Hit Bononut: An Italian Childhood Among the Hasidim

“There were voices --
Thunder and lightning and a long blast of the shofar;
The mountain was covered in clouds and smoke.
On that day,
We saw the voices.

When you see voices
You never forget it as long as you live.”

from “Standing at Sinai”

 ____________________________________________

25 Tamuz 5732

     “Well he’s bad, bad Leroy Brown…baddest man in the whole damn town!”

     I’m bouncing a little pink Spalding ball (hereabouts known as a spaldeen) against the flaking grey steps of our row house, singing my nearly eight-year-old lungs out.  Sweat is running little rivers down my back, but it’s too early to go in the pool yet.  I wonder if I can invite someone in today.

     My mother comes out on the porch, and I begin to ask her if I can ask Honey to come in.  Honey Weiner, whose real name is Channi (converted for the convenience of the goyim who can’t pronounce the glottal ch), lives next door.  She is ten.  I know she probably can’t come in, because she isn’t allowed to wear a bathing suit in public.  I want to ask anyway.   Maybe she’ll still come over to play. 

     “What are you up to?” my mother asks.  Before I can answer, there is a sickening crash followed by a harrowing scream from next door.  Mrs. Weiner, Honey’s mother, flies out onto her balcony, dragging Eliezer, Channi’s brother, behind her.  They are both holding a bloody towel to his meaty mess of a hand.

     “Vey is mire!  Oy vey!” she wailed.  Then she called out to my mother, “Margie!  Margie!”

     My mother runs down the porch steps, “What happened?  Oh my God!”           

“Mein gott, he fell through the window!  Please can you take us to the hospital?  My husband is not home…”

     “Okay, okay,” my mother runs back toward the house to get her keys.  “Come down.  I’ll take you.”

     We scramble into our olive-green 1972 Satellite Sebring.  The Weiners sit in the back.  Eliezer has not uttered a sound.   With his uninjured hand, he twirls his payos and looks fretfully out the back window.  Mrs. Weiner speaks to her son in Yiddish, and thanks my mother over and over at frequent intervals. 

     I am puzzled.  How does she know my mother’s name?  Do they ever talk?  What else do they know about us? 

Adult Hasidim, especially the men in their voluminous black coats and brimmed black hats, seem to look through me.  When I see them on the street, they don’t say hello, don’t make eye contact, just rush by. They look either sad or serious or angry (I can never tell).  But they know us!  Why do they not let us know them?

     Weeks after the incident, when Eliezer has recovered, Honey and her mother arrive at our doorstep with a token of thanks.  It is a dress and a doll for me.  I want to ask her if we can be friends.  I want to ask her about her school – I know it is Shulamith School for Girls because I read the words on the back of her jacket.   But I say nothing.

 

“Saying that one kind word will soften every

insult uttered on the face of the earth. Doing

that one good deed will nullify all the evil

in the universe. Because the world is one,

and you are the world.”

based on the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe,

 Menachem Mendel Schneerson

15 Tishrei 5735

     I hear the rhythm of reverent voices, low and sweet.  They echo in the stillness of the October night.  Flickering shadows creep along the corrugated plastic walls of the makeshift hut that take up the entire balcony outside the living room of Spitzers’ apartment.  I know the whole family is huddled in there, that they will finish singing their prayers and stay there all night.   I stand in the darkened street, and look up at the third floor, wondering.

     I know it is Shavuot (pronounced shavoowiss by the thick-tongued Italians in my neighborhood).  I want to know more.  I want to see what it feels like to know a kind, loving, and compassionate god who only demands of humans to be like him.  To spend hours performing mimes of ancestors’ actions, hands moving as theirs have moved,  thoughts flying as theirs have flown.  All the time sure that the delight of an awesome deity rests in your own capable hands.  All lessons lead to the moment of veneration, and those moments come often.  What parallel experience could my watered-down, ashes-and-palms Roman Catholicism possibly provide?  I know the answer before I can even articulate it: not a one.

While we are busy planning which houses we’ll egg and chalk at Halloween, the Hasidic families in our Brooklyn neighborhood are preparing to praise their God in thanks for the grain harvest.  I personally had never seen a grain harvest, except on Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom.  But it is a living symbol to my Borough Park neighbors, who bear gratitude for the bounty of the Torah in their hearts.

Black-hatted men, cautiously-dressed women and hordes of children possess their shtetl - this neighborhood, eyes focused on something I can’t see, but want to.  There is something wise, something mysterious, something utterly other-worldly about these Lubavitch followers of the Ba’al Shem Tov.  It is in their midst I find the roots of my fascination with the divine and the mystical.  Their rituals, their gathering, their inviting the spirit of god daily into their midst impress the print of heaven on my soul.

“May songs of praise ever be upon your tongue
and your vision be on a straight path before you.
May your eyes shine with the light of holy words
and your face reflect the brightness of the heavens.
May your lips speak wisdom
and your fulfillment be in righteousness
even as you ever yearn to hear the words
of the Holy Ancient One of Old.”

from Talmud Berachot 17A

21 Iyyar 5738

      My face is buried in Thomas Tryon’s The Other.   I don’t so much read the words as devour them these days.  My mind is open and wants desperately to be filled with all the knowledge it can hold.  I have been sitting on the stoop since lunch, the warm spring sun on my face, reading. 

      My parents return from an afternoon function at church.  Uncle John and his friend, Jackie, are with them.  My parents head inside, and my uncle walks Jackie a few doors down the street to her apartment.    Once they have gone, the street becomes silent again.  I return to my reading.

Suddenly, I hear a single set of running feet, then a desperate voice shouts, “Gotteniu!  Help me!  Somebody!”  

My head snaps up.  I see Mr. Tischman, the jeweler who lives four houses up grappling for his jewelry case with a strange man.  My uncle sees the commotion and darts past, hurling his skinny body on top of the two men.  They all fall to the pavement, limbs flailing.

I jump to my feet and shout, “Daddy!  Daddy!”   My father has already heard the fracas.  He flies to the aid of Mr.Tischman and my uncle.  He leaps into the fray, and holds the man down.  All of them are yelling.  I can’t understand a word. 

A sea of black coats descend upon the scene like Caesar’s troops embarking on the Gauls.  Voices are voluble, hands gesticulate wildly.  There are at least four dozen angry Hassids, - pallid, unarmed and singularly fearless - clamoring to tear the thief limb from limb.  My father and uncle are lost in the swarm.  I am afraid they’ll be crushed, or worse – mistaken for the perpetrator. 

     Later, my father tells me, “This guy was trying to get up, and I told him if he didn’t stop, I’d leave him there alone.  And then they would kill him.”

Police from the 66^th Precinct show up and the mob evaporates.  They will materialize later at the stationhouse, demanding justice.  For now, things are quiet.  My mind turns the event over and over.  I know these people would have died helping Mr. Tischman.  They never hesitated for a moment.  Some of them do not even know him.

    I wish for myself – for my family – that kind of unbridled loyalty.

“When asked why his experiences during

the war had not embittered him, one

survivor said, I learned about friendship in

Auschwitz.  When I was cold, strangers

shielded me with their bodies from the

blowing winds, for they had nothing else

to offer but themselves.”

                                                                                    Arnost Lustig

15 Nisan 5740

     “Tell me you don’t think they’re freakin’ beautiful.”

I am sitting on my stoop.  My bespectacled, nihilist friend, Jeanne, sits beside me, a The Anarchist Cookbook open in her lap.  Jeanne sighs, looks up from her tome, and regards me seriously. 

“Yeah, maybe,” she allows.  “Hot, but very repressed.”

     “You think?”

“I know.”

     I continue to watch a gaggle of Hasidic women chat happily in the street.  They gather, as if their odd habit, in the middle of the street as if it is the most natural thing in the world to deter traffic.  Indeed, whenever a car cruises down our street, they step slowly aside, as if some other impetus compels them to do so.  Whether the car has to wait six or sixty seconds has no bearing on them. Their conversation is never interrupted.

I am focused on a woman of about eighteen.  She is a rare, wondrous jewel – blushing with health, full of vigor and life.  Her hair, thick and shining, cascades down her back in ringlets and curls.  Her emerald eyes shine with enthusiasm.  I know she must be intelligent – I fantasize that she is.  Years later, I will remember her comprehensively when Yentl’s Amy Irving portrays the young maiden, Hadass.

I don’t know why, but I know her name – Tova.  She is dressed in fine linen, a subdued mid-calf dress the color of wheat.  Her creamy skin is covered past the elbows. 

           

“Kovod bas melech p’nima­” – the glory of the

king’s daughter is within, our sages tell us. Tznius

is regal.  Tznius …allows her to externalize

fashions that suit her soul.  The soul requires

majesty.”

                                                                        from Around Sarah’s Table

                 

      She is my standard for feminine beauty.  This concept of tznius – Jewish modesty – has rides in my back pocket throughout my life.  Women of modesty, of self-respect, of sedate and refined nature draw me to them as a moth to flame.  I find an image of myself most clear when it is reflected in their eyes. 

Whenever I reach for a pen, the ink that flows describes women of this ilk.  There is always something quiet, something reserved and enigmatic about the female love interest of my protagonist.  She is always a shadow of Tova, a manifestation of gentle beauty I covet.  I cannot – I do not wish to – exterminate her.

                       

“Therefore, engage her first in conversation

that puts her heart and mind at ease and gladdens

her…Speak words which arouse her to passion,

union, love, desire and eros….Win her over with

words of graciousness and seductiveness…Hurry

not to arouse passion until her mood is ready.”

                                    

from The Epistle of Holiness

by Rabbi Moses benNahman

17 Av 5742

      “Moishe!  Moishe!”  Karl, our frenetic, overstressed neighbor, sticks his head out the living room window, and is calls to the third (and cutest) of his five sons.  Eleven-year-old Moishe, meanwhile, is bent gamely over his aged bicycle, trying to repair the chain for the tenth time at least. 

      “Yes, Tatte?” the boy responds, without looking up.

      “Moishe, it’s almost sundown.  Come daven Mincha.”

      “Okay, Tatte.”  He goes back to his bike.  Karl disappears into the window, not unlike a cuckoo into a clock.

      Minutes pass.  Moishe is covered in grease.  His yarmulke is askew, his clothes disheveled.  His tallit hangs dangerously close to the mess. The sun dips behind the peak of the house across the street.  Moishe works on.

The front door of their house flies open.  Karl appears.  I notice that the veins on his neck are pulsing.  I can tell he is trying to control himself, and failing miserably.  He growls, “Moishe!”

Moishe looks up this time, “Yes, Tatte?”

“We’re going to daven Mincha.   Come in now.”

“Okay, Tatte.” 

Karl disappears.  Moishe goes back to his bike.  He works more feverishly now.  I fold my arms, and lean against the fender of my Chevette.  I need to go in and eat, but this is too good to miss.

 The street is now more shadow than light.  Moshe moves to the basement steps, and looks at the bike from beneath – perhaps a new perspective will help.  His brother, Shia, walks out onto the porch and looks around.  He doesn’t see Moishe, so he goes inside to report to Karl.

Karl flies out onto the porch himself, screaming at the top of his lungs, “Moishe!”

Startled, Moishe answers, “Yes, Tatte?”

“Moishe, let me ask you a question,” Karl says calmly.

“Yes, Tatte?”

“Are you Jewish?”

Moishe looks confused, but answers quickly, “Yes.”

“Then come DAVEN!”

This time, Moishe follows him into the house, no doubt wondering whether tardiness to daven Mincha could result in excommunication. 

“The Jew has made a marvelous fight in this

world, in all the ages; and has done it with his

hands tied behind him.”

                                   Mark Twain

     I am the storyteller.  I wear a cloak woven with threads of the Brooklyn neighborhood that begat me.  I am the child raised by a village.  I retrace my steps, find my center, and feel it as much Hasidic as Italian.

     From my progenitors - my beloved family – I am blessed with strength, depth, wit, ardor and an innumerable host of intangible essentials.    This is my bountiful birthright.  By this, I am humbled.

From the Hasidic neighbors whose lives ebbed and flowed concurrent with mine - my chosen, personal precursors - I learned resiliency, selflessness, and awe for the divine.  This is a gift I did not deserve.  For this, I am grateful.