Honoring mother By Galina Lembersky
Search for meaning in Pesach's past
As published in Jewish Advocate
Rabbiza entered my mother's apartment followed by a line of her children. She glowed like a challah roll just out of a hot oven. Her hands brushed against her round flowery bosom, the cloud of her hazelnut hair, the folds of her long skirts and the children tangled in them. "Rabbiz-a-a-a," my mother breezed out, drawing out the word and tasting every sound.
I could never remember the number of Rabbiza's children. Their shadows - masked in identical black frocks - overlapped, diving in their mother's skirts and reappearing, showing the accent of stark, pale faces. Their black hair under the patches of black silk tightly covered their heads like swimming caps. Braided ear locks of hair fell from their temples to their shoulders and hung like the shawl's braided cotton fringes from the pockets of their black trousers. Was it a children's masquerade? I was troubled by their braided ear locks, black frocks and the still pale faces with inky smudges of eyes. I did not know the reason for this masquerade. But I never asked.
Rabbiza sank into a chair. "This is Israeli matzah for your Pesach." Her pudgy hands placed a box on the table. The box was the size and shape of a Domino's Pizza delivery box. A drawing of some blue temples and a blue ornament was on the box cover. The temples resembled the synagogues on the poster my mother brought back nine years ago from her trip to Israel. The synagogues on that poster were almost white with a slight whisper of yellow. "Jerusalem" was written in different languages. "If I were to go anywhere again, it would only be to Israel." Mother's eyebrows took the shape of the synagogues' arches. I remembered the taste of the Leningrad matzah. Once a year mother bought a box of matzah in our only synagogue in Leningrad. I did not know what "matzah" meant. It quickly disappeared leaving an aftertaste of burnt bread crusts.
"Let's sing for you, Lucy," sparks flew from the Rabbiza's eyes. They encounter the wrinkled parchment of mother's skin and the violet circles around her eyes, and were engulfed in my mom's shimmering anticipation. Rabbiza sang. Her voice rose over the voices of her children. They sang something happy and rhythmic in an unknown language. I did not know the Jewish songs. "Lips ... pink fingernails ... fingers ..." I could not focus on mom's fingers. They bounced, hurrying after the rhythm in the song, beating the time ...
Black hat bowed over my cardigan. The hands holding the blade seemed lifeless in the black sleeves of his jacket. The plaits shyly peeked out from the pockets of his trousers. "Tear it now," he said. A piece of my cardigan was pounding against my knees, ankles, catching on my handbag.
There were several of them - all dressed in the same long black jackets as his, and with the plaits peeking out from their trousers. Pale faces with inky smudges. They muttered the words in that unknown language of my ancestors. I repeated after them, confusing the sounds. What is next? There has to be something next. What should I do for my mother now? "You should live the life she wanted you to," he said.
I wandered around the empty streets of town. The bulletin board announced "Mincha, Shabbat. Bar mitzvah ..." "Must be a synagogue," I thought. opened a door. The room looked like a lecture hall. A lectern stood way in front by the opposite wall, but it was turned facing the wall away from the benches. In place of a projection screen, there was an amber curtain that covered the center of the wall. The room was dark, except for a light on the curtain. "Kaddish," I checked myself. I had repeated this word since yesterday: "How can I find the synagogue where they say Kaddish? Is it what's left from mother?
A man in a white fringed scarf came. "I need to say Kaddish." I pronounced the last word slowly and loudly. "Sit down, people will come soon." He handed me a book with a worn cover. I took it with both hands. My parents did not talk to me about God. In school, we were taught that "there is no God." I went along the aisle toward the amber curtain, stepping from heel to toe, trying not to touch a wall or the benches. "People come to synagogue in search of lost objects," the Rabbi said.
Yellowing pages worn at the corners, read backwards. Strange letters, dancing stick figures, were on the right side. English was on the left. People began to gather. I heard voices behind me. Men wore the fringed white scarves with blue stripes along the edges. They spoke with each other like members of a family and sat down not together but separately, like a family at home - each at his usual place. One of them walked to the lectern. He turned around to face the curtain, his back towards us, and opened his book. He began to read aloud. Everyone read after him, each
from his book. "Kaddish, page 53," he said.
I heard the knock of the seats and jumped up. They read Kaddish. I followed them. I read the letters, missing words, falling behind, whispering so no one would hear me. The Kaddish ended quickly - a few words about God, blessing His name, and seeking peace for Israel. "Why there is nothing in it about my mother?" They read again, rustling the pages. I was guessing from their noise when to turn the pages and was looking back to catch up with them. "Where is written about my mother?"
I came the next morning, and the next, and the next. On Saturdays there were longer prayers and songs. They took out the scrolls of parchment from behind the lit curtain, unwrapped it like a baby, and read from it. The scrolls were called the Torah. Everyone went up to read a few words from it. The Amidah was read standing and twice - once in silence, everyone alone, then out loud and together. Their still bent figures and heads were covered in white. The wings of the white scarves barely moved during the prayers. The still white monuments. The sounds of their voices pounded against the walls, the ceiling and their tallitot ... "L'dor Va-dor L'dor Vador Nagid Gadlecha ..."