Ghost Writing: Dinner Journal

Who would have thought that two post- Shoa Shtetle dwellers from Romania would be honored for their small part in building a Shul in a Judaism barren part of the most Jewish State in all of the Diaspora? The contrast between the two could not be more stark, the underlying emotions more alike.

Leah and I grew up in the very shadow of the worst disaster in Jewish history. Our homes, formally citadels of Jewish life, rung hollow as the ghosts of millions lost followed us everywhere. It is hard to see a millennia old home of our people, a home we knew through the stories told and the sorrowful eyes of those who survived, wither away.

The Psalm we say before the Bircat Hamazon on the Sabbath and holidays, Psalm 126 says, "the one who sows with tears shall reap with joy." It was great sorrow for a past lost, as well as the hopes for the future that we needed to build that both Leah and I moved away from that old world, Leah to New York, and myself to Israel.

It was in 1972, when Leah and I met, that we had our first opportunity to rebuild what our people had lost. Living in the United States, we were blessed with two daughters, Faye and Rifky, three years apart. We felt blessed and fulfilled with our little family, having done our little part to ensure a Jewish future.

It took one man we would meet in East Northport, New York to teach us that the sowing and reaping the psalmist mentioned are more than a transient phase in a person’s life. There is a constant sense of hard work and sowing to which untold future blessing can be reaped. That man, of course, is none other than our beloved Rabbi Bausk. We came from a world bereft of its Jewish essence, Rabbi Bausk from a community in Queens, which proved that Judaism can and will adapt and survive. The Rabbi willingly gave up the Jewish structure in New York, structure similar to that which was stolen from our parents and denied to us, not because he was forced to by the sword, but because he wished to bring the beauty of Judaism to an area in which it was most needed.

At first it seemed unusual to us that a person would chose to take on such a responsibility, choose to sow with tears when life allowed him other, likely simpler options; but it was that leadership that taught us that there is always so much more that needs to be done. Jewish life is constantly flowing and we must flow with it. In our case, we put our effort behind a Shul in a small storefront, hosting boys from Yeshivat Chofetz Chaim to ensure there was a Minyan present on Shabbat. Yes, the Shul was our passion, and yet, while we are honored here tonight as one of the founders of our Shul, the true credit must go to our Rabbi. We were in the right place at the right time, but he chose to come to this place at that time and put in that effort toward Jewish continuity in a place few had even thought of.

Leah and I have moved to Los Angles, our daughters have both married and started families of their own, blessing us with two grandchildren this year. It is not coincidental that the message we instill in them is the very same message we found in our Rabbi, "Sow with tears and reap with joy." Always work toward your goals and the goals of the Jewish people, and know that your effort will come to fruition as our desire for a Jewish future, and our Shul did.