Stuff My Father Won't Tell Me, Part 11

Struggling To Do The Right Thing

It wasn’t so much my father’s problem as it was mine.

For the last fifteen years, I have lived my life as an observant Jew. There are, I admit, aspects of frumkeit with which I struggle and will always, I guess. I won’t list them. They are too many. However, there is one mitzvah in particular, a foundational principle of Judaism, that I have always understood as simply the natural and right thing to do.

Our tradition regards the mitzvah of kibud av v’ em-honoring our father and mother- as the most difficult of the Taryag Mitzvos. I’ve recently faced the
challenge of caring for my terminally ill father. He has been hospitalized twice in the last three months-battling stage four colon cancer- and is now resident
in a skilled nursing facility.

In years past, my father drove to shul on Erev Rosh Ha Shana or Kol Nidre. His two grandsons and I were there awaiting him. We’d sit together in our row.
I sat in the first chair, my older son Ben sat in the second, my dad sat in the third and my younger son, Zac, in the fourth. Since the passing of Ben eight
years ago, no one but my father has sat in his seat on a consistent basis. We call such a seat, a makom kavua. It’s a place where one expects to find a particular person sitting. Ben “shares” his with his grandfather. Do you remember Tevye’s opening song from "Fiddler on the Roof”? Well, this is the sort of thing he meant by “tradition”.

Although not a religious Jew, my father has always been generous in his support of the shul. It really is quite simple. He wants to be where his children
and grandchildren are. Is there anyone who can’t understand the nachas a grandpa feels when he has a son on his left and a grandson on his right?

This year … this year has been different. My father’s worsening condition made it impossible for him to attend services and, besides, he hasn’t driven at all in at least a year. I wasn’t sure what I'd do. Should I go to shul without him Erev Rosh Ha Shana or be with him at his bedside in the hospital? I had to decide and … soon. Most important of all, I wanted to do the “right thing”.

“Ron, I’ll be here with Dad on Rosh Ha Shana. I’m not going to shul,” I told my older brother the day before yontif. “I just can’t go in good conscience.” His
face brightened as if to say ‘You’ve made the right decision little brother’. Ron had delayed his return flight to St. Louis several times, but after nearly
two weeks attending to Dad’s every need, he had to return home. He was torn. Little choice remained for him but to rely upon me.
“Well,” he added with his usual pithy take on things, “if you can’t take care of your father at a time like this, then your religion isn’t worth much, is it?”
“I couldn’t agree more Ron,” I added, smiling at my brother’s roughly hewn “pshat” of the Fifth Commandment. I had never seen my older brother weep. I guess there is a first time for everything. I turned aside. “Hey,” he said, gently draping his forearm on the back of my neck and shoulders. “Thank you.”

I brought a holiday meal down to the hospital for my family. I had hoped the festive food: raisin challah, grape juice, gefilte fish and apples and honey, would
remind us all that even someone as ill as my father could still be inscribed and sealed in the Book of Life. My daughter Kimberly cried. That Friday, my dad was transferred to a skilled nursing facility. The hospital had done all it could do.

The eve of Yom Ha Din was just around the corner. Who would live? Who would die? Who would be sealed in the Sefer Ha Chaim? I found myself facing a similar but more intense moral dilemma than the one that had plagued me several days earlier on the eve of Rosh Ha Shana. The awesome finality of Yom
Kippur filled me with even greater uncertainty and dread. I needed guidance.

The course of my father’s disease had advanced enough and his prognosis remained dim enough that his condition could become a matter of life or death
at any moment. How would I be able to live with myself tomorrow were I not at my father’s bedside today? Did I have to stand before the Aron Kodesh
to plead for my father’s life?
“Rabbi Louis, I’m sorry to call at such a late hour,” I said. It was about 10:00 P.M.
“Do you have a couple minutes? I have a few concerns.”
“Sure, come on over,” he said-no matter he had been preparing his Yom Kippur droshos.
“Is your office okay?” I asked.
“Let’s talk in the Beis Medrash,” he suggested. “My office is still a mess.”
“I took care of all the plans today.” We had spoken earlier in the morning about final arrangements for my dad.
“Any problems with that?” he asked.
“No. Not really, but I do have a personal question or two. Do you mind?”
Not at all,” he assured me.
“When your father was dying in the hospital, were you there with him all the time?”
“Almost twenty-four seven,” Rabbi responded. “I sat there reciting Tehilim and spent as much time with him as I could,” he added. We chatted for an hour, but I never asked him where he would have been had his father been dying on the eve of Yom Kippur. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it.

The next day was Erev Yom Kippur. I had not yet made a decision. Time was running short. While my father slept, I called a friend in Atlanta who hosts an online yeshiva where I have read some of my prose and poetry and who knows a bit about me from my book. “Hello Ephraim? This is Alan from Chicago. Is this a good time to talk?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact, it is, but I need several minutes to finish a previous call. Can you call me back in about twenty minutes?”
“Sure. No problem.” I waited a half hour just to be sure.

“Ephraim?”
“Alan, sorry about that. I’ve been so busy with my mother.”
“Is she okay?”
“Yes, thank you, but she’s eighty-six and has terminal stage four cancer. I’ll be with her at home for yontif.”
I was thunderstruck. Talk about “hashgacha pratis”! Hearing his story was just the push I needed. I told him about my father, but by then I already knew with perfect clarity where and with whom I’d be on Yom Kippur.

“Hello, Alan,” Rabbi Louis called me motzai yontif. “We missed you.”
“Hello, Rabbi. Thank you. You’ll never believe what I’m going to tell you.”
I relayed Ephraim’s story.
“Baruch Ha Shem!” Rabbi responded enthusiastically although I’m sure he had heard many such stories before. It was yet another confirmation of his oft-
repeated adage that “Got firt da velt.”
“The Aibishter sends messengers to help us make the right decision,” Rabbi counseled. I listened. It wasn’t as if Rabbi Louis hadn’t told me this before. I did,
however, feel glad I had left the resolution of my quandary in His very capable “hands”.

Alan D. Busch
10/17/08

Glossary

frumkeit-observant Judaism

mitzvah-Torah commandment

kibud av v'em-honor thy father and mother

Taryag Mitzvos-the 613 Torah commandments

Kol Nidre-prayer chanted on the eve of Yom Kippur

nachas-joy

pshat-simple literal meaning of Torah

yom ha din-day of judgement (Yom Kippur)

sefer ha chaim-book of life

Rosh Ha Shana-Jewish New Year

aron kodesh-ark housing Torah scroll

droshos-rabbinic sermons

bais medrash-house of study

tehilim-psalms

erev Yom Kippur-the eve of the Day of Atonement

yontif-holiday

hashgacha pratis-belief that things happen due to God's intervention

motzai yontif-after the holiday

Baruch Ha Shem-Thank God

Got firt da velt-God runs the world

aibishter-God