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Kaddish De Rabbanan
by Marjorie Stamm Rosenfeld
Grandfather Graybeard
ate a
three-minute egg each morning.
Looking like a guest just come in
with
his hat on,
he
blessed breakfast;
he
blessed the bread,
he
blessed the egg,
and
the giver of eggs--God.
Something always eluded him.
On its
way in
the
egg dripped and caught,
shone
viscous and yellow in the bristles of his beard,
a
bauble for children;
while
framed,
the
rabbis of every principal city in Russia--
the
Rabbi of Minsk and the Rabbi of Pinsk, for instance--
sat on
the wall like handwriting.
Grandfather walked down the hall
in his white underwear (with his head well covered)
or wore black broadcloth.
Sometimes he performed the penny-bestowing ceremony.
This was private and confidential.
Produced mysteriously from his pocket,
the gift of dull, thumbed copper
gleamed, winked at us from between fat fingers,
left off being common coin,
became a thing of value.
My
grandfather was a rabbi at sixteen,
who
had read Spinoza and discovered what was the matter with his mind,
who
had written a book on Genesis,
who
every Friday afternoon spent two hours in the bathroom
tearing paper for the whole family
so that the work of hands
might not sully the Sabbath.
In the
evening
we
stayed on the porch late,
watching the stars light up one by one
till
it was finally night.
And we
heard the breath of the house behind us,
hushed
and waiting,
saw
how, when he went in,
it
closed around him.
They
are all gone:
the
shtetls of Minsk and Pinsk, the Vilna yeshiva,
even
Chelm with its fools.
There
is no place now for old Jews.
Grandfather, my childhood lives
in
that fragile, broken shell in front of you.
"Kaddish
De Rabbanan" was first
published in Southwest Review.
Copyright © 2006-8 Museum of Family History
All rights reserved.
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