Born in an epidemic
100 years ago
A survivor for a century
Surfing on the aphorisms of classical wisdom
As if we learned what he felt necessary through his pithy wisdoms alone.
Having born witness to Hitler’s march into Vienna
Kindertransport
Internment
The love of his life
Starting a family
Communal work
Synagogue warden, President,
National prominence
Aliyah
Art and calligraphy
COVID brings it full circle
I know not when he began to blow shofar
In Tatura Internment camp?
Prior in Vienna?
But at 101 he continues to blow
He loves to entertain his guests
(despite Mum calling it “showing off”)
Even when cognitive articulations fail
As if his shofar blowing
Represents his will to breath
The serpentine shofar bending to his will
As if he finally tamed the inner snake of desire
And the outer monster of this century
The power of his sound
The power of his Prussian will
The power of his survival
Memories of his blowing in shul in the 60’s
Those last few kolos
We were on tenterhooks as kids
Carrying the shame of his failure
And the pride of his success
What began the century
Now ends it
The shofar heralding its onset and its end?
The jubilee of his life now bookended?
As if the microbe infecting millions
Killing millions
Began the worst century of human history
A harbinger of the killing fields of Europe
And Asia, the soil dripping with death
Screaming from the blood soaking it.
How he survived all of this,
This horrific century
Doggedly refusing to surrender
To the rules of others
His own iron will
Of moderation
Health, exercise
Care of the body and mind
No extremes mind you.
His Aliyah as a final arrival to the field of dreams
His delight in walking the streets unabashed of his yarmulke
Impossible in Europe
A microscopic reflection of what has taken place in the miracle of Zionism.
But also an inner protection, a survivor’s immune response to tragedy
Through walling off the emotions of loss
And the price one pays for that
The sense of betrayal of parents and sister
On the Vienna banhoff platform
And the demands of discipline and results from children
No room for failure
No expression of emotion allowed
Especially crying….
As I watch him blowing
It is as if he is telling me
I may not express myself
I may not tell you my feelings
I may not divulge my inner thoughts, I never did,
But here is my legacy
Listen to the power
Listen to the cadence the pitch the perfection
Here
This is what I leave my children
The memory of this sound
The sound that grows stronger and stronger
The sound of the jubilee
In this land of Jubilees
The optimism of the survivor
The spiritual immunity I give to you
To survive.
