I have hundreds of stories about my son Michael and what he has experienced and the lives he’s saved and the babies he’s delivered. Michael has asked me not to talk about these things anymore–too much pain. But there isn’t anything that holds me back from telling a real good story once in a while.
One summer–I can’t remember which year it was, probably 2007 or 2008–Michael went to Eastern Europe for a summer to study at the University of Prague. While he was in that part of the world he told me that he wanted to help me find out more about “my roots.” The Reidbord family–my mother’s family–came from a town called Merich in Lithuania.
Michael actually did find Merich, a tiny place with few people living there. However, the synagogue there was enormous–tall, imposing, beautifully constructed. Michael went there on a Saturday; it was a quiet Shabbos afternoon. He was surprised to find that a door was open so he knocked quietly and heard a soft voice–in French–telling him to come in.
The rabbi was sitting at his desk, reading a book in Hebrew. The two found a way to communicate; the rabbi was not an English speaker but was fluent in French. I’m proud to say that my son is completely fluent in French–has even taught medical training classes in that language–and also speaks about a dozen other languages.
Michael told the rabbi about me, and my family that came from Merich. He wanted to know if he could see any record books that might offer some information.
I can see this scene in my mind as clearly as if it really took place before me. Here is this nice, respectful, handsome, brilliant (I’m his mother, I can’t help it.) boy who only wants to make his mother happy. But the rabbi wears a sad face. He has to tell this beautiful son who cares so much about his mother that to get the record book he would have to pull a stool over to the book shelf. Then he would have to reach up and get this book and step down, and then put the stool away.
This would constitute working and today was Shabbos.
The rabbi asked Michael to sit down and rest himself; then the rabbi disappeared. Michael heard an odd kind of dragging noise as if a piece of furniture was being moved. Then the rabbi, holding the precious book of synagogue records, walked towards Michael and put the book down in front of him.
He shrugged his shoulders and said, in French of course: It fell on my head!!!
Now; whenever Michael came home from his adventures we would sometimes stay up all night, listening to his stories. When he came home from Israel we had an all-nighter. But never, ever, did we laugh and cry at the same time when we heard this. To me, it was just plain funny but funny and sweet in a Jewish way. If a non-Jew is reading this I apologize but this has to be said. In all the books I’ve read on my racial heritage I’ve found stories just like this one–where a rabbi stretches the rules to make somebody else happy.
We had to cry also because the book said there was a whole section of the Reidbord family who died in the death camps. However, it’s not all tragic. The Reidbord men, while living in Merich–all Reidbords are “good with their hands”–were responsible for the construction of the synagogue.
lgmwriting 