Over the last few days I was privy to a number of conversations about a bygone era. Either we don’t talk enough about those times or we’re simply not sufficiently knowledgeable to discuss it.
These subjects were broached in the aftermath of the passing of my mother-in-law, Chana Nudel, who was a foundation of our family and, of course, in the life of my wife, Esta.
The shivah process and protocol that were observed both in Israel and New York brought out friends and family, many of whom we do not ordinarily come in contact with on a regular basis. That is the nature of shivah—people coming out to sit with you and commiserate over your loss, very often in silence, which is not only perfectly acceptable but very much recommended.
My primary role this week was to make sure that everything ran as smoothly as possible. So while I was doing whatever I was doing, I also overheard or participated in conversations of days gone by, of a generation of immigrants who arrived in the U.S. with their personal lives in tatters. The people who came to our home here in New York or visited us in Israel were the children of that generation. They sat here and spoke about their parents and their parents’ relationships with my in-laws.
When we first met, a little more than 40 years ago, the experiences that led them to the U.S. seemed to me at the time to be disconnected from the reality that I was living in the 1970s. As the years passed, we arrived into modern times, with their harrowing experiences sliding deeper into the past, but the trauma of their early lives was always there, and it refused to recede into oblivion though we would have preferred that.
As I might have mentioned in a previous essay, my mother-in-law, like my father-in-law, was left alone after their entire families were murdered. My father-in-law was connected to the Novardok Yeshiva and he married my mother-in-law when she was just 15 years old, They were matched up on a ship sailing its way to Paris, where they had a chuppah before moving on to New York where they spent the rest of their lives. When she was just 16-and-a-half years old she gave birth to twins.
My mother-in-law adopted my father-in-law’s customs, and as the years moved into the 1960s and 70s, the ways of the yeshiva often came into conflict with the teenagers and young adults who were living life in an emerging modern world.
The Novardok Yeshiva was one of the most prominent yeshivas in pre-World War II Europe and a powerful force within the Mussar movement. The Yeshiva was established in the Russian Empire in 1896 together with a kollel for married men under the direction of Rabbi Yosef Yozel Horowitz, an alumnus of the Kovno Kollel and a pupil of Rav Yisrael Salanter.
They spent at least four of the war years under the protection (if you can call it that) of the Russians in Siberia. My father-in-law, Hershel Nudel, spoke very minimally about the years in Siberia. He was niftar six years ago, and now that his wife has also passed away, that story, in a sense, has come to an end.
I believe, though, that this is the beginning of the opportunity to reflect on lives that were lived, upon children who were born in the 1920s up until about 1930 (the year my mother-in-law was born), and the unexpected, rough terrain of the life they were forced to live.
Most everything in their lives was shrouded in struggle on some level. But, I feel that their grit, emotional strength, and determination are the reasons they were able to lead those lives. I’ve heard it said that those who survived the Holocaust when so many others did not were survivors, and that is what survivors do—they survive. That is what Hershel and Chana Nudel were able to do.
Over the last two weeks I heard numerous conversations from people who visited with Esta here in the Five Towns to share the memories of being brought up in a new world by Holocaust survivors. All these years later—indeed, many decades later, the recurring theme is that those who survived were changed people, and depending on who you were and the circumstances of your upbringing it impacted you very profoundly, in an intimate fashion.
I listened as visitors spoke about the nifteres, my mother-in-law, and how she was among the youngest of the wives of the men from the Beis Yosef Yeshiva. Despite the pain and hardships, the Yeshiva (and the shul by the same name, Beis Yosef, Novardok) was the thread that kept them bound to one another over all these years.
I heard one conversation about their intense devotion to tefillah. One of the daughters of my in-laws’ friends said of the group that these were people “who really knew how to daven.”
Their faith and commitment to studying Torah was undiminished by the losses, pain, and hardships they experienced. Most arrived shortly after 1945 but had no idea what to expect going forward. Many had families and had to deal with the conflict between the new emerging freedom of an American lifestyle and the rock-solid foundation of their yeshiva life for the previous half-century or more.
But mostly they had to deal with the contradiction of so much death and the natural inclination to go on living. They wanted to give their children a good life, but their Yeshiva philosophy was to make sure you deprived yourself of anything that was too good.
They wanted to name their new grandchildren after their siblings who met a torturous and untimely demise at the hand of the Nazis and the enemies of the Jewish people. But they were reluctant to do that, concerned about the brevity of life of those siblings. So they mixed and matched up a variety of names, hoping that a new generation would have a better mazal.
Suddenly, my mother-in-law is no longer here for us to visit or call or to inquire of her or her aides what she might need. As I mentioned in this space previously, she and my father-in-law wanted to at least be buried in Eretz Yisrael. Before he took ill, my father-in-law mentioned at times that he would be interested in living the rest of his life in Israel. But it was too ambitious of an objective and didn’t materialize. However, he was determined, at the very least, to be interred in the Holy Land he so loved, and now they are both there, side by side.
Our faith tells us that from His perch on high Hashem sees our past, our present, and future all as one unit of time. There is a Divine logic at play here that is beyond our grasp. We have solace in the concept that my mother-in-law, whom we loved and who loved us so much, is now privy to that view of G-d’s plan for her and the whole world. We pray that she is now comforted and at peace with that new insight and knowledge.
We believe with all our conviction that she has been “gathered into her people,” as the Torah says, and that this reference means that she is now with her parents, grandparents, siblings, and so many others who were lost to her when she was only nine years old. Now she is rejoined with her husband of over 70 years and her two sons who predeceased her, Shlomie and Shimon Fishel.
We are indeed struggling with our loss down here. We know that we have a lot to aim for if we are going to live up to her standards and be able to emulate the lives they led. They blazed a trail for us to follow and left us a great legacy to incorporate and internalize into our lives. Mostly, they left us an unshakeable faith in G-d, and we can say that now we, too, know how to daven.
Read more of Larry Gordon’s articles at 5TJT.com. Follow 5 Towns Jewish Times on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter for updates and live videos. Comments, questions, and suggestions are welcome at 5TJT.com and on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
