I begin this blog with a short story I wrote for my friends. That would be you. I will get around to explaining why I chose to call the blog "Kitchen Table Judaism, " but not just yet. Rafi
Cottage Cheese… One Percent
By Rafael Guber
For Tsender Gadaliawicz, waking up dead was very disconcerting. While he was regaining consciousness (If that is what they call it on the other side) he realized he was standing in a long line. In the distance there was a gate and an attendant. This attendant was turned pages in a large opened book which rested on a podium. The person at the head of the line and the attendant seemed to be involved in serious negotiations.
Podium might be the wrong word. It was more like the standing desks Tsender had seen when his wife Chani insisted that they take the children to Ellis Island during the school break. It also looked like the prayer stands which sprouted up like dandelions here and there in his Brooklyn synagogue. These tall angled platforms were designed to hold books while one stood in prayer and study. They were called “shtenders” in Yiddish – literally “stands” and they were back in style. Elaborate shtenders were prized and admired by the parishioner who had everything.
Clearly though, this was not an Ellis Island re-enactment. For one thing, the Nation Park Service employees who role played the Ellis Island officials of a by-gone era were not glowing, translucent apparitions. Also the actors on Ellis Island who played immigrants had faces. Tsender had also been able to tell if they were men or women. Here he only knew he was standing in a line. There were those in front of him and those behind him. He could see that much, but nothing more.
Tsender was hit with a wave of frustration. He said to himself, “You’d think “here”, they would have the line business worked out.” Next came a scary revelation. “If I am feeling frustrated and impatient, how could this be heaven – how could this be the next world? There is not supposed to be frustration in the next world. Maybe this is the line to the other place!”
He breathed (for lack of a better cliché) a sigh of relief. “This is, after all, only the line to get in. Maybe frustration and impatience are tests - part of the entrance exam. Maybe those feelings only go away when you pass through the gate. “
Still… he had no doubt that he was dead. He remembers being distracted talking on his cell phone to Chani and not watching as he crossed Flatbush Avenue
He was not only frustrated, he was angry at Chani. His wife did not quite get that he is, well was, a busy man. Every morning he hoped to get into work early to spend some time chatting up his boss. Every morning Chani handed him a grocery list as was he leaving for morning prayers. She needed him to pick up a few things in the store and bring them home before leaving for work. Apparently these few things would cause great hardship to his children if they were not securely in their lunch boxes before the school bus arrived. Why did she only remember in the morning?
As the line inched forward, he reminded himself that anger would probably not go over well with the glowing attendant in front of the shtender and he calmed himself down.
Until now, all was silent. Suddenly a thunderous noise echoed through the void. When he was able to focus he realized he was listening to the exuberant tones of Jewish wedding music. The endless line of faceless petitioners turned to face him. The glowing attendant leaned to the side to get a better view of Tsender. All eyes (or whatever) were staring at him - first his face and then the pocket of his suit jacket.
“It can’t be,” he thought. “It’s my cell phone.” Apparently his eleven years old son, Yossi, had down loaded yet another new ring tone without telling him.
“Hello”
“Tsender, I forgot the cottage cheese!”
“What?”
“Cottage cheese – one percent!”
“Chani, do you know that I am dead?”
“Tsender, I don’t have time for your jokes! Maybe I should call you Alec like they do at work and than you will take me more seriously! The school bus will be here in 15 minutes. Shari thinks she is gaining too much weight from eating bread and wants to take salad and cottage cheese. Remember cottage cheese – one percent!”
The phone went dead. The others faced forward and returned to their proper places on line.
Tsender did like being called Alec at work- Alec, not Alex. The name reminded him of one of the few movies he had seen as a child. While visiting his more modern cousins on Long Island , they watched “Bridge Over the River Kwai” on an old VCR. One of the stars was Alec Guinness, who played the officious colonel; a busy man with a mission and a riding crop. Alec was short for Alexander as was the Yiddish name Tsender. Tsender did not have the kind of bank account that could make him feel important. For Tsender, being frustrated and impatient all the time and looking like he had a sense of mission was a way of looking important. If you lived pay check to pay check, it was the best you could do.
Tsender was inching toward the translucent presence and finally reached the front of the line. His cell phone back in his jacket pocket and now on “vibrate,” the recently deceased Tsender Gadaliawiczl stood looking down at the golden Tstender and the huge book. For the first time since he arrived in this place the book was closed. He was getting ready to chat up the glowing apparition the way he had wanted to chat up his boss. He could not, however, manage to speak. He could only feel hot tears on his face.
He had been on a journey and now he arrived.
He would no longer sing with his children at the Shabbos table. He was planning to teach Ruchi how to tie her shoes. He wanted to keep learning Gemorah with his son Eli who was approaching his Bar Mitzvah. He would no longer work through the text of the entire Hebrew Bible with his gifted and brilliant daughter Bracha. He would no longer be able to tenderly hold his wife Chani and tell her how much he loved her. The glowing presence stared silently as Tsender’s tears fell upon the cover of the great book. The book opened itself to a page with the name Tsender Gadaliawicz printed in fire. The rest of the page was blank but tucked into a crease near the spine was a folded slip of paper. The attendant took the small folded slip and put it into Tsender’s hand.
________________
Chani ran the two blocks from their home when the call to Tsender ended abruptly. She heard the screech of tires and a loud bang. She knew that Tsender had attended a shiva minyan at the home of friends. He was leaving just when she called to add to the shopping list. She arrived just in time to see the ambulance driving away. A friend pulled her into a car and two women following the white van with the big red Jewish Star and the screaming siren.
“Is he … Is he…” Chani couldn’t get the words out.
“Chanele, I got here the same time as you did. Let’s get to the hospital. Let’s not talk. Just pray.”
When they arrived Tsender was being wheeled into the emergency room. Chani ran down the hallway chasing the gurney.
“It’s my husband!” Is he going to be alright?
“Please wait here and tell the nurse what happened.”
“I am not sure, I wasn’t there. Please I have to see him and she ran into the treatment room.
They let her go in, “Just for a minute Mrs. …”
“Gadaliawicz. He is Alexander Gedaliawicz. I am his wife Chana,”
“All right, Mrs. Gedaliawicz, just for a minute.”
Tsender opened his eyes just long enough to see Chani’s tearful face. The doctors thought her strange pleadings indicated she might be in shock. She whispered through her tears “Tsender don’t die please. We can do the shopping list together at night. I will even do all shopping myself don’t die!!”
Just before the morphine drip kicked in Tsender managed to say, “Chani I love shopping for you and the children.”
They were switching Tsender’s oxygen masks and Chani reached over to squeeze his hand. His clinched fist began to open under the effects of the morphine. Resting in his palm was a small crumbled slip of paper. It was the shopping list she had written and handed him in the morning. At the bottom, written in Tsender’s distracted scrawl were the words, “cottage cheese 1%. “
Glossary of Terms
Gemorah - This is actually part of the great corpus of Jewish knowledge known as the Talmud. It is the commentary written in Aramaic on the Hebrew codification of the Mishnah – originally the oral law. Orthodox Jews believe that the Mishnah was orally transmitted to us by God at Mount Sinai and during our 40 year sojourn in the wilderness. It is inseparable as a matter of importance and faith from the written law known as the Torah or Chumash or the Five Books of Moses. The Mishnah although originally transmitted orally was, prior to the addition of the Gemorah, put in writing to make sure it was preserved. Gemorah in the vocabulary of Orthodox Jews is actually a reference to both Mishnah and Gemorah as well select commentaries added throughout the generations.
Mourner’s Kadish – One of the many forms of the Kadish prayer, mourner’s Kadish is associated with remembering those who are departed and is said during the mourning period and at other specific times thereafter. Also written in Aramaic, is contains no actual references to mourning or death.
Shabbos – The way many Jews of European ancestry pronounce the word Shabbat or Sabbath in English.
Shiva – comes from the Hebrew word for seven and corresponds to the seven days of mourning immediately following the funeral.
Shiva Chairs – It is customary for mourners to sit on low chairs or stools during these seven initial days of mourning.
Shtender – Yiddish for Prayer Stand
Tefillin – known as phylacteries in English they are, according to Jewish law the prayers straps attached to leather boxes which contain biblical passages and are worn by men. They are first put on by young men when they become Bar Mitzvah. One part goes on around either the right or left arm (never both) and the other is placed on the head. After the first time they are worn Shacharit or morning (not to be confused with mourning) prayers, they are worn every morning thereafter with the exception of the Sabbath, Jewish Holidays and for short period during the mourning process prior to burial of a deceased relative.
Tsender – The Yiddish diminutive for Alexander. Alexander became a popular and common Jewish name, honoring Alexander the Great who chose not to destroy the Temple in Jerusalem
