BOOK 1: FIVE MINUTES TO FIVE

Chapter 1

That which was without beginning
or without end,
contains all within it.
Each and every living being is an end
of a ray of life and light
focused in mortality.
All things impress upon him
from the Great External.
Man is but a center,
not the circumference.

My place of birth is a small town called Bodrogkeresztur, nestled in a mountainous region of Hungary called Tokay. The town was named for the River Bodrog which flows into the second largest river in Hungary, the Tisza.

Picture a scene from “Fiddler on the Roof ” and you will have a snapshot of where I was born and raised. Roads were not paved when I was a child in the 1920s. Indoor electricity and plumbing were unknown to the townspeople except for a few wealthy families. Many families kept chickens, ducks, and geese in their yards. I do not remember the noise and the stench as being unpleasant; it just was. This was my home.

My father, Louis Zsigmond, was born in Transylvania. He served in the twenty-first Transylvanian Army that moved westward during World War I while fighting against the Romanian army. When the army reached Bodrogkeresztur, my father stayed behind and was captured by the Romanians. He was held prisoner in the local schoolhouse that I would later attend as a student. When the Romanians retreated, they left my father behind. He met my mother and they married in September 1919. My father never thought to apply for Hungarian citizenship. In his mind, he was a Hungarian.

My father was a slender, very handsome man. The pictures I saw of him as a soldier provided proof of his good looks. People called him Lajos. My mother, Ida, was beautiful. Her own mother had died giving birth to her, and her father, Herman Deutsch, had emigrated to the United States in the early years of the century along with her brothers, Moritz and Simon. My mother was raised by her mother’s sister, Betty, and by Betty’s husband, Sandor Fuchs. She became known as Ida Fuchs. As Betty grew older, my mother felt she could not leave her to join her father and brothers in the United States. She decided to stay in Hungary to take care of her aunt. Betty lived with my parents when they married, and she was the only grandmother I knew.

My mother often told her children about her childhood days with her father and brothers. She especially liked to reminisce about her brother Simon. She felt a special bond with Simon, and I heard stories about him frequently during my lifetime. Her favorite story was about sitting in a wagon harnessed to a large white dog that Simon would lead down the sidewalk in front of their home. She recited this story whenever she missed her brother, or when letters from her family in the United States were sparse. She told us how our grandfather Herman worked in the stone quarries, overseeing the cutting and selling of stones and shipping them to all parts of the country for monuments and cemetery headstones. He worked hard for a living.

I was born on July 4, 1920. I was my parents’ firstborn and was named after Betty’s husband Sandor—in Hebrew, “Shalom,” meaning peace. Everyone called Uncle Sandor by the name Shandy Bátchy, a term of endearment. Later I would learn that Shandy Bátchy’s brothers helped establish 20th Century Fox Studios, but I never knew them. Simon and Moritz were in constant touch with the Fox brothers until their death in 1952. They kept this knowledge from my mother, fearing that she might try to “touch” them for financial aid.

Shandy Bátchy died after an encounter with a snake. The folks of our town, Christians and Jews alike, believed that every person’s spirit is in kinship with an animal. When that animal is hurt, the person with whom it shares kinship is also hurt. One day, a white snake slithered into Shandy Bátchy’s yard. He took an ax and killed the snake. When the snake died, Shandy suffered a heart attack and died the following day. It was likely due to exertion, but this is the story that people told.

In April 1922, my mother gave birth to my sister Sara. She was a sickly child from the beginning, and remained so most of her life.

My father had no formal education. He inherited a tavern from Shandy Bátchy. The men returning from work in the fields or the stone quarries would stop in to have a drink before they went home. It should have been a profitable business—and it was for the Fuchs—but my father had two handicaps. First, he had a short temper, which is a drawback for a tavern keeper. Second, he did not enjoy alcoholic beverages himself, and he did not like to see his customers get drunk, so he never tried very hard to sell his drinks. After a few unsuccessful years, my father was forced to give up the tavern. Grandmother Betty never forgave him for the loss.

My grandfather Mendel, my father’s father, had several children. My father was the oldest and only living son. His younger brother, Zelig, died young of an unknown cause. He also had three sisters: Piroska, Aranka, and Yolánka. I later met my Aunt Piroska, or Piri, in 1935 in Budapest, and Aranka in Israel after the war. Yolánka, the youngest, died in the 1920s.

My mother did not have kind words about Mendel’s wife, but she did like all of my father’s sisters. Mendel would tell my mother stories of his own childhood and accepted her as if she were his own. My mother told me that my grandfather Mendel had been a good and kind man who worked as an estate manager for a wealthy landowner. His family’s name was Hirsh, but he had to Hungarianize his name to hold on to his job, so he changed it to Zsigmond. (Later, when I came to the United States, I dropped the Z.)

Mendel’s earnings were not sufficient to raise a family, which led to difficulties for my father. When my father was in the mood to reminisce, his face relaxed and he gazed into the distance. I listened intently. His words were slow and deliberate, as if he wanted to impress something on my memory.

“I lived with my father’s brother. I served as an apprentice in exchange for my room and board.” He took a deep breath before continuing. It was more of a release of pain than anything else. Then, with a proud smile on his bearded face, he said, “Later, I became a full-fledged clerk.”

“How long did you stay with your uncle?” I asked.

“Until I was taken into the army in 1917,” was his reply.

“How did you feel working for your uncle?”

“It was a humiliating experience.”

“Why?”

“I was referred to as the son of a poor brother.”

“How much money did you earn?”

“I never saw a penny of it. They paid for my clothes out of my wages and deducted the rest for my food and room.”

“Did you ever visit your parents and family?”

“On Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.” Then he explained, “These two days are the most holy days for all Jews throughout the world. It is a time for introspection, a review of the year, and preparation for repentance. It is customary to visit parents and the graves of relatives to sanctify their lives and gain inspiration for the coming year. It is tradition to celebrate the remembrance of the birth of the world, which is based on the first word in Genesis: ‘Rashit.’ When the letters are rearranged, it reads, ‘A’Btishri.’ The First of Tishri, God began to create the Heaven and Earth.”

Then I asked, “Where did your parents live?”

“Temesvár, or Timisuare, as it is called in Romania.”

“In what town was your uncle’s store?”

“Arad.”

When I looked into his face, into his hazel green eyes, I became aware of his pain in remembering a lost childhood without his sisters and younger brother. I felt keenly that he had missed a father’s and mother’s embrace. But in those days children worked for their upkeep, and my father had been no exception.

Mother and I would visit the grave of her mother before the holy days. We walked up a very large hill through the center of town. We had to pass between the Catholic church and the Serbian church. There was no other way to go. When we reached the cemetery, many from the community were there praying and crying. Some women had veils covering their faces. My mother wore a babushka on her head and long sleeves over her arms so that men would not touch her bare arms by accident.

She found her mother’s grave by instinct, unaware that the stone was weather-beaten and the name Sara Deutsch was barely visible. She prayed over the grave for help for us to leave Hungary and for an easier life. While she prayed, I visited the graves of the rabbis who had a special tomb nearby. I lit a candle and wrote a note to each of them. I too asked for help for my parents and help for the community in which I lived. I wondered, with all those candles burning, why the wooden covering over the graves did not catch fire.

When we finished, I read the names on the headstones to see how many there were, and if I remembered any of those who were sleeping there. On the way home, we threw straw or grass over our shoulders, a sign of goodbye to the souls we left behind. I felt sad for not having known my mother’s mother or any of my grandparents as you knew yours, Sue.

On the rare occasions that I sat with my father, I felt warm inside. I felt close to him. This feeling of closeness was indeed rare. Even though he kissed me from time to time, I felt he could not give more of himself than what he had inside. My father was a self-educated man. He was good at mathematics. He read only religious books and Yiddish (Jewish) writers, including stories by Shalom Aleichem. He also read the Hungarian newspapers. He kept himself informed about current events. I, on the other hand, liked history, especially ancient history. I thirsted for knowledge. I loved my father, but I could not get close to him. I could never please him, no matter what I did. He berated all of us. This was very painful. The feeling of his joy in me was never there. In its place was the emotion of wanting, of needing approval. I reasoned that no one had been there for him, to approve of him, when he was growing up. But I felt that he could have tried. So at these moments when he let himself go, he was a father. He was my father, and I knew that I loved him.

My grandmother Betty was my beloved Fuchs Bábi, Bábi meaning grandmother (“Bubbi” in Yiddish). In my memory she wears a long dress that covers her ankles and buttons up to her chin. Lace adorns her collar and sleeves. She was five feet tall, slim, and a force to be reckoned with.

Christians and Jews alike loved Fuchs Bábi. She lived in Bodrogkeresztur ever since she married Shandy as a young woman in the 1850s. The Jewish population there was growing but small, and their livelihood depended on trade with the Christian families in town. She and Shandy had many Christian friends.

Betty was involved in the charitable organizations of the Christian community, besides being active in the Jewish community’s charities. In the prime of her life she helped everyone she could. She gave food, clothing, and money to anyone in need. She took firewood to those who could not buy it for themselves and left it by the door during the night when no one would know who left it.

I too had as many Christian friends as Jewish ones. The townspeople depended on one another. Those who worked in the stone quarries or in the fields for Count Eszterházi needed the Jewish community in their daily activity as much as the Jewish population needed them.

The township was governed primarily by the Christian elders. The public school, which taught kindergarten to sixth grade, was administered by the County Zemplain. The nearest high school was in Tokay, the wine-growing area seven kilometers south of my town. I could only dream of going to high school. In my heart I knew that I could never attend; we could not afford it. Education was not meant for me in our economic condition. But even if my father could have afforded to send me, in this part of Hungary it would have been almost impossible, because I was Jewish. I could dream. Dreaming even I could afford. All I had to do was close my eyes, and I was anybody I wished to be. Wishing, however, was painful and unrealistic.

The house we shared was Fuchs Bábi’s. The house was located on the main street of our village, on the road that led in and out of town. To the south the road led to Tokay; to the north, the stone quarries; to the east, Ujhey; and to the west, Budapest. My father could not afford his own house. When he could not make a living as a bartender. He did everything else he could. He bought chickens, ducks, and geese and shipped them live to the market in Budapest. He crated and shipped eggs. But business was very unstable. When things were right he felt good, but when things were not as he expected them to be his temper got hold of him.

My mother was the main target for his anger. My father was mostly a good man and did his best for his family, but patience was not his virtue. I prayed that when I grew up I would not be such an angry person as he often was. He never hit my mother, but he hurt with words. It hurt me deeply to hear my mother so abused. Sometimes she cried into the night. She often told us that she regretted the day she married our father. But divorce was out of the question. What would the townsfolk say? Besides, my mother had no profession. A woman, especially a Jewish woman with a fine upbringing, was not allowed to seek employment. It would have been a shande, a shame on the family name. So she stayed married “for the sake of the children,” so she said often, much too often when things were not going right.

I was aware of my father’s moods, and I tried to stay away from him whenever he was yelling for some reason or another. I was the one he slapped if I happened to be nearby. I loved him, but I did not understand him. He never spoke about what was troubling him, and he never confided in anyone. Instead he read his religious books, but he never learned the real meaning these conveyed. Only when he reached old age did his moods become less severe, his temper less visible.

It is said that it is wise to forget certain events in life. It is said to be wise to forget all hurtful memories so that only the good ones are remembered. But I cannot let go of one scene from my distant memory. One bright afternoon, my beloved Fuchs Bábi, a vigorous 94-year-old, stood in her nightgown at the door of our kitchen that led to the yard. She and my father were exchanging bitter words. She harshly accused him of losing the family business. Now they were about to lose her house. She could not hide her disdain. My father’s face grew red and his angry eyes grew dark. He lashed back with even harsher words and body language meant to intimidate her. My grandmother, who never backed down from any challenge, was scared and shaken. My mother came running to make peace, but it was too late. I had witnessed my father break my grandmother’s strong spirit.

When a person’s spirit is broken it is difficult to reclaim it, and illness follows as a consequence. If one is fortunate and able to forgive oneself and others, healing for the body and spirit may follow. This was not to be. My grandmother was soon bedridden and remained so until she died four years later. During those years I helped care for Fuchs Bábi as much as I could. One of my jobs was to empty her chamber pot. I did not consider it a hardship if it helped give her some comfort.

On March 10, 1930, the tenth of Adar in the Jewish calendar, my mother went into Fuchs Bábi’s bedroom to see how she was doing. Just the day before, some visitors had stopped by and brought some sweets that they had baked for her. Grandmother had been unusually cheerful, chatting and joking with the ladies.

“Shanyka,” I heard my mother’s voice calling me. “Come here and help me change the sheets on your grandmother’s bed.” I came into the room and my mother said to me, “She is dying.”

I looked at my grandmother. She was not pale, but white, as if a white fog had descended on her. She was breathing deep breaths that sounded to me as if she were choking. This was the breath of a dying person.

Mother asked me to lift Fuchs Bábi up in bed so she could make her last hours more comfortable. I was strong for my age. When I lifted my grandmother, I felt an electric current shoot throughout my body and around the entire room. Then I noticed a cloudlike beam emanating from her head and filling all of the bedroom. I remembered at that moment what my rabbi had so often said to me during my studies: “The spirit and soul of each human being says goodbye to the physical body, the guff. It begins at the feet until it reaches the head, and then it leaves.” I was witnessing for the first time the exit of the spirit and soul from a person who was good and kind. I did not fear the Malach Hamoveth, the angel of death.

It was early evening when Fuchs Bábi finally left. I was told to stand guard over her. We lifted her frail body off the bed and placed her on the floor. We lit two candles and placed them near her head. The candles alone lit the room and the body, as we had no electricity in our house.

As I watched over her, I was alone with my thoughts. I remembered how good she had been to me; how she had made me laugh; how she protected me from my father’s whipping hand. Now I could guard her body so that no evil spirit, or “shed,” would enter her. This tradition of guarding the body from the world’s evil before burial continues today in the Orthodox Jewish community. I stayed there until 10 o’clock, when my father took over the watch.

The next morning, the ladies from the Hevra Kadisha, the burial committee, came to prepare my grandmother’s body according to Jewish law. She was buried the same day. My family could not afford to pay for a headstone, though later in my life I was able to give her a memorial, a perpetual remembrance in Jerusalem at the Hadassah hospital. That evening we sat shiva for her, and I told my parents about my experience when Fuchs Bábi lay dying. They said that I had been given the gift of a navi, a prophet.

The Grand Rabbi, “Shayele” Steiner, had said the same thing about me during my brith, or circumcision. (The brith signifies that Jewish males are connected through the covenant with God and all of Israel. In Christianity, a baptism carries the same symbolism.) My parents’ remark did not impress me, though, for as the Grand Rabbi used to say, “Any fool can be a navi, but not everyone can attain the gift of wisdom. One must earn wisdom through kindness, love, and self sacrifice, for the welfare of all.”

My rabbi was a wise and a humble man. He understood human nature. His house was open at all times to all persons needing help, a meal, or sleep. He counseled those who were troubled at heart. People from all walks of life, far and near, Jewish and Christian, came to him for advice. Both the high and the lowly were treated equally by him. He was not a scholar of the Talmud but a man of God, and he was there for the people. His gift was a gift of love. I still have a picture of him which reminds me of the good feelings I felt inside when I saw him during my childhood.

The Grand Rabbi’s words bore themselves out over the course of my life. Since the death of my grandmother Betty, I began to see and feel the aura of people, plants, and especially animals, which I was forever dragging home to my parents. When I went to visit the sick (bikur cholim), I saw shapes and forms around them. When the aura or current was whitish, and the person was pale and clammy looking, I knew that the spirit of that person was separating from the guff, the body. I knew by instinct that no amount of prayer would keep the spirit from leaving and no medication could force the spirit to stay.

This knowing, this gift, was not something I could turn on and off. It was not subject to my youthful will or mind. It was operating by the will and presence of the Almighty or by those whom I was instructed to call Shomer Yisrael, Guardian of Israel; Shomer Nishmuth, Guardian of the Soul; and Shomer Olmim, Guardian of the World. Only the Almighty can open the eyes and ears of a person’s spirit, and a person must use it for a good purpose, for the good of all. This gift teaches one to live each day in the present and to be forgiving. I always felt a presence around me when given the opportunity to witness a person’s final moments, or when I was asked by someone to put my hands upon them because it made them feel good. My rabbi urged me to become a roffe, a healer. He told me, “Your hands are blessed.”

My reply was, “Rabbi Samuel, is it not written in the eighteenth benediction, ‘Heal us O Lord, and we shall be healed; help us and we shall be helped’? No man can heal another man. Healing comes from God, who dwells in each person’s soul.”

“Yes, Shalom, but we are all his expressions, and his mouthpiece. Healing comes through the living from one person to another, from living plant or animal to us all. The whole visible universe is the expression of that one presence that is always there when called upon.”

He gave me something to think about for a lifetime.

Later that year, this understanding was made real to me. In July, a few days after Sheva Aser BeTamuz, the seventeenth day of Tamuz, a fast day, my father returned from his travels buying and selling poultry in the great plains of Hungary, and he was very ill. The town physician, Dr. Kahn, came to see him. Dr. Kahn was a tall man with a ruddy complexion and eyes set deep in their sockets. He wore brown boots and a sports jacket. He was well versed in Talmudic lore. His wife was my mother’s best friend, and their son, Tibor, was a friend of mine—a nice kid but none too sharp, whom I tutored during grade school.

My father was bleeding from the intestines. Dr. Kahn gave him all kinds of medications to stop the bleeding, and sent a stool specimen to the nearest hospital, which was about 100 kilometers from our town. All we could do was wait. Meanwhile my father grew weaker and weaker. He did not have cholera, typhus, or ulcerated colitis. The doctor was at a loss. By the end of August we were out of money. We lived off the garden and a few eggs from the chickens in the barn. I had to go to the shul (synagogue), most Jewish men in my town went in the morning and evening, and ask the shamus to help me collect some money from the community so we could buy food.

The shamus was a kind man. His bearded face always showed a thoughtful person. He wore a long gray coat and a vest. A long silver chain hung from his vest pocket, and on the end of the chain was a watch, which he used frequently to tell the congregation when it was time to begin prayer. Two of his younger sons went to school with me.

The shamus went around the shul with a special pushke, a metal cup, to collect money for my family. I noticed how one by one the congregation’s eyes turned toward me, as if they saw me for the first time. I felt my stomach sink and I began to sweat. The hairs on my back felt prickly and cold and my throat tightened. I did not know if I could face these people again or play with their sons without their hands pointing a finger at me. I was in no position to earn a living. Learning humility at an early age can be deemed a privilege—or so the mind can rationalize—but in the depth of your being, where feelings reign, the rationality of the mind is not acknowledged. My rabbi Samuel hammered home to me and all the children: “Feelings shape one’s life and build the human body. Thoughts are easily forgotten. Words are seldom remembered. But feelings are forever, for good or for evil; the choice is up to the person.”

I was ashamed before everyone because I had to beg, but I did it. But then I made a big mistake: I took eight filler, about eight cents, to buy a small chocolate bar to take home for my father, thinking it would help his intestines. I was wrong, and the community chastised me for buying the candy bar. I was deeply ashamed. The pain that shame caused me stayed with me all my adult life. Since then, I have forgiven myself for that act. I had to realize that it was I who created the pain and not the community. Remembering helps me heal. To recall a pain or deep hurt repeatedly is to rob oneself of vitality needed by the body and the spirit. But to recall in order to forgive—remembering and releasing the pain or hurt—restores that vitality, and then healing begins. My rabbi Samuel had instructed us in the second commandment: “You shall have no foreign gods before me.” This teaches us not to worship pain, hurt, anger, shame, or anything that will make the spirit ill. To make oneself ill by holding on to these “gods” is a sin.

One afternoon, my father turned strangely pale. He had no strength. He was in a comatose state. My mother called the doctor and the rabbi to prepare my father for dying. The doctor came and said that all had been done to help him physically; he could do no more. The rabbi said the customary prayer and departed. The prayer he recited for the dying is the same one said at the conclusion of Yom Kippur: “Adonai Hu Alohim,” the Lord is God. He repeated it seven times. Then he said “Shema Yisrael,” Israel the Lord our God is one God, followed by “Blessed is His kingdom forever.”

My mother was crying loudly at his bed and my sister, who was seven years old, cried as well. The headboard was on the north wall and I stood at the foot of the bed so I could surreptitiously gaze at my father to see if there was a cloud over him. With a sigh of relief, I did not see one. I told my mother that my father’s crisis had passed and that by morning he would be better and would recover. He did, and he lived to the age of 80.

When my father lost the tavern, my grandmother Betty was forced to sell her house to a man named Mishka Freedman. He was one of four sons from a family of bakers. One of his brothers and his father were in the bakery business on the south side of town, and Mishka lived next door to us in the center of town. There was a clause in the sales agreement that all of us could live in the house while Betty lived. When she died, we had to move. We found a house that was partitioned in two. The back part of the house was rented to a man named Winkler, a man in his forties who recently married a woman who was but a child compared to him. Winkler made his living driving a buggy to the railroad station and to Tokay and other towns.

The front part of the house consisted of a bedroom and a kitchen. I slept in the kitchen on a cot and my mother, father, and sister slept in the bedroom. The floor of the bedroom was made of wide boards which had to be washed frequently during the week. On Fridays and Sundays I would go to the market to buy a few chickens and then sell them for a small profit to someone for the Sabbath. If I could not sell them that week, I peddled them at Tarcal, the nearest village.

During our stay in this new home, my father did his best to make ends meet. For breakfast we usually had a slice of toast and coffee, made mostly of chicory, with a little saccharine. Saccharine was a poor man’s substitute for sugar; it was illegal but could be bought on the black market. Lunch was the big meal: lentil soup, bread, corn when we had it, blintzes or borscht, or cabbage and beans. On Sabbath we had meat and cholent (beans) and occasionally some sweets that my mother baked on Friday. During these poor years, my mother never closed the door to anyone who needed a meal. She always managed an extra plate for someone at the table.

When our money situation became very bad, my mother asked me to go to her aunt who lived in Nyiredhaza, a large city east of the River Tisza. She had many relatives there—uncles, aunts, and cousins. The aunt she wanted me to visit was named Ida, her mother’s youngest sister who shared my mother’s name. “Sanyka,” said my mother as I stood before her, “You have to go to Nyiredhaza to see my aunt Ida and ask her to help us. Tell her that your father cannot do heavy work and there is no one to help us.” Her voice shook as she spoke to me. She held back her tears. Never did my mother think that she would have to taste so deeply of the cup of bitterness. It was not even Pesach, Passover, the Jewish holiday that celebrates freedom but remembers the bitterness felt by the Jews when they were slaves in the land of Egypt. She continued, “Tell her we cannot pay rent and her help would be greatly welcomed.”

“Do you think, mother, that she will listen to me?”

“If anyone can reach her heart, you alone can.”

“What makes you think so?”

“Because God has been with you always, and she could not refuse a child.”

I agreed to go. I was eleven years old. The train fare was not much: fifty filler. I walked the seven-and-a-half kilometers to Tokay. I walked barefoot to save my shoes. I wore a clean shirt; my knee-high pants were patched but clean. I tucked the fringes on my small tallith, or prayer vest, that I wore over my shirt into my pants so that they would not hang out. A large tallith made of wool, cotton, or silk is worn by every man in synagogue, rich or poor; a small one is worn daily under the garment as a reminder of the 613 commandments or moral obligations that each person has toward his fellow man in recognition of the moral authority of God.

When I arrived at the station I put my shoes on my bare feet, bought my ticket, and boarded the train. In one sense I was elated to go to the big city, but at the same time I was fearful of the outcome and of what might be said to me.

I arrived early in the morning. I had only a few hours in which to make my case before my great aunt. My country-boy eyes opened wide at the sights and sounds of a busy city. I walked from the train station to Aunt Ida’s home, asking for directions as I went. People were helpful. After about one hour, I found the street and her house. I felt my throat closing as I approached. She lived in a beautiful mansion in the best part of town. Her house was surrounded with an iron fence. Inside the fence was a beautiful garden filled with flowers, statues, and fountains. I knocked on the gate.

I was sweating from the walk, and my shirt was soaked through. A maid let me into the elegant home and I waited in my worn, wet clothes, hoping to make a good impression on Aunt Ida, whom I had never met before. I was determined to do and be at my best. When my aunt arrived, I saw that she was hefty yet beautiful, but fearful to look at. She wore a trim dress that covered her from collar to ankles. She was tall, and her blond hair was wrapped with a white babushka adorned with little flowers. My first instinct told me that Aunt Ida would be tough to reach. I introduced myself, saying I was the son of Ida Deutsch from Bodrogkeresztur.

She was shocked to see me. There was a moment of silence. Her face was frozen, as if taken from a wax mold. She did not ask me to sit, so I couldn’t rest. She made me stand in the entrance of her home. I knew that she never cared for my father, so she did not know me by my name. She asked why I had come and what I was doing in the city by myself.

“My father was very ill, but he is recovering. He cannot work and we have nothing to eat. I had to go to the shul and ask for help. It was painful but I did it. We need help. You’re my grandmother’s sister. We turn to you. Help us, please. We have no one to help us.”

I was surprised when these words came out of me. I was calm, yet I sensed that something was about to happen—something not for the best. Her face became red; her chest raised high; she held her arms in front and clenched them into fists; in her hand she crushed a handkerchief. As she started to speak, I knew she would not offer me water or food, let alone embrace me, her grandnephew. In a loud, thunderous voice, she retorted,” “It is a shameful act of your mother and father to send their child begging.” She looked at me with disdain. “And you, Shamyi, should be equally ashamed at having agreed to beg.” She continued haranguing me, though most of what she said fell to the ground.

I had to agree with her that it was not my job to beg, but on the other hand my mother felt that her aunt would not be as hostile to a child as she might be to my parents. I felt ashamed as I was forced to listen. She gave me fifty filler for the train fare and walked away. As I turned to leave, I felt very sad. The maid had let me in, but I was not escorted out. My mission was a failure.

I went to see other relatives who were kinder and at least gave me something to eat, so I felt better. One of the uncles I met there was named Wirtchafter. A man with a red head and beard, he was by trade a furniture maker. He and his family were very kind to me. I also met a cousin named Vera, and I quickly became infatuated with her.

The boys in my Jewish community were never allowed to talk or play with girls. But in public school, we did. There was no rabbi to reprimand us for doing so. Outside the school, girls and boys were not supposed to be together. Now I was in the company of a beautiful girl with red hair flowing down to her shoulders. We talked at length, and it gave me a good feeling, a warm feeling, inside myself. I can still see her tall frame and her oval face, slightly freckled, smiling at me. I hoped that I would be able to see her again someday, and later I would dream pleasant things about us. But inside I knew I could never be near her. I was poor. I was a beggar boy.

When I left their home, I was somewhat relaxed and content, even after the hurt I experienced from meeting Aunt Ida. Yet deep inside, I felt worthless for not being able to meet such a simple task with my relations. I came home with nothing but the cost of the train fare in my pocket. I walked home late that day sad that I could not get help for my parents, and sad that I could not forge a friendship with my mother’s family.

I grieved within myself for a loss that was not really a loss, but an experience. It is unfortunate that as human beings we do not consider the kind of impact our words and actions have on young children. This impact can last a lifetime. But in spite of the difficult experience, the lesson learned is what matters. Forgiveness toward my great aunt and my parents’ judgment was in order, but also I had to forgive myself for my failure.

Dear Sue, as I have learned to forgive, I pray that you can forgive me for any hurt I have caused you when you were young and growing up. Parents may not be aware of the many hurts they cause their children. You are now a mother in your own right. I hope that you now grasp my meaning and forgive me.