Yesterday was Father’s Day but today would have been my mother’s birthday. She was really an amazing woman in so many respects. My mother had a great sense of humor. As an example, while she rarely attended worship her favorite service was the Rosh Hashanah morning Shofar extravaganza. I say “extravaganza” because she wouldn’t leave until our ba’al tekiah gave his first shot at a tekiah, the one longish toot (but not the tekiah g’dolah, the real long toot). The reason my mother looked forward to it is that he couldn’t blow the shofar. We had to restrain her from falling out of her pew because the ba’al tekiah would make the first attempt and all you’d hear was a pfffft…no tekiah…and she’d start laughing. Then the second attempt…pffffffffffft…no tekiah. By this time the tears were running down her cheeks and everyone around her would be staring. So far, she was able to hold in her laugh, but well before the pffffffffts ended my mother would be laughing hysterically.
Now all of my teenage friends (we were all ushers) knew what the sequence of events would be. A few more pfffffffffffffffffffts and Mrs. Grumbacher would have to be escorted out by her husband and a couple of the male ushers. It was more of a ritual than the shofar blowing itself, an iconic moment in the sacred setting of the High Holydays of this V E R Y decorum-oriented German synagogue!
The rabbi spoke to her about this behavior, and I remember the gist of one brief conversation…”Mrs. Grumbacher, if you know you’re not able to control yourself why don’t you just wait in the foyer or outside?” And mom said, “You’ve got to be kidding, Rabbi, I love the shofar sounds and it’s a mitzvah to hear them. You can’t keep me from performing one of the most sacred mitzvas of Judaism.” Then he said, “Aren’t you embarrassed, and what about Mr. Grumbacher and Peter. How do you think they feel?”
I know what she truly wanted to say – and it can’t be written here – but what she did say was, “Embarrassed? Why would I be embarrassed. Maybe Mr. Schleplowitz should be embarrassed for the way he can’t blow the shofar!! Everybody in the Temple has been saying, ‘Get rid of him already!’ and maybe my reaction will result in just that. Genug schon!” (Enough already! but in German. Actually, the whole conversation sounded much better in the original…such class in that language)
Well, I’m not sure when he “retired,” but I do know that when Mr. Schleplowitz was kindly asked to step aside for young Charles Cooper, he did so gracefully. Alas, my mother had nothing left to fall over in stitches for; whether she returned for any of the holyday worship, I doubt.
My mother also had a treasure house of German lieder, songs she would teach me but which I already had mastered since I heard them in my youngest childhood. The thing is that these songs were…well, chances are you would NEVER teach them to YOUR children.
As a matter of fact when Suzy and I toured Berlin, one of our two tour guides was a 25 year old man. Sweet as could be…fun, bright, informative. I told him I learned many lieder from my other. “Would you like to hear them?” I asked. “Selbstverstaendlich!” (Absolutely/Obviously) said he. He looked at me in disbelief when I sang one, then the next. “Peter,” he said, “I know those tunes but I never heard them sung with those lyrics.” “Well,” I replied, “your mother never taught you those words like mine taught me!” He couldn’t believe it. “YOUR MOTHER TAUGHT YOU THOSE SONGS?” I had to give him an honest answer, so I said, “Well, my father taught me one of them.”
(Speaking of mothers, a mother was taking her children out for a walk. Someone came over and said, “What nice looking kids. How old are they? She responded, “The doctor is 6 and the lawyer is 4.”)