The Shloshim

From my seat at the front gate of the campus I struggled to avoid the glare of the sun, from whom I could find no shelter. I closed my eyes and sat fully upright, forearms outwards in a show of meditation, in reality only trying to encourage the slight bloom of brown that had begun to take hold on my arms and face. I wore the last of three shirts I had tried out to be formal enough for what I anticipated to be coming, but no so stylish as to draw attention to myself. My heavy bag sat by my side.

The taxi pulled up twenty minutes later, an hour earlier than the councilors should have summoned it, to take me to the nearby mall where my relatives would be picking me up. I sat for an hour in the lobby, distracting myself from my nerves with the last pages of Twelfth Night which I hoped to direct in the following year. I eventually called them, an unfortunately one way method of communication, and found them at the gate. Suddenly, I was rushed into the back seat of their car, pinned between the door and Meital, a relative of mine who we eventually settled on as my third cousin. Her mother, Liora, was at the wheel, instantly offering me food and family stories in (what I had previously found to be rare) a display of Jewish stereotypes in action. They felt like family all right. I was still quiet and a bit nervous but it was clear to me that we shared some basic aspect at our roots. I was honestly very surprised.

We drove for an hour or so into Jerusalem, where they made a detour to see the parents of an old friend of Liora's. Again, food, family stories (this time not about mine), and a very Jewish vibe. Then Liora tok off to the venue to set up with her husband and younger daughter, who had sprained her ankle, leaving me behind with my cousin and two seniors who I had never met. I was sure they looked at me a dozen times as if to ask 'who is this kid?' 'what's he doing here?' Meital suggested we walk and I eagerly agreed.

The walk took us past a train station from the Ottoman Empire that has been renovated into an open air market. We had been talking and walking and getting to know each other for a while now. She told me all about her school, what she wanted to do in the army, how she wanted to travel to Australia without a plan and just live, but that shed always been a to much of a planner. I knew exactly how she felt. She was surprisingly short though she was my younger by only a year. Her hair looked like it was tossed in the wind and backlit by the sun. She looked like she was always on the edge of the next idea, which, once attained would keep her comfortably six steps ahead of you.

At the station we ran into a friend of hers and a woman I took to be her mother. After introductions she asked "you're not Marty's son are you?". It was amazing. They were bound for the memorial as well, old friends of the family, and had apparently known my grandmother in California. The country is so small, so Jewish, that meeting a long lost relative is commonplace. It blew my mind.

Finally we reached the front gate and ascended the staircase to the door. A smiling portrait of Rabbi Hiam Asa himself beamed down warmly at us. I jumped in with a hand wherever I could. I always feel more in place when I have a job to do. Then people started arriving. Even the slow trickle in was unnerving. Each person gave me a look of confusion as they entered. Who was I? I disappeared into the back hallway to avoid the blatant fact that I was mute, conversationless with the growing crowd of strangers. I tried to eat but the food felt heavy on my tongue and gummed up my throat. I revisited the lobby to see that the crowd had doubled and receded again to my hideout. A light panic started to set in. The cousins formed their tight circles of talk without me. The adults downright ignored me. Why the hell was I there? My group had gone to Tel Aviv that night to take part in a headphones rave that I would be missing. I longed to be anywhere else.

I cracked. I couldn't hide in the back room any more and I would not stand idle in the busy hall with strangers. I broke my contract, I left the building. I walked out of the front door and took a hard right. I just wanted to circle the block, just to get my head straight. I clutched my plastic cup at my side and nervously fiddled with the edge. I turned the next right. The old city wall came into view in the distance. I toyed with the idea of running all the way there, maybe a twenty minute walk, but I put it aside. I was still clutching the cup as I rounded the third corner, that was a good sign. I took it to mean that I intended to return. The wall was ringing with music at my back, alive with some festival for Laila Levan, the White Night. I rounded the fourth corner and reentered the building.

The lobby was now empty but for my two youngest cousins running around top speed.
"We thought we lost you!" they laughed. They pulled me into the hall and sat me down between their two families, front and center, just as the slideshow ended and was turned off. The first speaker took the stand and, in what I assume to be flawless and unfaltering Hebrew, gave his speech.

They spoke and spoke. One after another after another after another. Some in Hebrew, Some in English. They spoke for forty years. As the Hebrew went on, I picked from its indiferentiatable syllables the few words that I knew. People, Connections, Bulgaria, Orange County, Argentina, Memorial, and many others in snippets and unsure parts. I let myself imagine what they were saying about him. I listened to their emotion and their tone. I waited until the last speaker had finished, and then they raised up a song, haunting and minor, that I had never heard. My cousin put an arm around me and an arm around her father and a short chain formed. Then, with many tears, greetings, and goodbyes, the crowd dispersed. It was over.

I was matched to the other branch of my family, cousin Aviva's and they drove me to their home across the green line into the West Bank, a name completely dismissed by her husband Daniel who preferred the Zionist name for the "liberated" Territory. These to, felt like family. I could not tell you why, but even when our beliefs differ so greatly, I can't help but feel a connection.

Thank you to the families of Liora and Aviva for making me feel like part of the family and for giving me this view of the country, unslanted by the classroom setting.

In Memoriam of Rabbi Hiam Asa 1931-2014