When the Patriarchs Pay a Visit

“Enter, exalted holy guests, enter, exalted holy Patriarchs, to be seated in the shade of the exalted faithfulness. Enter, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Aharon, David, Moses.”  (Ushpizin)

A mother sits in a tent in her backyard. Fans blow from all four corners to keep those inside comfortable. Visitors sit in semicircles around her. Most are at a loss for words, but those who knew him well and share their memories bring her a sharp sort of comfort. She laughs when his high school buddies recall the stunts he used to pull, and she hangs on to every word of those who fought alongside him. They’re impossible to miss. Their boots are heavy, and they smell like war. They’ve come straight to her house without even stopping to see their own families first.

A young woman bouncing a baby on her hip stands in the back with her husband. When his mother catches sight of her, the women exchange a wistful smile, and his mother unconsciously fingers the safety pin holding her torn collar together. They both know that the woman in the back was his first, true love.

“He didn’t get a chance to finish the job he started,” visitors overhear his mother say to a 16-year-old girl from the north who has taken a four-hour bus ride to pay her condolences, “but his soldiers will. They will make it safe for you again.” The teenager from the north who never met the soldier but had heard his story hugs his mother goodbye, and everyone watching is reminded what their people are made of.

As the afternoon wears on and the crowds thin, two men she has never seen before walk in and take their seats opposite her. The older of the two has a warm, hospitable smile. The younger one seems shy. “Do I know you?” the mother asks. “Yes and no,” the old man answers. “I, too, was asked to sacrifice my son,” he continues, and the mother, thinking she understands, offers him an empathic tilt of the head.

“What was he like?” she asks softly.

“This is him,” the old man says, putting his hand on the shoulder of the shy man next to him.

“But I thought you said—”

“I was asked, but in the end,” the old man glances up towards the heavens, “he was saved by an angel.” The old man is visibly pained for the mother as he says the words. He rubs the shofar he has been holding in his lap. It is obvious to anyone looking at them that the son would do anything asked of him.

“I am happy for you,” she tells the old man. She reaches behind her for the framed picture of her son taken the day he was sworn in. His sun-kissed face is beaming with devotion as he salutes his superiors. She hugs the picture to her chest.  “My son, my only son, my beloved son,” she says under her breath.

Another old man sits just behind the first one. “We’ve never met,” he says, anticipating her question as she takes him in. There’s a yellow string around his wrist.  “I never take it off,” he says, when he sees her notice it, and she knows there is more, so she leans in to hear his story.  “I too, had a son torn from me.” His eyes grow dark as the memories surface. “They brought me the blood-stained shirt he was wearing when it happened. I found out later that he had languished in a pit before being dragged over the border.” The mother shakes her head, wanting to unhear the details. She tells him that no matter how many stories like his she has been told, each one feels surreal. One of the other visitors asks, with a tone of desperation, if they know what happened after he was taken. The father hesitates for a moment, taking in the faces around him, before conceding, “he was returned to me. My family is whole again.” Some around him are euphoric. Others look anguished. “I’m sorry,” he continues, “I know that not everyone’s story ends like mine.”

“I am happy for you,” the mother says. But those sitting closest to her hear the almost inaudible moan that escapes her chest as she watches the old man leave the tent, supported lovingly by a younger man in a colorful coat.

As they exit, a man dressed in fine white linen steps into the tent. The dusty soldiers do their best not to sully his immaculate outfit as they brush past him. He walks straight towards the mother and bows his head before taking a seat. She studies the man’s face carefully. “Who have you lost?” she asks, intuiting.

“My two eldest,” he answers, “in the line of duty.” She tells him that her heart cannot fathom two. Serenely, he responds, “God takes the best of them.” She’s waiting for more, but the man in white falls silent.

She listens to the conversations swirling around her. “We know he did everything he could,” she hears her husband tell the mother of a young medic. Her husband is looking off in the distance as he says the words. He doesn’t look the mother of the medic in the eyes, but he repeats his words a second time and asks that she relay them.

A group of older kids from the neighborhood stand around a table littered with plastic plates and store-bought cookies. They flip through the photo album the family has left for others to peruse and reflect on how many blows their small community has suffered. Loss is a part of their daily lives now. So is fear. But they refuse to stop laughing. “Make a blessing on the food in his memory,” a stocky old woman in a headscarf  says as she pats the arm of one of the boys and she shuffles past. “Good kids, you are all good kids,” she tells them. They get a kick out of her, and one of the girls offers to help her back to her car.

The mother’s friends clear plates, replenish cookies, heat up dinner, and serve tea. When there is no food left to busy themselves with, they hover. Until that week, the mother admits to one of them as she takes the bowl of soup being offered, she did not realize how profoundly loving the act of hovering is. As she brings the spoon to her mouth, a ruddy-cheeked man sits down to her right. His face is battle weary, and his hands are streaked with dirt. He too, is new to her, so she asks him if he knew her son. “Not personally,” he says, “but I know the battle he was fighting, and I know how fierce the enemy is.”

“All you young, beautiful boys,” she says, biting her lower lip to stop its quivering, “and we send you off to fight monsters.”

“They are monsters,” he agrees, “well trained monsters. And seeing their perverse hatred up close is haunting. But if not us,” he asks, with a conviction that no longer surprises her, “then who?”

The mother tells him about all the plans her son had. “What would you do,” she asks him, “if you didn’t have to go fight the monsters?” The man blushes. “Come on,” she persists.

“I’ve always wanted to be a songwriter.”

The mother smiles. “You have a poet’s soul,” she says, “I saw it the moment you sat down.” The warrior blushes again. “Please be careful out there,” she says, knowing as she does, how futile her words are.

“Our enemies outsize us,” he says, unflinching, “but we have a weapon no army in the world has.” The mother nods in agreement.

When the last of the visitors leave, the mother pulls her aching body out of the low chair. She relishes the tent’s quiet, but it’s interrupted by a boy who slows his run as he enters the tent. “I am not here to stay,” he tells her breathlessly, realizing that he has arrived too late. “I was just told to deliver this,” he says, handing her an envelope. The woman is caught off guard. “Who writes letters these days?” she says aloud before tearing it open. The words seem to illuminate the page.

“I have spent my entire life studying God’s teachings, but still, His ways remain inscrutable. I also spent my life yearning to get to the Land of Israel, but that too remained beyond my grasp. I stood on a mountain once and looked over. It was like nothing I had ever seen, and I never wanted anything as badly. I know there are so many like me, who wanted to get back to our homeland, but history just wouldn’t allow it. Your son lived on our land and died for our people. There is no greater Jew than he. In humility and gratitude, I send you strength to continue, for the sake of our everlasting people.”  

The mother puts the letter back in the envelope and slips it into her pocket. In a few days’ time, the holiday will start, and the week after that, Simchat Torah. None of the adults she has spoken to know how they are going to get through it. Everything is still so raw, and the horrors are ongoing. The boy turns to leave, but before he does, he says, “my friends and I will be back next week to put up your sukkah. You don’t need to worry about it. Just let us know when to come.” He says it kindly but nonchalantly.

“That’s how,” she says to herself, and smiles at the young boy in humility and gratitude.