Seidemann: Making connections

From the other side of the bench

By David Seidemann

Somewhere in my basement is a mildewed box with a copy of every speech I gave as a rabbi years ago in Lawrenceville, NJ. It’ll take a band of Maccabees and perhaps a Pentagon-ordered ‘surge’ to unearth it. While I have no idea of its whereabouts, I would like to find it someday. In the meantime, I do have a copy of every column I ever wrote for this newspaper, beginning with number one on May 11, 2007, and continuing until this one which, by my count, is number 127.

And so in trying to write a column for Chanukah 5770 I flipped through my loose-leaf and came upon number 28 from 2007 entitled, “Chanukah, spinning out of control.” In that article I urged parents to buy presents for their children that are uniquely Jewish. A year later, in number 80, I wrote about my dear uncle, Leon Zehnwirth a”h, whom we laid to rest just hours before lighting the first Chanukah candle. In “The gift of education,” I encouraged my children to take an example from the life of their great uncle, and to emulate his attribute of making the best out of every situation and encouraging others to do the same. That was the gift I wanted to give to my children last Chanukah.

So as I sit in front of my computer contemplating number 127, I am confronted with the task of imparting a Chanukah message to my children and any others who might be inclined to read this column and garner a lesson.

If I could give a special gift to my children this year it would be to take away or at least limit their cell phone use. And I do not mean just their phone calls. The gift I would give them would be to limit their text messaging as well.

I would like to limit the use of cell phones for calls and texts, for children and adults alike. I acknowledge all of the positives of cell phone use, from the ability to earn more money to knowing where your loved ones are at all times — but cell phone calls and texting also have a profoundly negative impact. Gone is the art of conversation. Deep, probing, personal conversations, where families and friends really connect, are as hard to find as a jug of oil in the ruined Temple. Texting has replaced connecting. “Can you hear me now” has replaced “I understand you now.” If I could give my family and friends a special gift for Chanukah 5770, it would be “time.” It would be time to sit together on the living room couch and to simply talk; simply communicate about things that might not be so simple.

Allow me to share two stories I heard within hours of each other about two individuals at the opposite ends of the age spectrum. One is about a young boy who knew how to communicate with adults, and the other about an elderly gentleman who knew how to communicate with young boys.

He was the “Candy Man” of his synagogue. Every Shabbos he was the repository of sweets whose only purpose was to entice youngsters to return to the synagogue week after week. It worked magnificently. There are adults in that community today who vouch that if not this man “bribing” them to come to shul each Shabbos, they wouldn’t have gone then, and they probably wouldn’t be attending now. And if a child wasn’t in attendance on a particular Saturday, this elderly gentleman would make sure to give candy to the kid’s father or mother in any event, and instruct the parent to tell the child to come “next week,” and receive twice the amount of candy.

His fame spread and children from all over the neighborhood would visit that synagogue simply to be the beneficiaries of this sweet man and his sweets. The crowd of kids grew to the point where the synagogue forbade him from distributing any more candy. The mess inside the shul had become unmanageable. But he understood that children were more important than a neat and tidy synagogue and so he stood outside the shul in all kinds of weather handing out candy to children who simply walked by. He followed this routine every week until he passed away last week at age 88. This was an adult who knew how to reach children.

The boy’s bar mitzvah was last Shabbos. His whole family was there to help him celebrate — everyone except his mother’s mother. She had suffered a debilitating injury a while back, never returning home after the initial hospitalization. Last Friday her husband, may he live and be well, prayed by her bedside that she should live at least through the weekend so that even if unconscious, even if in a comatose or semi-comatose state, she would be alive while the bar mitzvah was being celebrated. This woman must have heard her husband’s prayers; she passed on to the next world at approximately 8:30 PM this past Saturday night, just hours after the festivities had concluded.

But that’s not the story. The story is not about this woman who heard the prayers of her husband, nor is it about the husband who prayed for his wife. Rather it is the story of the 13-year-old bar mitzvah boy who understood so deeply the import of connecting to his grandmother even if it was questionable if she could hear him.

On the Wednesday before his bar mitzvah this 13-year-old young man connected with his grandmother in the deepest of all ways. He stood by her hospital bed and read his entire Torah portion in her ear.        It’s unclear if his grandmother heard him or even knew he was there. But that might not be the point. This was a child who knew how to reach an adult and in doing so became an adult himself.

David Seidemann is a partner with the law firm of Seidemann & Mermelstein.  He can be reached at (718) 692-1013 and at ds@lawofficesm.com.