Fond Memories of My Zaideh

By Blumie Abend

Life is fleeting. We all hear that but it takes the sudden absence of life for us to understand and internalize this. Today, the Hebrew date of Chai cheshvan, my grandfather Rabbi Sholem DovBer Raskin OBM, passed on from this world to the next.

When I think of my grandfather, Zaideh, memories abound. Old memories, good memories, new memories, sad memories. Memories that automatically bring me to tears, even though they are not necessarily bad memories. Perhaps it is the knowledge that a face, a life, a figure, a personality in my life- no longer exists. How does that happen? How is someone here one moment and gone the next? Like a child, I wonder- where did he go? How can it be that I will never see him again?!

Memories of Pesach, Seder night. Zeideh used to come for us for one of the Sedarim. A standard, yearly ritual was the little satin bag he used to bring along for the Afikomen. He would sling it over his shoulder to the amusement of us children, imitating the way the Jewish people left Egypt.

Chanukah leaves some bittersweet memories. At the Raskin Chanukah party, or at his own home, Zaideh would hand out Chanukah Gelt to each of us, according to our Tehillim chapter. Zaideh knew every single grandchild’s birthday and age and I would not be surprised if this was because he said our Kapital each and every day. The Chanukah ritual used to rankle me as unfair, because my birthday would be a mere six days after Chanukah was over, meaning I lost out on that extra GBP!

Early, long ago memories, see him driving in his blue Volvo, usually around the main streets of Stamford Hill. Later, when driving was no longer an option, he would careen madly around corners in his electric car, always an icon, always my Zaideh.

Zaideh was very much a respected figure, an adult in every sense of the word in my young world. But he had something for us kids, a certain fondness. He would pretend to scare us, making stern faces and banging his walking stick, but there was a twinkle in his eye even as he did so. And even though he wasn’t one of those ‘hands on fathers’ that we have today, he loved to hold the grandchildren as they multiplied and all babies seemed calm and happy on his lap.

More recently, I remember my grandmother and Zaideh sitting in their ‘Shabbos flat’ on the grounds of the Lubavitch school in London. This flat was procured for them for the specific purpose of Zaideh being able to attend Shul on Shabbos without the physical stress of a ten minute walk. Bobba would sit on the couch and tell us stories of her childhood, whilst Zaideh would be at the table, eating the cut up fruit prepared by his wife. Often, he would make Kiddush for us, his grandchildren, so we too could have some cut up fruit.

Zaideh loved my little sister, Gigi, named for his mother (Faige) Draize. If I would come with her, he would focus most of his attention on her. If I was alone, or with another sibling, he would ask, “And how is Draize’le…?” And if my brother Osher was with me, Osher would receive a rendition of, ‘Oooooosher! Oooooosher!’, the note going up a notch each time.

As Zaideh aged, his job as a Mohel and Shochet obviously was discontinued. In addition, his weekly rendition of the Parshah in conjunction with his job as Baal Koreh, also had to come to an end. I do recall this change saddening me, even in my young age, feeling for his rejection and wondering at this bitter stage in life we call ‘the Golden years’… But Zaide’s appreciation and talent for leining continued on to when he was in the nursing home, where he lamented his hearing loss as it prevented him from hearing the Leining on Shabbos.

In the five years that he spent in Schonfeld Square, the frum nursing home establishment in Stamford hill, I used to visit both my grandparents. Zaideh was always the quiet one, but, until his hearing deteriorated, he was very much listening and aware of the entire conversation… It would pain me when talking to Zaideh became something like a shouting match, as we would try to even say ‘Hello, how are you?’ and have him hear it. At that point, Zaideh would spend most of his time at a desk, filled with books- some seforim, some notepads.

There was always a sefer in front of him, open. I don’t know if he was learning, if he was trying to learn, if he wanted to learn or if he was pretending to learn simply because he couldn’t anymore. But that is my last memory of my Zaideh. Thick plastic glasses perched on his nose, with a sefer open in front of him.

Now it’s all I have left. A memory.

And no matter how old we are, that idea of ‘gone’ will never ever be understood… no matter how old we are, we will never be able to come to terms with the idea of death, with the knowledge that someone who was living and breathing is now cold and lifeless. There will forever be a yawning chasm in my life, a void that is really quite irreplaceable.

And no matter how old we are, we are never too old to cry.