LOOKING BACK

O

ter disputes that, insists that
it happens in the first chapter
of Matthew. and offers to get
a Bible to prove it. On the
way out, however, she helps
herself to another cup of wine,
and the scholarly controversy
dissolves in giggles.
11:45' a.m. Only Meyer
Firshman has come in. He
reports that the sun and wind
have been drying out the
roads. Sam Phillips shouldn't
have any trouble on his way
from Coffeyville.
12 noon, zero hour. Every-
one — even little Billy, who is
hungry and squalling — is
here, except Marvin Cohen.
The mohel has a small arsenal
ready — a gauge, knife, and a
frightening quantity of gauze
pads. He dips a piece of cot-
ton in wine and lets the baby
suck on it. "Nu?" he says.
"After all, better a brit
without a minyan than a min-
yan without a brit. What's
your pleasure?" My pleasure
is to wait, just a little while,
please.
12:13 p.m. PFC Cohen
bursts through the door
apologizing. The NCO in
charge wouldn't let him go
until he cleared it by
telephone with headquarters
in Texas. Luckily, they finally
allowed him the use of a jeep
to drive in. "Ladies and
gentlemen, this brit cum min-
yan is made possible through
the cooperation of the Central
Flying Training Command,
United States Army Air
Corps..' Within five minutes
it's all done. The nuns
applaud and make a boister-
ous exit.
We all drive to the Locke
home to lunch on the Jewish
delicacies from the New York
delicatessen in Tulsa. Pickled
herring, lox, corned beef,
pastrami, pickles, and rye
bread. And schnapps.
Don't expect a blow by
blow account of what tran-
spires for the next half dozen
hours; I have a light head for
drink. I remember the mohel
reassuring me that the day of
the brit of a first-born son is
like Purim, that I'm not
obliged to tell Mordecai from
Haman. I remember dancing
horas until Bernie threatens
to send me a bill for wearing
out his living room rug. I
remember exhausting the en-
tire stock of songs I know in
Yiddish, Hebrew and English.
And I remember that it's sud-
denly evening and Bernie and
I are waving goodbye to
two friends with whom we've
spent a very happy day.
•
When our second child is

born, we are living in the
Bronx. A brit would be easy
as chicken soup. Ibby being a
girl, however, we have no need
for a mohel.
Twenty-nine years after the
memorable occasion in Kan-
sas, fate decides that we are
ready for a repeat perfor-
mance. Miriam and I are still
living in the Bronx, but Ibby
and her husband David are
homesteading in a log cabin
on an isolated hilltop near the
village of Lindside in south-
eastern West Virginia. Their
neighbors are hill people who
speak in a Cockney drawl
that hasn't changed since the
days of the first Queen
Elizabeth. In the entire
sprawl of Monroe County,
which lies some 85 miles west
of Roanoke, Virginia, Tbby
and David make up one of on-
ly two Jewish couples.
Our pioneering children
have a cow, two goats and a
flock of hens, but no tap
water, indoor plumbing, elec-
tricity or telephone. Access to
their cabin is by way of a
steep, winding, soggy drive-
way negotiable only by dare-
devil drivers in vehicles with
four-wheel drive. My Pontiac
bogs down in mud at the very
bottom.
At two o'clock on the mor-
ning of March 9th (Shushan
Purim and the Sabbath, a
yichusdiche day), we are
awakened by a phone call
from David: Ibby has just
given birth to an eight pound
baby boy at the hospital in
Bluefield, 40 miles from Lind-
side. Hosannah — Miriam
and I have our first grand-
child at last! We jump for joy.
After the delirium wears off,
it dawns on us that we have
a problem. David just told us
that Tbby will stay in the
hospital for only two days.
How do we have a brit in a
cabin on a windswept hill
where no mohel ever trod? We
are more humble this time.
We'll resign ourselves to the
impossibility of a minyan.
Phone call to the hospital
at Bluefield. Tbby and David
are amused over our hangup
on ritual. Dr. Hansbarger at
the health center at Union,
the seat of Monroe County, is
quite capable of doing a cir-
cumcision, a routine surgical
procedure. "It's our child . .
It's our grandson . . . Circum-
cision! . . . Brit! . . . Circumci-
sion!! . . . Brit!!! . . ." They
yield at last. "But if you in-
sist on a brit, it's your baby."
It's their baby, of course.
They mean that getting a
mohel to the cabin in Lind-
side is a logistical problem

we've just saddled ourselves
with. The brouhaha at Inde-
pendence, Kansas, was a ping
pong game by contrast.
After a series of futile long
distance calls, the rabbi in the
Conservative synagogue at
Roanoke, Virginia, reports,
"We have no mohel here.
Reverend Isaac Waldman
comes in from Richmond
when he's needed. A good
man . ."
Reverend Waldman an-
swers the phone in a strong
Hungarian accent. "Lindside,
West Virginia? Never heard of
it! How did your children ever
creep into such a place? It
sounds like I'll need a pass-
port ... This Sunday yet? My
dear man, do you know how
busy I am? I'm not only a
mohel, I'm a cantor and I
teach the Bar Mitzvah boys
here. Besides, I'm the shochet
for the whole Tidewater
basin. Let me look at my cal-
endar . . . A miracle — Sun-
day is free. But I must be
back the same night, you
hear? See if you can make the
travel arrangements, then call
me back."
By the grace of God and
Piedmont Airlines, it is: 10
a.m. plane from Richmond to
Roanoke, change planes, ar-
rive at Lewisburg, West
Virginia, at 1 p.m. I will take
Mr. Waldman to Lindside by
car. Brit at 3 o'clock. Return
plane from Bluefield to
Roanoke at 7:30 p.m. Home in
Richmond at 10 o'clock.
Another miracle: Cantor/Sho-

Waldman
chet/Mohel
graciously agrees to come.
Sunday morning, March
17, a good day for the Irish.
In Lindside it is snowing.
Frantic phone call to the air-
port at Richmond. All clear
there, no problems foreseen,

Lord be praised! When I start
out for Lewisburg, 40 miles
away, the snow has died
down, but the wind has
whipped up and sends pellets
of sleet pinging on my wind-
shield. It is bitterly cold as I
wait at the runway for the
plane from Roanoke. Memor-
ies of a day in Kansas so
many years ago come rushing
back.
Mr. Waldman is a dapper
man in his fifties with a neat-
ly clipped moustache. I smile
when I see the impeccable
shine on his black shoes. Wait
until he slogs through the
mud around Tbby and David's
cabin.
We have an hour's drive to
Lindside. Waldman is a
native of a town in Tran-
sylvania, 12 kilometers from
Sighet. He knew Elie Wiesel
as a boy. The sweep on sweep
of sugar-loaf hills reminds
him of the Carpathian coun-
tryside of his young days, and
he grows nostalgic. We ex-
change stories of the Chasidic
rebbes and — how much
encouragement does a cantor
need? — join in a torrent of
Chasidic melodies. We have
set the proper mood for a brit.
At the bottom of his 116
acres, David is waiting in his
jeep truck to take us to the
top. As the wheels of the
truck jounce, slip and slide
around the mud-oozing turns,
Waldman peers over the sheer
drop to one side of the
driveway and shakes his

head. His heart must be near
his moustache, even though
he, like his famous landsman,
is a Holocaust survivor.
We've made it on time. The
crowded little cabin is
scrubbed spotless; Miriam
and my machutin, Joachim

Holz, have seen to it. Our
mohel puts on a gleaming
white surgical gown and
mask and sets briskly to
business. On the mohel's in-
structions, little Huckleberry
Amnon Reuven — that's the
name! — has not been fed for
the last few hours, but he is
sleepy and quiet. Only occa-
sionally he opens one huckle-
berry blue eye to find out why
everyone is fussing about. At
the critical moment — may it
be simon toy! — the sun
breaks through the overcast
and floods the windows of the
cabin. Waldman is quick and
deft — milah is over almost
before Joachim can catch it
on his camera. As we repeat
after the mohel in Hebrew,
"As he has been introduced
into the covenant, so may he
be introduced into the Torah,
to the marriage canopy, and
to a life of good deeds," I
break into tears. Our first
grandchild!
A handful of Ibby and
David's neighbors come in
and are initiated into a
Jewish mystery — schnapps
with pickled herring, gefilte
fish, kichel and honey cake.
Even in the snug cabin we
can sing and dance a hora.

By the time Miriam and I
drive Reverend Waldman to
the Bluefield airport, the sun
has set and the hills are
smoky gray against the
darkening sky. Snow begins
to fall again but in light, lazy,
almost cheerful flakes. The
mohel is in a mellow mood. "I
can't tell you exactly how
many boys I've circumcized
— a good few thousand," he
says. "But such an experience
as I had today. . ." When we
reach the airport, he sudden-
ly remembers that he didn't
daven mincha.
I assure him that he will be
forgiven.
He smiles. "lb come to such
a place for a brit . . . After
four thousand years we are
still keeping Abraham's
bargain with God! God must
keep his bargain, too. What
kind of God would He be if
He didn't?"

Mr. Waldman is still prac-
ticing his art. Three years ago
he turned up as a resident at
the South Florida condomini-
um where I live. He asked me
to help him phrase a news-
paper notice advertising his
services. I suggested a logo,
"A cut above the average." He
finally chose his own creation:
"A lifetime guarantee." ❑

Yaacov Luria is a writer in
California.

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

109