “He died in one day, and my sister Eleanor and I and my parents were totally unprepared. I don’t want to sound dramatic, but both Eleanor (his sister) and I have discussed whether we ever really got over it.
It was in the spiritual world where he found solace, or more precisely, solace in the search for meaning. Judaism, its writings, and its teaching offered to fill that void between a world that makes sense and one where sense is impossible. We cannot phantom pain, illness, death, and the loss of a loved one can never be comprehended. It is in our search for meaning in which each of us can imbue life with meaning and purpose. From another recent essay of his: “You may not find an “answer, but you will be comforted to know your question is real, authentic and Biblical.”
Thus, the Book of Job became Uncle Myron’s life travel guide and his constant companion. The death of Job’s ten children, the loss of all his belongings, and his infliction by a painful and disfiguring disease, are depicted as no more than a cruel bet between God and Satan. How else might one make sense of tragedy?
God’s answer, “You don’t”
Then the LORD replied to Job out of the tempest and said:
Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundations?
Speak if you have understanding׃
Do you know who fixed its dimensions
Or who measured it with a line? (Job 28 4-5)
Would
you impugn My justice?
Would you condemn Me that you may be right? (Job 40:8)
In the end, God restores Job’s wealth and favors him with seven sons and three daughters.
“Thus the LORD blessed the latter years of Job’s life more than the former.” (Job 42:12)
Afterward, Job lived one hundred and forty years to see four generations of sons and grandsons. (Job 42:16)
Uncle Myron is not quite 140 years old, but he has seen four generations of children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. Thus, the hundreds of photographs everywhere. The Lord has blessed the latter years of his life.
Uncle Myron lives in full awareness that his death nears. In our conversations, he questions whether he has truly made a difference in the lives of others. I speak to him of the thousands of men, women, children, and families who have learned from him and loved him. Of the thousands of Bar and Bat Mitzvahs, weddings, brises, and baby-namings. He scoffs at this, and he questions the lasting impact he has made. My answer is simple. “You held me on your lap during my bris, blessed me on my Bar Mitzvah, cried with me when we buried my father, married my wife and me, and chanted a prayer at my daughter’s wedding. You have been with me at every liminal moment in my life and then some. I have learned from you every day and continue to do so. If you question everything else, know the truly profound impact you have had on my life.”
Happy is he who grew up in Torah, whose labor is in Torah,
who gives pleasure to his Creator, who grew up with a good name, and who took leave of the world with a good name.
Uncle Myron, Rabbi Myron M. Fenster, passed away on Thursday, September 1, 2022, at the age of 95.
It probably should have been easier. The idea was simple; stop at my father’s (and grandparents’) gravesite on our way to LaGuardia Airport. According to Google Maps, Wellwood Cemetery is moments off the Southern State Parkway. Mark, the Philippine driver who was helping transport, shop, and provide light caring duties for my nonagenarian aunt and uncle, would drive us.
It is striking that, while I tend to forget the names of most places I visit infrequently, Wellwood remains entrenched in my consciousness. Having said that, every element, every moment, every image of those painful hours and days are etched in my memory. The elevator door opening to the hospital ward. “How long”, I asked, my Uncle Stuart. “Very soon” he responded. Walking into my father’s hospital room where he lay moaning in his delirium. Returning to the hospital the next morning to view his lifeless body before it was wheeled away. The queue of friends and acquaintances in the receiving room in the funeral parlor. Felix, the tall strong, African American foreman in my father’s spice factory, weeping during the service. The long, silent ride in the limousine and the long trail of cars navigating the narrow roads in the cemetery. Dropping the first shovel-full of dirt onto his casket – a strikingly painful and poignant gesture - as if I needed a greater sense of finality. The glass pitcher, cup, and hand towels sitting aside the front door. The dining room table laden with bagels, lox, a large urn of coffee, Entenmann's crumb cake.
It should have been easier to find the cemetery, it is, after all, on Wellwood Avenue. We had both Google Maps, a listing of the location of my father’s gravesite, and a cemetery plot map. The first Wellwood Cemetery we visited seemed wrong as it seemed too small, and the headstones did not match the ones I remembered from that day a half-century ago. We circled till we found the correct Wellwood Cemetery, only to find that all the gates were locked. And so, while Mark waited in the car, my wife Jo and I climbed over the low stone wall at the entrance and went searching for my father. Fifteen minutes of fruitless searching led us nowhere. It wasn’t until a cemetery worker drove by in his pickup truck that we were pointed in the right direction.
It was Jo who found it. “David, it’s here”. I ran over, and there it was, the plot stone with the “Walfish” etched into the marble; the name “Raphael”, written below, was hidden beneath the trimmed hedge. Three headstones Francis Walfish, Max Walfish, and Alvin Raphael lay at our feet.
In the Jewish tradition, Jo and I placed small stones on each headstone. We recited Kaddish. We stood silently for several minutes and then walked towards the gate, climbed over the stone wall, and drove off to LaGuardia Airport.
I don’t know why I had never visited the gravesite. Certainly, having lived away from New York for 42 of the 48 years since the unveiling of his headstone was a factor. But that leaves a minimum of six years of opportunity along with numerous visits to New York during those years.
It is a strange comparison, but perhaps it was for the same reason I never took psychotropic drugs in the years after my father's death. I was afraid of the images that would haunt me, of the memories that would come to life with malignant ferociously. The profound sadness, the abject fear, the deep-seated anger. All the hurt, all the regret. And perhaps, most frightening and painful, all the memories; each so deeply embedded in my soul.
But none of that happened. Instead, a sense of peace embraced me.
With Jo beside me, I reflected on my father’s passing in the context of the days of my life and my life as it is today. My family, my friends, and others I love. My life’s work. My beliefs and my values. My choices.
Along with thousands of other life moments, my father’s death made me who I am. I have been framed by both days in his presence and those in his absence. I do miss him, and I do think of him. I’d like to think that he would have been proud of me. I’d like to think that, somewhere, in some heavenly sphere, he is. A long time ago I wrote of his passing “Time does not heal all wounds; it is how you spend your time that heals wounds”. Perhaps that is right. I pray that I will never forget the painful days of this death and that they will always stand side by side with the joyful memories of his life.
When we view our sadness in the context of our joys, and our joys in the context of our sadness, both take on greater depth and relevance. The glass is both half empty and half full.
David Raphael 2021