"The Higher You Jump"
By
Ira Goldstein
I drove half an hour from
Staten Island, New York and landed somewhere in Eastern Europe. Each time it shocks me. At around 50th st. and
14th Ave, in Brooklyn, I begin to spot men and boys in long black coats,
knickers and black hats with wide brims. There are curls descending from each
side of their hats. They all walk fast knowing exactly where they are going.
Many are talking to themselves or to God, I suppose. Today I am visiting a
Hasidic family to evaluate the gross motor skills of one of the children. I am
a Physical Therapist.
I find the street and number
and ring the bell. A small boy comes down a set of steep, rickety, wooden stairs
and opens the door. He stares at me for a few seconds accommodating his eyes to
the strange creature from the outside world. He then runs upstairs and a large
man in the usual black and white attire invites me up. He calls his daughter
Yikvah into the room. She is a one of ten children, the other nine remain in
the kitchen eating squares of potato, onion and spices, fried to a crispy brown
on two sides called "Potato Kugel" I recognize the look and the smell
from my childhood apartment in the Bronx where everyone was Jewish and most
were from Eastern Europe: The smells of Kugel, chicken soup, knadels and
blintzes came through cracks in the walls and up through the dumbwaiter, a
shaft that ran from the basement where Frank, the superintendent manned the large
twisted rope that pulled a big two tiered box for collecting garbage up to the
sixth floor and back.
The mother sat at the end of
the table feeding an infant. Her hair was wrapped in a rag, or if I remember
what my mother used to call it in a teasing way, a babushka. She looked worn
and tired. All the children looked up from the table without smiling except a
little girl about five who managed a coy grin. I nodded to them all and
followed the father into a large barren dining room with shiny wood floors and
an immense oblong black table in the middle. There was a library against one
wall filled with over sized books with Hebrew lettering. Above it a picture of
an old rabbi with a long white beard holding a Torah stared out at me.
Yikvah was very shy and
reluctant to come out of hiding from behind her father. I could see her
frightened eyes peeking out from behind his pant leg. She was wearing a dark
blue dress and black shoes. He said something to her in Yiddish and her eyes
widened. She gripped his pants a little tighter. I can speak and understand a
little Yiddish since that was the my grandmother’s native language from a
shtetl in Galicia an area between the Ukraine and Poland. I shared a room with
her throughout my childhood. I haven't used the language in a long time and
believe I may have forgotten it. I try a little :
"Kim ahere" I say,
which is something like "come over here." She hid a little deeper
into her father's black pants.
"Kim Veer shpielen ein
bissen"[come we'll play a little], I said in a friendly manner.
Something happened on that
attempt: the little Yiddish I knew started coming out German. I was a soldier
stationed in Germany for two years where I practiced the language often since
it gave me an advantage with the frauleins. I had one German girl friend who
allowed me to come home and meet her parents. After a while I was invited often
and honed the German to at least first grade level.
" Commin sie auf [come
out] I shouted, I didn't want to spend the day there. The father looked at me
strangely.
"I was in Germany,
forgive my Hitler Yiddish." I said in a slightly provocative but friendly
manner.
He smiled while looking at
me askance. Then he addressed his daughter again and she came out of hiding.
She was a beautiful little girl about eight years old with big dark brown
frightened eyes. I tried to get her to hop and skip but she just stared at me.
Then I did a few jumping jacks but she just kept staring. The father coaxed her
lovingly, then showed her: He jumped up and down, his chains and tsfillin, a
prayer bead that winds around the waist, were bouncing off of his huge stomach,
his pants raised up his leg as he lifted his arms over his head, his shirt came
out of his pants and his skull cap shifted sideways.
"Sehr Gut "I smiled
, the language coming out German again. Again I apologized.
"Does that make you
nervous" I asked.
"As a matter of fact it
does " he answered.
"I'll get the Yiddish
after awhile" I offered. He didn't respond.
The little girl was
difficult to test but between her father and I ,we relaxed her enough to get
some information. I noticed that she had difficulty balancing over each leg and
that her hips were slightly turned out.
"I'll put her on once a
week; she's pretty good but could use a little direction." I said relieved
that she participated enough and that I could carry out my role of determining
the need for Physical Therapy.
"So you can't put her
on twice?” he said, his palm turned upward his shoulders hiked. It was an
endearing gesture and question that brought back memories from the Bronx.
Sayings like: "What’s the matter you can't say hello?" or "Oh
its too difficult to kiss a mother?"
I thought it over. "
Sure, I'll put her on twice a week" I said controlling my urge to hike my
shoulders up and say : "So once isn't enough for you."
"Would you like a
little Kugel?" he offered.
"Yes, I would, thank
you." I said
I sat down with the nine
children and the father at the table that took up the entire kitchen. The wife,
still weary looking, handed the baby to the oldest son who I learned was
getting married that weekend. She scooped a slice of Kugel from a large
rectangular aluminum pan and served it to me.
"Ess" he said,
"enjoy."
The taste was so familiar,
delicious but missing salt. Salt was evil in our family because my grandmother
had high blood pressure and all food was devoid of it. Now I wondered if high
blood pressure was common amongst Jews.
"Delicious" I
said. "If I eat this I'll have some more Yiddish words," I kidded.
"Have another
piece." He said.
"With two pieces I'll
be fluent in Yiddish.
"Go ahead then , we'll
have a big conversation.”You are in good shape, I was watching you jump around
trying to get Yikvah to react."
'"I play basketball and
have been for my whole life. It keeps me in shape." I said.
"Good for you" he
said looking directly at me. "Do you pray?" he asked, out of the
blue.
"I've been praying for
one thing: that I dunk the ball once before I die," I said jokingly.
"That's what you pray
for!" he said, suddenly serious.
"You've got something
better," I joked in my now Yiddish inflection. "You know," I
continued, that when you dunk a ball you are closer to God. Think of it, you're
about eleven feet in the air!"
"Be serious, you ask
God such a thing?" he said quizzically.
"I am serious. God
wants us to have joy, to use our bodies. When you develop your body to the
point of flying you are honoring God."
"Oy" he said,
somewhat disgusted. “Have some more Kugel."
"No thanks. I have to
go" I said.
I wanted to ask him what he
prayed for and what he thought about Martin Buber, women's liberation and the secular - orthodox
struggles in Israel and the trials of having ten children and how he felt about
me having a Catholic wife but I had two more calls to make; it was late
afternoon, I'm sure the light was changing and Shabbus, the Sabbath, was just a
few shadows away.
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