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Shabbos Mincha with Reb Isser (to be published by Horizons Magazine, Summer 2009)

Reb Isser knew intuitively something was wrong. Truth be told. I didn’t know what to do. My marriage was in jeopardy. My children felt conflicted. I wanted to become more Jewishly observant. My wife and children did not. Our family had suffered a near meltdown on Erev Pesach over kashrus in our home. Whatever shalom bayis still remained was crumbling fast.

I hurried to shul Shabbos afternoon to greet Reb Isser at the front door. “He’ll know what
to do,” I reassured myself. In the two years since I had first wandered into his minyan, he
became my mentor, confidant and proxy zayde.

I began helping Reb Isser prepare shalosh seudos every Shabbos afternoon. We draped the folding tables with white plastic table cloths, set out twenty-five place settings and served as much tuna fish, chopped fish balls, herring, cake and soda pop as we could find left over from the morning Kiddush. The minyan would file down the narrow stairwell after mincha, line up around the kitchen island to wash and make “ha motsi” over the challah buns we had placed in a wicker basket to the left of the sink.

“Nu, Mr. Busch. What’s on your mind?” Reb Isser finally inquired as I had hoped he would. I guess he noticed how preoccupied I must have appeared. “Well … uh, trouble at home, Reb Isser. My wife … you know,” I responded, searching for the right words but hopeful I would not have to explain too much.“No, I don’t know. You want to tell me?” “My wife is very unhappy with me.” I hesitated to continue.

“Go on,” Reb Isser encouraged me, as if he had some familiarity with this problem. “I spend too much time in shul, she thinks. By the time I get home Saturday night, now with spring and summer, it’s too late.” “For what?” he asked.“She wants to go out with me in the early evening, you know, a movie, maybe something to eat.”

Reb Isser reflected for several “interminable” moments. Waiting nervously, I hoped his would be a sympathetic decision. “Mr. Busch,” Reb Isser spoke softly. He removed a single photograph from his shirt pocket. For someone as forthright as Reb Isser usually was, he seemed reluctant to speak. “I’ve shown this picture to no one in fifty years since I came to America,” he confessed,
handing it to me. “Reb Isser, you don’t have …” “Mr. Busch,” he gently interrupted, “Yes, I do.” I was afraid I knew where he was going with this. I fell silent. “This was Rivkale, aleah hashalom,” he said, pointing to a pretty, slight woman with delicate features. Her hair was put up in a bun, her long flowery dress seemed very appropriate attire for what appeared to be a family picnic. “And these,” he continued, his forefinger trembling, “are mein kinderlach …” He blinked repeatedly, trying to hold back the tears. “Reb Isser, please don’t,” I pled. He handed me a tissue. “Forgive me, Mr. Busch, but you need to hear this. This is Yossele,” he pointed to the older of his two children, a boy who looked to be about six years old. “I used to curl his peyos around this finger,” he recalled, holding up the same forefinger with which he had pointed to Yossele in the picture. “And this, this …” he began to sob. “This is … is Chavaleh ...” whose shoulder length red hair her mother specially fashioned into ringlets for this picnic, Reb Isser tearily recalled. “Do you see this spot?” he asked me, pointing to the hem of Chavaleh’s white dress. I nodded. “It’s a grass stain. She fell running in the park that day.”

I couldn’t look any more. I turned aside and began nervously dividing up the herring among several paper plates. “Mr. Busch,” he patted my hand. I released the fork. “My wife felt I was working too much. She told me many times that our family time together was much more valuable than the few extra zlotys I was bringing home. I was a druggist, you know. In those days, you had to make up the prescriptions by hand, took a lot of time so I stayed after hours. Did I tell you that story?” I nodded again. “But did I listen to her? No, I was young, a pisher, like you,” he smiled ever so faintly, handing me another tissue.“Thank you.” “But by the time I realized she was right, the Germans came to our village. The men they rounded up. The women and children ... they took away, gone. We never saw them again. Mr. Busch, I never saw them again! Understand?” I handed him back the picture which he returned to his pocket. “Go home to your family.” His words seemed plain enough, but he stopped short of advising me any further.

My wife and I had indeed arrived at a fork in the road. Whether I would keep Shabbos at home by myself, well … that he left to me. I had only to choose the path I would travel. From the stairway, a voice beckoned. “Reb Isser? … Ashrei!” I followed him upstairs for minyan.

I did as Reb Isser had advised. I could no longer ignore my problems at home, hoping they would simply disappear. The decision I made to keep Shabbos by myself-though difficult-was one I felt I needed to make. The experience not only did not weaken but, in fact, strengthened my resolve to live more observantly. We did try marriage counseling, but I am certain we both knew ours was a case of too little, too late. If nothing else, counseling delineated our differences so sharply that our irreconcilability became a foregone conclusion.

“I feel this emptiness in my gut,” I confessed to her. We were out one summer evening and had stopped to pick up some ice cream. The kids were home. There wasn’t much time to talk things over. It was just around sundown. I noticed several cars hurriedly pulling into the parking lot of the shul just across the way from where we had parked the car. “I want to be part of that,” I said, pointing to the shul. “But we’ve not lived that way. It’s too much. We didn’t raise the kids in a kosher home. I just don’t get why you cannot be happy with where we are.” “Jan,” I turned and looked at her, “I don’t understand it myself, but I know in my heart it’s real.”

We headed back home. “You’re sure about this?” she turned to me, “because I can’t go with you.” “I know that, I really do,” I smiled at her understandingly. “What about the kids?
Jan asked. “Tonight, we’ll tell them tonight.”

“Your mother and I love you unconditionally,” I began. I looked at her, the mother of my children and wife of twenty-four years, as if to get the final go-ahead. She nodded approvingly. “But Mom and I have decided … “ Zac, our youngest, wept a little boy’s tears. Ben, our oldest, was incredulous at the announcement but had known something was not right between us for a long time. Kimberly, our middle child, had just completed her freshman year at the university. Her mother drove down and told her on the way home.

I moved out of my house soon thereafter to a nearby apartment. Our children remained
at home with their mom, but I tended my bonds with them unfailingly. I trod the path of
Jewish observance, at times very clumsily, I feared. Unaware of its many stumbling blocks, I
often felt uncertain I fully understood the map before me.

Alan D. Busch
Revised 3/22/09

Where authors and readers come together!



Dear Friends,

Below please find an original short story that I hope soon will appear in the pages of Horizon Magazine. Please read it in conjunction with an earlier story Tefilin and Teacher that you will find by clicking here. Tefilin and Teacher will be published by The Jewish Press sometime after Passover of this year.

Shabbos Mincha with Reb Isser

Reb Isser knew intuitively something was wrong.

Truth be told. I didn’t know what to do. My marriage was in jeopardy. My children felt

conflicted. I wanted to become more Jewishly observant. My wife and children did not. Our

family had suffered a near meltdown on Erev Pesach over kashrus in our home. Whatever

shalom bayis still remained was crumbling fast.

I hurried to shul Shabbos afternoon to greet Reb Isser at the front door. “He’ll know what

to do,” I reassured myself. In the two years since I had first wandered into his minyan, he

became my mentor, confidant and proxy zayde.

I began helping Reb Isser prepare shalosh seudos every Shabbos afternoon.

We draped the folding tables with white plastic table cloths, set out twenty-five

place settings and served as much tuna fish, chopped fish balls, herring, cake and

soda pop as we could find left over from the morning Kiddush. The minyan would file

down the narrow stairwell after mincha, line up around the kitchen island to wash and make

“ha motsi” over the challah buns we had placed in a wicker basket to the left of the sink.

“Nu, Mr. Busch. What’s on your mind?” Reb Isser finally inquired as I had hoped he

would. I guess he noticed how preoccupied I must have appeared.

“Well … uh, trouble at home, Reb Isser. My wife … you know,” I responded, searching for

the right words but hopeful I would not have to explain too much.“No, I don’t know. You want to
tell me?”“My wife is very unhappy with me.” I hesitated to continue.

“Go on,” Reb Isser encouraged me, as if he had some familiarity with this problem.

“I spend too much time in shul, she thinks. By the time I get home Saturday night, now with

spring and summer, it's too late"

"Too late for what?” he asked.

“She wants to go out in the early evening, you know, a movie, maybe something to

eat.” Reb Isser reflected for several “interminable” moments. Waiting nervously, I hoped his

would be a sympathetic decision.

“Mr. Busch,” Reb Isser spoke softly. He removed a single photograph from his shirt pocket.

For someone as forthright as Reb Isser usually was, he seemed reluctant to speak.

“I’ve shown this picture to no one in fifty years since I came to America,” he confessed,

handing it to me.

“Reb Isser, you don’t have …”

“Mr. Busch,” he gently interrupted, “Yes, I do.” I was afraid I knew where he was going with

this. I fell silent.

“This was Rivkale, aleah hashalom,” he said, pointing to a pretty, slight woman with

delicate features. Her hair was put up in a bun, her long flowery dress seemed very

appropriate attire for what appeared to be a family picnic. “And these,” he continued, his

forefinger trembling, “are mein kinderlach …” He blinked repeatedly, trying to hold

back the tears.

“Reb Isser, please don’t,” I pled. He handed me a tissue.

“Forgive me, Mr. Busch, but you need to hear this. This is Yossele,” he pointed to the older of

his two children, a boy who looked to be about six years old. “I used to curl his peyos around

this finger,” he recalled, holding up the same forefinger with which he had pointed to Yossele

in the picture. “And this, this …” he began to sob. “This is … is Chavaleh ...” whose shoulder

length red hair her mother specially fashioned into ringlets for this picnic, Reb Isser tearily

recalled. “Do you see this spot?” he asked me, pointing to the hem of Chavaleh’s white dress. I

nodded. “It’s a grass stain. She fell running in the park that day.”

I couldn’t look any more. I turned aside and began nervously dividing up the herring

among several paper plates.

“Mr. Busch,” he patted my hand. I released the fork. “My wife felt I was working too much.

She told me many times that our sholem bayis was much more valuble than the few extra

zlotys I was bringing home. I was a druggist, you know. In those days, you had to

make up the prescriptions by hand, took a lot of time so I stayed after hours. Did I tell

you that story?” I nodded again.

“But did I listen to her? No, I was young, a pisher, like you,” he smiled ever so

faintly, handing me another tissue.“Thank you.”

“The Germans came to our village. The men they rounded up. The women and

children ... they took away, gone. We never saw them again. Mr.Busch, I never saw them

again! Understand?” I handed him back the picture which he returned to his pocket.“Go home

to your wife and children.” He could not have said it more plainly.

From the stairway, a voice beckoned. “Reb Isser? … Ashrei!” We hurried back upstairs.

I had some hard choices to make. I began thinking about how I could become more

observant, even if only incrementally, but without putting my family at risk. Fairly certain I

knew what the right path was and where it led, I did as Reb Isser had advised. Though I was

worried that I might be coming home too late, I realized The One Above sends molochim

into our lives when we need guidance to make the right decision. This was one of those

instances. Reb Isser taught me there is a makom for every man. For the now, mine would be

at home where I needed to repair the foundation of my family’s sholem bayis. By so doing,

my children would have the opportunity to learn the invaluable lesson of which the Germans

had denied Yossele and Chavaleh.

Alan D. Busch
Revised 3/15/09

Glossary

Shabbos-Sabbath

mincha-the afternoon prayer

reb-yiddish expression of respect shown an older man

zayde-yiddish, grandfather

erev Pesach-the eve of Passover

Kashrus-kosher dietary laws

kiddush-meal served with grape juice or wine after the morning prayer

shalom bayis-peace at home

shalosh seudos-the third Sabbath meal eaten after the afternoon prayer

minyan-prayer quorem of ten adult men

ha motsi-blessing over bread

aleah ha shalom-may she rest in peace

nu-yiddish, so

pisher-yiddish slang, young boy

shul-yiddish, synagogue

peyos-side curls

Ashrei-the first word of the afternoon prayer

makom-Hebrew, place

Where authors and readers come together!

Dear Friends,

The following piece from my manuscript in progress will be published in the Shabbat Shalom feature of the Orthodox Union (OU) at ou.org sometime after Passover this year

This is a photograph of my father Dr. Albert I. Busch, DDS, Z'L at 87 years of age shortly before his passing on October 18, 2008.


Reckoning

I am my father’s witness.

He’s been sent home after spending two weeks in the hospital. Colon cancer
is killing him. There is nothing more the hospital can do. We visit with each
other three days a week, just he and I, on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays,
from noon until 5 o’clock. We’ve recently completed our eighth week
together. He’d agree, I am certain, that it has been the best time we’ve ever
spent with each other.

I’ve read that a son should ask certain questions of his father. This I
have done. I usually initiate the conversation, but there was an occasion or
two when he beat me to the punch. I’ve always regarded my father as my
teacher. Now that our time is running out, I must learn to see things as he sees
them, from his inside out and, perhaps with just enough gentle prodding, he’ll
tell me about the stuff he’s never told me before.

Never inclined toward casual conversation, my father and I have always
preferred the weighty dialectic of issues, substance. These eight weeks really
comprise our last, albeit extended, substantive exchange, but with one
important difference for each of us.

For me, it is a matter of kibud av, my last chance to better honor the man
from whom I have fashioned so much of me. For Dad, it is his time to tie up the
loose ends, say what has to be said and what he’s wanted to say. When he speaks
to me now, it is with what I’ll call a “sense of mission”.

It’s been during this time that he has fashioned his cheshbon ha nefesh,
his life’s reckoning. It is, I suppose, roughly comparable to a last will and
testament but opened and read only by The Dayan Emes.

“Alan, come back here in the bedroom.” My dad is not feeling well today.
To see him lying in his disheveled sickbed is a disturbing sight. I spot his favorite
sweater that he so enjoys having wrapped around his shoulders crumpled up in a
ball by the head board. We jokingly call it his “talis”. He wriggles about
uncomfortably atop his bedcovers. His head is scrunched up against four
pillows, his frighteningly thin legs poke through the ends of the same pajama
pants he has worn now for several days. A once robust, barrel-chested man and
golden glove pugilist in his youth, my father was someone you’d want to have
on your side in a fight.

“Do you remember what you said?” he asked me with a worrisome look. My
father is referring to one of the stories he’s been reading that I’ve written about
his struggle and our time together. “How you thought I was going to die that morning
when Bobbie (my dad's wife) brought me to the emergency room.”

“Yes, I do remember that all too clearly …”

“Well son, I wasn’t ready to die that morning and, as a matter of fact,” he
added, “the thought never entered my head.” I swallowed hard, having just
shared a gritty, dramatic moment with my father. “Dad, when I first saw you in
that treatment room, I was scared at how terrible you looked. Your skin was
yellow, you were burning up from fever and the diarrhea was unrelenting. Truth
be told, I thought to myself: ‘This is the end.’ “

Talk of death does not disturb him. He speaks of it almost detachedly, with
the calm acceptance of a man who has squared his account with his maker. It’s
important that I transcribe the meanderings of his soul before colon cancer
takes him from us. He grimaced.

“Dad, are you all right?” He seems not to have heard me.
“Pain in your gut, Dad?”
“Some yes.” He tells me it’s been coming more frequently.
“I took a couple of Vicadin.”
“Dad, what kind of pain is it?”
“It feels ‘sore’. You know, how I felt as a kid when I had eaten too many green
apples.” Somehow I was not convinced his grimace reflected a merely “sore”
stomach, but I understood what he was doing, he thought, for my sake.

My father and I had gone out in the morning on business which completely
wore him out. We had been able to get out fairly regularly until just recently
when my father suffered a precipitous decline in his health. Whenever we
did make it out, I felt like such a kid walking around with a toothy grin, wearing
a t-shirt with an arrow and caption that read: “This is my dad!”

It is very difficult to leave my father today on Erev Shabbos. As sundown
approaches, he becomes contemplative, soulful if you will, as if he had already
acquired his neshuma yesaira.

“You know I was thinking back when you were a
baby,” he began. “You were born with a club foot. Did you know that?” he
asked, his eyes becoming misty. I’ll miss this part of him most. “No Dad I
didn’t,” I managed to choke out those four words. In truth, I had heard it
untold times before, but for my father, each time was as if it were the very first.
“And I used to turn your foot and turn your foot, again and again, like this,” he
demonstrated painfully and tearfully, twisting his hands in the manner of one
struggling to connect two rusty garden hoses into one. It was enough to
emotionally drain both of us.

“What time do you have, Son?” he asked me, reaching for the box of tissues
on the nightstand.
“4:45.”
“4.45! You better get going. I don’t want you to be late for ‘shul’.”
I gathered my things slowly. “Go home Son. It’s getting late,” he counseled.
I turned to leave.
“Alan, thank you,” he said excitedly.
“Have a great weekend,” I said.
“Good Shabbos,” he responded, as if mildly rebuking me. I leaned
over.

Kissing me as he had always done, I felt the familiar scratchy stubble of my
father’s unshaven face, but not so strangely, it didn’t bother me this time. I
inhaled his scent.

Traffic that afternoon did, as I had hoped, run quickly, but it still seemed to
have taken me forever to get home.

Alan D. Busch
3/2/09