Days to Remember

In a rare convergence of the Gregorian and Jewish calendars, today marks the 29th birthday of our daughter Ellie and the 12th anniversary of my father’s passing. I don’t expect to be around the next time December 16 coincides with the 9th of Tevet. That will be in 2056, when I would be 107 years old.

After dropping Gilda off at the train station, I went to our temple for the morning service (how interesting that when spoken it could easily be misconstrued to be the “mourning” service). This being a Thursday, a brief segment of Saturday’s upcoming Torah portion was read. It described the pending death of the patriarch Yakov (Jacob) in the land of Egypt where he had traveled from Canaan because of famine. My father’s Hebrew name was Yakov, as well. He, too, left his native land, Poland in his case, because of adversity, Nazi oppression.

Like the biblical Yakov, my father twice moved from his original home and country to prosper in new surroundings. Yakov fled Canaan after deceiving his father Isaac into blessing him. He went to his uncle Laban’s home where he worked and reared a family before life there became unbearable. He returned to Canaan and eventually emigrated to Egypt. My father left Ottynia, a small town in Galicia, now part of Ukraine, when he was 16 to become a businessman in the Free City of Danzig (now called Gdansk) before emigrating in 1939, roughly half a year before Hitler invaded Poland.

The Torah reading begins by stating, “The days of Yakov, the years of his life, were a hundred forty and seven years.” But the Hebrew phrase “the years of his life” (“shenai chayav”) can be read to have another meaning, much the way “the morning/mourning service” could be heard in different contexts. The second interpretation of the sentence could be, “the days of Yakov, his two lives, were a hundred forty and seven years.”

It could be said Yakov lived two lives, one in Canaan, one in other lands; one before his beloved wife Rachel died and her first son Joseph is seemingly lost to him, one after he is reunited with Joseph; one before the famine, one life after, in Egypt.

My father lived two lives, one in Poland, one in the United States; one before his family was killed in the Holocaust, one after he was reunited with the only member of his immediate family to survive, his brother, Willy; one in business and another in social action for charitable and civic associations; one in full embrace of family and life’s graces and benefits, the other mired in the darkness of dementia that dimmed the last few of his near 88 years.

Like so many of his contemporaries, my father did not dwell on the past. He rarely spoke about conditions in Ottynia and Danzig. He focused on the present and future.

I had intended to write more about my father and his granddaughter, Ellie, but in the middle of this exercise stopped to read an email from a friend serendipitously about this week’s Torah reading. It contained the following message from a rabbinic commentary:

“What is the connection between grandchildren and peace? Surely this, that those who think about grandchildren care about the future, and those who think about the future make peace. It is those who constantly think of the past, of slights and humiliations and revenge, (who) make war.”

My father started off as a great grandfather. But age, infirmity and distance stripped him of his inclination and ability to interact meaningfully with his seven grandchildren. For now, Gilda and I have one grandchild. Finley will be visiting this weekend with his parents. Ellie will join us. It will be a most wonderful, cherished time.

A Day of Remembrances

Today’s the anniversary of the perfection of the carbonized cotton filament incandescent light bulb by Thomas Alva Edison in 1879. His light bulb lasted for 13-1/2 hours of continuous running time.

There’s no record of when a father first shouted in frustration to his children, “Shut the lights out when you’re not in the room. Do you think I’m made of money?” Mothers were more sarcastic in their reprimands, demanding to know if the children thought the family had a money tree growing in the garden.

At least that’s the way it was growing up in my household.


Ordinarily, I’d look with slight interest at an article in today’s NY Times about efforts by the Guggenheim Museum to build a permanent food kiosk outside its entrance on Fifth Avenue and E. 89th St. The request, incidentally, was rejected by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/21/arts/design/21hotdog.html?scp=2&sq=guggenheim&st=cse).

By serendipitous coincidence I discovered before I perused The Times this morning that today is the anniversary of the opening of the Guggenheim at its current location. Designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, the museum opened in 1959.


Today’s another anniversary, at least according to the Gregorian calendar. On this day in 1492, Christopher Columbus discovered the New World. He landed on San Salvador Island. We, of course, celebrate October 12 as Columbus Day because the Admiral, as he later came to be called, sailed under the Julian calendar. Ninety years later, in 1582, Pope Gregory XIII promulgated his version of the daily grind, eventually adopted by most cultures, even ones not disposed to Catholic doctrine.


I mentioned yesterday our son Dan will be competing in the North American ultimate frisbee championship tournament next week. His team is Boston Ironside. Turns out today marks the anniversary of the 1797 launching of the USS Constitution in Boston harbor. The frigate earned the nickname Old Ironsides during the War of 1812. A good omen, I hope.


My sister advises I write too much about sports, especially baseball. Perhaps. If she was annoyed by yesterday’s homage to Bob Sheppard and Mickey Mantle, she probably won’t like to know that today is the 82nd birthday of Whitey Ford, one of the all-time great Yankee pitchers.


Today also is Gilda’s sister’s birthday. I won’t tell you how old Barbara is.