LESSONS IN RESPECT

A Sermon for Rosh Hashanah

By Rabbi Dr. Reeve Robert Brenner

Jewish Chaplain NIH Clinical Center

Tonight I would like to tell you a story.  The story is about me. I invoke this prerogative having reached the age of 70.  Seventy, according to tradition, is the year you achieve wisdom, so everybody, I got me some wisdom. That means you have to pay attention. Some of you for the first time!

One story concerns how you treat your own father. It teaches how you treat your own parents.  And, the other concerns how you treat other living beings – all other life forms - with respect.  I see these as lessons about respect that I learned very young that have stayed with me as personal memories and today is yom hazikaron, the day of memories. And much of the feelings of love are obviously embedded in the bosom of these stories. Love in many instances converges with respect. But whether you love them or not at any given time, our tradition teaches always show respect and honor your parents.

The first story is when I’m about eight and the second story I believe I’m about nine but I may have this reversed.  

My great grandfather we knew as Zayde Blau.  He was my mothers’ mother’s father.  

Some of the salient facts about the man are relevant. During my childhood he lived around the block with his daughter, my grandmother, on 55th St. We lived on 54th Street in Borough Park, Brooklyn.  He would get up in the morning and walk around the block.  He’d have his Yiddish newspaper with him.  And more important than anything else, as far as I was concerned, he could be trusted to have a cache of rock candy in his handkerchief. This was this transparent, translucent sugar piece that he passed off on me, and treated me with, secretly as his great grandson, from the earliest time I can remember.  He did it in such a way as to smile and to be surreptitious so we kind of bonded a little bit at that.  

Now, where did he go everyday as an old, old man?  He was in his late eighties, early nineties and in those days that was like 120.  

Everyday he came to our front porch which had what we called a stoop: a series of steps leading up to our house. This stoop had five steps up to the porch and I mastered those steps with a rubber ball.  I mean I was able to throw that ball to the steps and retrieve it throwing it with pinpoint accuracy at the tapered ends of the stairs. I had assigned different valuations – different points for each of the projections of the steps - and voila a new game – 10 points - top step - caught cleanly and so on down the steps.

My Zayde might have tolerated the incessant bounces because he was hard of hearing; otherwise the relentless pounding of the Spaulding against porch steps might have driven him crazy, but all-in-all he put up with it and me.  He sat like a fixture. Like a bearded Buddha, in the shade of the porch on his favorite chair reading the Yiddish newspaper and hanging out with his great grandson little Reeve-ala. Later in life, I was told by my mother that he was always a near do well but he had a reason for being a loser. Here’s why.

Now, let’s go back in history to a period of time and a circumstance, which we hardly ever think about, but my Zayde was the living witness and victim of these times and circumstances.  This was the way that our grandparents were tortured by their circumstances.  The Cossacks needed an army and little boys as young as eight and nine years old were rounded up - conscripted and essentially, for most, it was a conscription that was a lifetime sentence of being in the non-volunteer army often fighting against Jews who were conscripted to the other side.  

There is a story told of a man who fired his weapon in the First World War toward the trench on the other side.  He hit the enemy and the enemy was a fellow Jew whom he then heard reciting the shma in his final moment.   And, the man threw his rifle away in revulsion and ran the other way and he adds he’s lucky that he wasn’t shot as a coward or a traitor.

Now just what was it that my great, great, great parents’ generation had to do when it became known that the little boys of the village were going to be swept up to the army and likely never be seen again?  

At the age of seven, all the boys were brought one by one into the kitchen - like into the professional office of the man called the “maimer” – the mazik, as he was known in Yiddish and in Hebrew. He set up his office and one-by-one the boys were taken by their trembling parents into his room -- shaking or shukling like a leaf or a Hasid davening.

Now, all the kids couldn’t be maimed alike because that would call attention to what was going on.  The community had to have some varieties of little boys maimed in ways that others were not. You couldn’t give it away or the maimer wouldn’t come back the next year or so.  For one little boy, it was his eye, another lad an ear and another, a toe.  Another, who knows what?  For my Zayde, it was his middle finger and on his right hand.  Unfortunately for him, another young boy had the better luck if he was a rightie to have his finger damaged on his left hand.  My Zayde was a rightie and that was the hand the maimer chose for his rather grizzly tasks.  The maimer knew which vein would double back the middle finger of my Zayde’s hand with the right surgical procedure, however primitive. He knew exactly which vein would be required to damage and to double back his middle finger.  Useless now, he couldn’t shoot a gun.  The truth is, he couldn’t do much else and not only because of his useless hand – the maimed hand - alone, but I believe, what with the life-long psychological impact it must have had, it explains a great deal about his life, such that it was – and perhaps his longevity.  

Now, that stoop in front of the house where my Zayde sat was my ball field as a child. It’s where I honed my athletic skills.  If you’ll permit a 70 yr old his boasts and bragging.

 Any free moment you can find me in my mini stadium: a piece of the garden on one side.  The other piece of the garden or front yard on the other and me between, facing the house and my Zayde, with the stoop in front of me and invariably without fail, there’s a ball in my hand.  Almost invariably it’s that pink Spaulding which I’m bouncing and trumping, bobbing and rolling, tossing and spinning and throwing - for accuracy, which is the challenge I enjoyed most. I loved to throw a ball and to strike whatever it was I was aiming at. And I persisted until I succeeded.  

So get the picture, I’m playing stoop ball.  I have a little pink ball in my hand.  My zeide is my great grandfather.  He’s sitting up on the porch reading the newspaper.  As is, nothing unusual about the scene. I lived it everyday for a long period of time.  

I was throwing the ball to the stoop, catching its rebound and doing the same for each step of the stoop. For hours. One day, my make believe game was over and just as I was about to start another game with make believe players, I looked down and what do I see but a stream of ants crossing from one garden on my left to the yard to my right.  I can see them in my minds eye right now walking across their path almost beneath my feet. And I start picking the ants off one by one with the Spaulding for the fun of it…to test my arm and my skill – thump, thump, squish, squash.

My Zayde spoke to me in Yiddish.  Only rarely and wearily did he throw a word or two in English that he had learned.  He didn’t learn many of English words.  He was extremely literate in Yiddish.  He devoured his Yiddish newspaper and Yiddish literature.  His language skills in English were never consciously developed.  His life, after all, consisted of coming around the block where he lived to take up his position on the porch with his Yiddish newspaper.

He’s reading his newspaper.  I’m killing ants.  My Zayde looks up from his newspaper and I see him lift his head and looks down at me from the perch of the porch and he watches me for a moment, just a moment and then rather sprightly I thought, he rose from his chair, Zayde’s chair, and calls out to me, “Reb Reeven,” – he didn’t know then that that has since become my email moniker – and his words came across as rather urgent from a man to whom urgency was rather alien.  So his voice aroused something in me.  It was a kind of an apprehension. Something is about to happen that may be important or serious; I thought or think I thought. That’s what his tone conveyed.  You might even be able to guess what happens next.  I was about to receive a lesson in “zaar baalay chaim” – “consideration for the distress of other living creatures” but of a certain different dimension.  A more sophisticated nuance of the meaning of the “consideration for the distress of other living creatures” which is what the mitzvah is all about.  This is what happens next.

At that point I still expected him to be addressing me in Yiddish, not in English, which I rarely heard from him.  He may have thought as he walked down the stairs in a slow paced but urgent manner, seeing that he already captured my attention, he may have thought that I’d remember the lesson that he was about to deliver better, more effectively, if it was delivered in English although he knew certainly that Yiddish was my first language.  

My Zayde came down those steps rather robustly as I remember it today.  He reached out to me and placed his hand on my shoulder very gently.  He looked down and pointed with his other hand and said words that have stayed with me all of my life since then.  He said, “Like you, they also have life. They are Baalei chayyim” (living creatures). Remember: like you they are the ‘owners of their lives’”. He didn’t have to say more.  I knew exactly what he meant.  The ants and I had something in common.  All living creatures and I share one thing -- life.  We are alive - living things. This can be said about all things living, human and non-human, the quick not the lifeless. After all, why don’t we Jews consume blood?  Why is it taboo? Why is it yich? Because it is life! Blood represents life. It is the symbol of life. A metonymy for life. And we are not to destroy life. Remember Frankenstein. In the movie, the defining moment was captured by the defining words: “It’s alive! It’s alive!”

My Zayde’s eyes asked the question that he did not articulate.  You understand? His eyes asked.  I didn’t answer. I nodded my head a few times and he nodded his head back to me a few times, his white beard bobbing up and down. I didn’t say what I thought which was, my gosh Zayde, like you and like me, we all share life.  We are all alive. A not so obvious, obvious insight. He didn’t have to use the words “respect other creatures”. He didn’t have to say - what I later understood – that we must save and treasure and respect even animals whose mental life bears no resemblance to our own. He didn’t have to. I understood. We are bonded with all creatures who share life with us. I realized that: for a short period of time, our lives criss-cross, our lives converge. Our lives intersect.  For but an instant – we share being alive.  I think I learned my respect for creatures, living animals, different species, from that moment.  I never thought of this as a great story, but I always thought of it as an important one.

Another important story:  one which I can truthfully say and remember that it helped shape my life, the first was respect for creatures; the other was respect for your elders, for loved ones of your family.

My father and his father would spend considerable time together in my presence while I was growing up. So I have a story of learning respect from the other side of the family as well.  

My father was one of five brothers and two sisters.  Three others died in infancy, or childhood. The last two were born in this country.  They were the two girls.  The five boys were born in Europe, Poland to be exact in the town of Czestachova.  My father was the next to the youngest.  My uncle Murray was the youngest of the boys and Aunt Anne was the youngest of the girls. Jack was a successful businessman, Harry was an accountant, Murray was a manufacturer and Ben, a Supreme Court Judge in New York and the head of the Brooklyn Liberal party for quite a bit of time in the City of New York.  And my father Abe, the most pious, a less than successful businessman – too ethical for the business world he was in - and probably the least affluent of the brothers and sisters; it is a long story.

Only my aunt Esther struggled as much as my father and his family. Nat and Esther’s son Jackie was my best friend. My grandfather lived a few blocks away, not around the block as did the other side of my family, my mother’s family.  But close enough so that my grandfather Mordecai was most often in my house for meals, for distraction and entertainment and to discuss his wardrobe which he took seriously. And as I later understood - to get a tricky hand-out of a few dollars. This is what my story is about.

This is how it worked. I understood it much later when my father, in a round about way, had me to understand what was actually going on, the real dynamics. My grandfather Mordecai would challenge his son Abraham, father of Reeve, to a game of casino.  It was a routine, without question every Wednesday night and sometimes twice a week.  He would come over, he would sit for a while, talk to us all and then before the evening was over, it occurred to my grandfather that he needed a few bucks and he would challenge my father to a game of casino for nickels and dimes.  That was small change then but not as small as it is today.  It amounted to a few dollars.

So my father and grandfather would sit down together at the kitchen table, and soon enough I would drift over and before too long, watching the game I came to grasp it and understood how to play.  Getting the most cards was very valuable -- worth three points … getting the most spades, one point, getting aces -- each one, a point - four points in all. Getting the deuce of spades was a point.  A red ten of diamonds seemed to be the jewel of the game, it was worth two points and it usually swept up a great number of cards to tip the scale of the game. Its worth was often about five points, if you count the cards and the two points for the ten of diamonds. Got it?  

My father would win a few games and lose a few games in the early part of the evening and it would see-saw back and forth. My grandfather focusing intensely on the game and playing very seriously.  My father would pay attention, but not with any real concentration.  He’d also talk to me about school and sports and my sisters. So they’d win and lose evenly for the first hour.  Then, just before it came time for my father to drive my grandfather home, my father began losing game after game.  And what I noticed most was how he played his ten of diamonds. I watched. I knew you didn’t do things like give up the opportunity of collecting the ten of diamonds, You could do it – and likely assure a win, by adding up a nine and a ace or by adding eight and a deuce, 7 & 3, and any combination that added up to ten.  But my father began to fade in the later innings.  He’d say, “Oh my, I couldn’t pick up the ten of diamonds again.  I didn’t play that well,” he would say to me. But I knew that he could have done so.  He was throwing the game or getting so careless that it was essentially the same thing.  I would mutter sometimes to him, “Dad.”  And he would say, “Uh huh, uh huh, yes, uh, huh, yes.” And my father would lose again.  

With glee (worth millions I now realize) my grandfather would sweep up the nickels and dimes in the middle of the pot and I’d strike my forehead, turn around slowly and walk off into the other room or to grab something from the fridge. It’s not that I cared who walked off with money – but to lose when you could’ve won…? Never! This would happen week after week. In fact, month after month, for a good part of my childhood years. Then I think I got it.  With a little help from my father. He said to me “when your father needs a few bucks, you don’t beat him in casino.”  Wooowh, does this mean what I think it meant, throwing the game? Was that fair, was that moral, was that ethical, games you play hard at.  Sports, card games, table games, you play to win, you don’t want to lose.  You don’t throw games and let your opponent win on purpose.  “On purpose?”  I asked, “On purpose?  On purpose, on purpose?” I’m this kid who hates to lose, who loves to play to win, who hates to give up without giving your best.  I’m not concerned about the money, why don’t you just give it to him.  But why do you want to lose a game you could win?  Grandpa needs money, give it to him.  Grandpa doesn’t ask and you don’t give it to him.  You let him win it. What’s going on?  My father looked at me in a very fatherly and kindly way and nodded his head and said, “It’s derekh eretz. It’s respect. It’s Kivud av ve ame…– honor your father and your mother…”  

“Oh,” I said to myself. “Of course. Now I get it.  He doesn't like to ask.  He is too proud to ask and my father finds a way to entertain his father, to pay attention to his needs and to enjoy his company playing cards with him, and also to pass on a few dollars that he needed, or wanted beyond his needs.”

Derekh eretz really means “the way of the land”.  But the way of the land is respect for your parents, not less in importance than any of the other Ten Commandments. But no question “kivud av ve ame” turned out to be a lesson of respect that has stayed with me and governed my behavior and values throughout my life.  Respect for living creatures and a special respect for your parents.  

The third ancestor I want to tell you about is one I never met.  In fact, I’m named for him. He was my mother’s father.  He was my grandmother’s first husband and only true love. He was in the Czar’s army but he was not a lifetime conscript; that age had passed.  He was merely serving his required service.  But right before Passover he took sick. But would not remain in the infirmary in the hospital barracks and miss Pesach, for which he had leave time. He came home to be with his young bride in just enough time to create my mother, just enough time to tell his young bride of his dreams of Zion, just enough time to tell how much he loved his new young bride, also all of 19-years-old, just enough time to see to it that I would one day come into the world, come into being, through this last home on leave, for love, just enough time for a final Pesach Seder. And then he was gone.  

His younger cousins moved to what was then Palestine and perhaps Reuven, my Zayde, would have followed them. One of my family members, Yosef Haim Brenner, living in Palestine, became one of the greatest Hebrew novelists of his time.  He was murdered in a massacre by the Arabs at the age of 40 in the 1920’s. He had a huge following having written some of the most powerful Hebrew novels.  He was often called the Hebrew James Joyce of the modern State of Israel.  And if you go to Israel today, every city has a Rechov Brenner; there is a Givot Brenner and a kibbutz Brenner, which is one of the strongest and most progressive kibbutzim in the country.

My own grandfather Reeven might very well have joined his other side of the family.    Another cousin of the family was the inventor of the International Language, Esperanto, Ludvig Zamenhof, who also has streets named for him in Israel.  

(The Universal International Language, Esperanto, was intended to further the prospects of world peace by giving everyone that second language universally. English has taken on that lingua franca function.)  

So Reeven, my grandfather, my Zayde on the other side died in his teens.  I have all of my life felt myself to be his reincarnation. I have always felt that.

There is an updated footnote to this story in my poem and that is, during the summer it was disclosed to one and all in the family that all three of my daughters, their husbands and children, my grandchildren, are all returning to live in Israel. Each one following the next, one family already there, the second close behind and the third soon will follow. That's the outcome of this poem and its applicability to the six generations from my own great grandfather Zayde Blau to my own grandchildren – Yarden, Mayan, Talia, Liam, Amit, Noam, Nadiv and soon, Matan.  And the conclusion and final proof must be that I have at last, at 70, thank God, acquired more than wisdom. I have also acquired fulfillment. Here is the poem:     

This poem serves as the conclusion of my talk and Rosh Hashanah message on respect for the living, for all life and for those who have gone before us.

NOTE: This talk is dedicated to my grandchildren Jordan, Mayan, Talia, Liam, Amit, Noam, Nadiv and Matan.  I’m writing this address for you to read sometime – when you become curious and interested in your roots.