Dear Friends,
With the insistence of family members, I began to think about my ability to remain in my house when I turned seventy-five a couple of years ago. I live in a 100-year-old, three-story house, with the laundry in the basement. The house looks good after a century, thanks to my maintaining the mechanics of the house and carefully curating the interior. The house is modest by the standards of the North Shore, but it is extraordinary in ambience and charm. I have been very respectful of the privilege that I have had to live in it for the past forty years, and so I have been careful to respect the intention of the builder, a carpenter who constructed it and the house on weekends. It has the touch of a craftsman who built the house with wood and with a full heart.
Three years ago, my then six-year-old granddaughter, Lainie, overheard a discussion about the possibility of my move. “Papa, why would you ever leave the magic house?” she asked tearfully. Although I try to see my children and grandchildren once a week, they seldom journey all the way from the Upper West Side to Roslyn Heights. I drive into the city for our weekly visits. So, I was surprised that Lainie felt any connection at all to my house. “In what way do you find it magical, Lainie?” I asked. “It’s where Mommy and Aunt Ruthie grew up, and whenever I go to your house, I visit them when they were my age.” You should know that I believe, as does Martha Stewart, that a good house is never done. While there are artifacts from Sara and Ruthie’s childhood and adolescence, I have not preserved their rooms as sacred places. I have made many changes to their rooms in the past twenty years, but their girlhoods still inspire the house called Cleminayin Cottage in our family. (That is a story for another time, whose title could be called “How the Daughter of a Rabbi Rebelled While Remaining Religious.”)
My daughter, Ruthie, who is not given to sentiment, rolled her eyes when I told her about Lainie’s concern. “Great! Just what we all need: another excuse why you shouldn’t move,” she moaned. So, when Lainie mentioned the ‘magic house’ to her, Ruthie was quick to remark, “Lainie, it is a magic house, but Papa is the magic, not the house.” Talk about gifts!
This story was repeated last week after shul on the first day of Rosh HaShana when the daughters and the grandchildren, along with my son-in-law, Steven, gathered for lunch at my home. Sara, Lainie, and Isaac, who had spent the night at Cleminayinn Cottage, met us with Ruthie, Steven, and Tallulah early enough to be called forward by Rabbi Jodie for the first ark opening of the morning talk about dreams come true. If you didn’t see me beaming on the bimah, I’m sure it will not stretch your imagination to see it now in your mind’s eye. That the ark was opened for Avinu Malkaynu, one of the melodies I remember when I was my grandson, Isaac’s age. For me, it was a moment that brought my parents and grandparents together with my grandchildren, who were unknown to them.
I am a sucker for such moments of conflation, but what I didn’t expect came from Sara when she and her kids left the magic house later that day, after lunch. Schlepping a bag of leftovers to her car, and after she strapped the kids into the back seat, she turned to embrace me. “Thanks, Dad, for a great lunch, and thanks for the synagogue. I can’t tell you what it meant to me to open the ark with my kids this morning. It brought me back to my being a little girl in synagogue, where I always felt unconditionally loved by so many people. I was transported to a place where I have always felt I could be myself, and that it would be appreciated by everyone. This morning was magical for me.” “For me too,” I agreed.
A magic house, and a magic Schul . . . What a wonderful way to begin a New Year.
May it be a year of Good Health and of Peace with many reasons to rejoice.
Warmly,
Lee
