Grandmother Rivka instilled Jewish values

By Dr. Moisey Wolf

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The following is the last of four excerpts from the memoirs of Dr. Moisey Wolf, who died in February of this year. Born in Warsaw in 1922 and a Portland resident from 1992, Dr. Wolf left behind a rich account of his childhood in Poland before the war, his experience of the war and its aftermath in the Soviet territory to which he had fled in 1939, his distinguished career as a psychiatrist in Moscow from 1955-1992, and his new life in America.

Dr. Judson Rosengrant, the translator and editor of the memoirs, has produced numerous publications in Russian language, history and culture. He lives in Portland.

Grandmother Rivka worked hard. She was occupied from early morning till late at night with household chores and with us. She washed us, dressed us, changed our clothing when necessary, and taught us common sense along with elementary morning prayers and the rules of hygiene. She did all the cooking and baking herself. She wouldn’t entrust it to Gentile women (“What if they touched the food with their non-Kosher hands or put something non-Kosher in it?”). Nor, when they came for a holiday rest, would she permit her daughters and my mother even to enter the kitchen. “You’ll get your chance soon enough,” she would say.

Grandmother Rivka started preparing for Shabbat Thursday evening. She set the dough to rise in a large wooden tub after lightly kneading it and got all the food and utentsils ready for dairy and meat and fish. Friday she rose at dawn to light the Russian stove and make an enormous number of onion and poppy-seed griddle cakes, which we would gobble down with gusto after dipping them in fresh sour cream. Her face wet with sweat, she would continue to work through the morning. Then exactly at noon, flushed and still clad in her sweaty work clothes, she would proceed to the bathhouse or mikve that Grandfather had built in the yard with his American brothers so that his mother Reiza and bride Rivka wouldn’t have far to go for their ritual baths in honor of Shabbat. After bathing, Grandmother would retire to her room to dress, eventually appearing before us completely transformed—a majestic queen in a magnificently tailored black silk dress trimmed with a snow-white collar and cuffs. Protruding from a cuff was the little handkerchief she used to wipe her tears during prayers and her heartfelt conversations with God. Resting on the the tip of her nose were her gold-framed Shabbat spectacles (so she could keep a sharp eye on us during prayers), while her head was covered with her elegantly coifed Shabbat black wig topped with a charming white lace cap.
   

Grandmother would then take a seat by the window, open her siddur or prayer book (often upside down, since she was nearly illiterate) and start to pray. Just as she had been taught as a child, she whispered in Hebrew the first memorized sentences of the siddur. Next in a prayerful tone came a heartfelt conversation with God in Yiddish: “God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, bless me, my husband, my children, and my grandchildren in honor of Holy Shabbat,” folllowed by her personal complaints to and accounts with the Omnipotent and Omnipresent. Grandmother conversed with Him in a sad sing-song as if speaking to a close friend or a relative. She repeated all the cares and worries she had accumulated over the preceding week and asked Him in what way she had sinned before Him, before “God the Just and Forgiving of all faults.” She wept, frequently beat her breast with her fist, begged forgiveness, and requested health for her husband, children, and grandchildren, naming each one of them. And then her requests would take the form of demands: “Dear God! You must help us! You must give us strength to serve You and endure all our troubles! Don’t put off your help till tomorrow. Send a full recovery to so and so! Give wisdom to my grandchildren, so they may follow in your ways, since that is what your slave Rivka asks of you! I believe, I believe forever!” And concluding the conversation, Grandmother would wipe her eyes and kiss the siddur. Then with a nod and a beckoning gesture with her index finger, she would call each of us over—each one of us holding his breath—kiss each of us on the forehead, and give each of us her blessing, while barely moving her lips. She would allow the other grandchildren to leave after that, but she always made me stay for an important errand.    
   
“Now,” she would say in a gentle voice, “let us go and perform our great mitsve (good deed). You will collect and distribute hallah for the poor.” She would then give me a large basket with three loaves of hallah and a list of five properous Jews from each of whom I was to obtain an additional loaf. “Then,” she would continue, “you will distribute the loaves to the poor using the other list,” and add by way of instruction, “Wrap each loaf in clean paper and place it on the porch or beside the door so that no one will see who brought it.”
   
Three questions about that procedure had long tormented me, and one day I could no longer restrain myself and timidly asked,”Grandmother, why am I the only one who has to carry out this mitsve every Friday?”
   
“Because you are the oldest and God Himself has chosen you. It is not acceptable among Jews to ask, ‘Why me and not another?’ A Jew must ask himself, “If not me, then who?’ And—imagine!—I understood and never again doubted that it was my duty.
   
“But Grandmother, why do I need to collect hallah from the other Jews? After all, we always have more after Shabbat than I collect from the others! Why can’t you just give me as much as will be needed?”
   
“Because,” Grandmother answered, “every Jew must perform this mitsve. And if someone should forget, then you will remind him.”
   
“But Grandmother, why do I need to place the hallah by the doors of the poor so that no one will see who brought it?”
   
“So that you will not shame or offend the one to whom it is given. Let him think that it is God who has sent him hallah for Shabbat.”

In November 2006 a committee was formed to promote and support the translation and publication of the memoirs of Dr. Moisey Wolf. If you would like a brochure about the project or more information, please contact Rosanne Royer, Project Coordinator, at 503.646.3717 or rosanneroyer@comcast.net.