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Saturday, April 2, 2011
Under a photo of his family. Source.
In the summer of 1987, I looked across a noisy, crowded
lobby in Krakow, Poland. My eyes hit upon a man against the far wall. I decided
to walk across the room and start up a romance with this man. He looked
typically Polish. He was the figure I'd select for a striker on a Solidarity
poster.
He was a bit shorter than I, and a bit older.
Pale. His clothes were decent and conservative but not the newest, nor the most
stylish. He had a bit of a stubble. I would devote a page of my diary, later
that summer, to an attempt to describe his eyes, his, to me, at that moment,
"typically Polish" eyes. What I would try to tell my diary was that
his eyes had witnessed great sorrow, but that they still knew how to laugh. By
the time I had crossed the lobby, I had my irresistible pick-up line, in
Polish, carefully scripted.
"I'm sorry," he
replied. "I don't speak Polish."
Darn!
From Canada, originally, he now lived in Rochester, New York.
His name was Laurence Skopitz. And he was a rabbi.
That is
the last time I remember not being friends with Rabbi Laurence Skopitz. In every
other memory, we are talking (often late into the night), we are arguing –
sometimes quite heatedly – we are pouring out our souls, we are not letting the
bastards grind us down, we are trying to understand God, we are singing, and we
are laughing.
***
I went to
Poland in 1987 to re-expose myself to Polish stuff. I'd been living in Africa,
Asia, and the People's Republic of Berkeley. I needed to eat dill soup. I
needed to walk through fields of rye, and poppies, and hear the hejnal. I
needed to be annoyed in the way that only a Pole can annoy me.
The Kosciuszko Foundation was hosting a groundbreaking summer
session on Polish-Jewish relations. I was not in that group. I did not even
know what "Polish-Jewish relations" was. Laurie wanted input from a
"typical Pole."
My input: man, did they piss
me off.
One afternoon a member of the Kosciuszko Foundation
Polish-Jewish group returned to our dormitory after examining official archives
and announced, with a real sense of discovery, "The Holocaust was a
German, Nazi, operation." I was like, no shit Sherlock.
In 2010, I reconnected with one of the group participants via e-mail. He wrote
me that before he went to Poland, he had been "brainwashed." He said
he had had "zero experience of a not-Jewish Polish person … we understood
from our parents and uncles that Poles killed Jews because that was their only
pleasure besides alcohol. That's how they liked their alcohol. With blood
chasers. My ignorant prejudices against Poles were gone within two hours of
landing in Krakow. I met nice people at the front desk of the dormitory. The
lady was decent and helpful. I bought postcards and stamps from an older woman
at a little post shop in the building. I met a couple of people. They seemed
like people. They didn't seem to want to instantly kill me. I met you. I met other
Poles. None of you seemed to want to kill me. Prejudice was completely gone. And
I certainly had no need to hate. I had a strong burning need to love, and to
be loved."
Back in 1987, I asked Laurie, "What
is your obsession with Poles?"
Laurie replied,
"We don't want any guilty parties to get off without consequences."
What did Laurie and I say to each other after that? This is
what I remember: I remember that Laurie's roommate, Rabbi Paul Saiger, had
brought with him to Poland a copious amount of granola. I remember telling
Laurie that I could never be Jewish because I like ham. I remember one night we
were out at a club, and Laurie recognized that I was attracted to a man whom
Laurie assessed as no good for me. Laurie kept me in stitches telling me joke
after joke so I would not break free from his protective side and spend the
night with the bad man.
He teased me about my feet. He took
a photo of my feet. He said I have the biggest feet he'd ever seen. "Epic.
Monumental."
He said to me, "You travel a lot.
Who misses you when you leave? You are a person who should be missed."
I remember feeling really sad when the Polish-Jewish group
departed, and I was left with the Polish-Polish group. The conversations I
craved to finish had all departed with the Polish-Jewish group.
I remember Rabbi Laurie saying to me, with real fervor,
"You can change people's minds about Poles. You changed my mind."
How?
I don't remember a single pertinent political, theological,
historiographical thing I said to the Polish-Jewish group – me, their
American-born, half-Slovak, former resident of Africa, Asia, and Berkeley, their
"Typical Pole."
I remember the granola, the
laughter, and Laurie's eyes.
Me in Poland, 1987, Dom Studenta Piast.
When
I was a kid, I would read biographies of writers, and I would come across this phrase:
such and such a king or fan or friend or spouse "supported" a writer.
I never read that sentence about non-writers. No one ever talked about
"supporting" lumberjacks or roofers. I wondered if writers were like
three-legged tables that needed propping up.
I get it
now. Being a writer is like being pregnant, like giving birth, and like losing
your beloved child. Everyday. When I recognize one of my students as
particularly gifted, I pull him aside. I don't do that to tell him about the
barrel of laughs that's ahead of him.
Writers must see
new things, or old things in a new way. We must say what others are not saying.
That job description of writers also meshes with the
definitions of "insane" and "political prisoner."
Maybe you really are delusional. Maybe propriety is right.
Maybe a decent person would keep her mouth shut. What if speaking renders you
unemployable? Will the poverty, the slum address, the lack of health care be an
apt trade for these mere words? Why not just sit back and wait for someone else?
Rabbi Laurence Skopitz supported me. No money changed hands. After
the weeks we spent together in Poland in 1987, we never saw each other again.
Laurie returned to Rochester. I returned to the road:
Berkeley, Poland, Turkey, New Jersey, Berkeley again, the Midwest, New Jersey …
Our relationship – e-mails, phone calls, letters – was like John Donne's
"fixt foot."
When I first started saying things,
in print, about Polish-Jewish relations, and academics started backing away
from me slowly as if I might explode, and I started receiving e-mails comparing
me to Hitler and Abraham Lincoln (in response to the same essay), and when
caring others started warning me that I'd never get a job, publication, or
funding, Laurie kept saying to me, over and over, with the persistence of April
raindrops: ignore the naysayers ignore the naysayers ignore the naysayers
ignore the naysayers …. keep talking keep talking keep talking keep taking … it
will all be worth it someday it will all be worth it someday it will all be
worth it someday it will all be worth it someday.
Rabbi
Laurie supported me in a way I didn't know people could support each other. He
supported me more than I knew how to support myself. He is an inextricable element
of the strength in my spine, and in its flexibility.
I'm
guessing here, but this is how I think Laurie managed to carry it off: God. God
is an infinite source of love and faith. I think that Rabbi Laurie really
believed in God. I think that's where Laurie tapped the commodities he shared
with me. Laurie never needed to worry about running out.
I don't know if we ever talked without his telling at least one tale from
the Talmud, or singing some traditional song. The weave between the ancient
past and the modern man was seamless.
Sometimes
synchronicity seemed to boldface our connection, through all our differences, and
the miles between us.
One late night in Berkeley, Laurie
and I were chatting long distance. I was whining about a Buddhist I had fallen
in love with in Nepal. Laurie insisted that I had to hear a traditional Jewish
song, that this song would explain everything. He began to play his clarinet
through the telephone.
My radio was on. I interrupted Laurie.
I listened to the deejay, who said he was playing "Shofar-Tibetan bell
fusion."
(I mention this event in this essay.)
I quizzed Laurie about synchronicity, about God. In the book
"Rescuers," I read of Stefania Podgorska, a Polish teen from a simple
background. She didn't even know her own birthday. She had no resources. Her
loved ones had been taken to Germany for slave labor. She was suddenly mother
to her six-year-old sister. Stefania saved the lives of thirteen Jews. When the
Nazis were closing in, Stefania heard, and obeyed, a disembodied voice that
gave her explicit instructions on how to shelter her Jewish charges.
It's a heartwarming story, but one must demand: why didn't God
do that for millions more?
Rabbi Laurie said, "Maybe
God did try to communicate with others. Maybe they didn't listen."
***
In 2006, I did something that, in classical
ethics, would be condemned as categorically wrong – but, in a more relativist
worldview, would be praised as a humanitarian act.
I had
a troubled conscience. I didn't go to confession. I phoned Laurie.
Laurie listened, at length. Then he told me a tale. I'm not
sure if it is traditional, or something he made up on the spot. Two Orthodox
Jews were in a tight fix. They debated the prohibition against touching the money
inside a wallet on the Sabbath. Citing Talmudic precedents, they came up with
an innovative, if slightly profane, way to do what they needed to do without –
technically – breaking any commandments.
The tale
sparked my inner ethical motor, and its punch line made me laugh out loud, a
laugh that engaged my whole being.
***
That same year, Laurie told me that he was ill.
I
thought, "I can't handle this, and he'll get better, and I'm not going to
think about it."
I can't even tell you the name of
the illness.
We continued to argue – this time about the
nature of evil. I sent him this e-mail:
"I write to
you now with the expectation that you won't have time to respond. In a way,
that's good for me, because I get to have the last word. No matter what you say
in response, I will continue to argue that you are wrong, until you agree with
me. I will not cut you any slack because you are sick. I may cut you some slack
if you send me a check for a large sum of money."
In
the same month that we were carrying on this no-holds-barred debate about the
nature of evil, I was crawling to him with my woes, and expecting him to
comfort me.
He sent me the e-mail, below. He never says,
"I've been supporting you for years. When will it be enough? I'm wrestling
with a serious illness. Let's focus on MY problems!" He just, immediately,
steps up to the plate, and urges me on.
I was planning
to speak at a Polish-Jewish event. I was feeling some burnout, and, for once, I
wasn't sure what I'd say. Here's what Laurie wrote back. I'm cutting and
pasting his e-mail here, no changes:
"Well, you
could say: 'I have some trepidation about speaking at this forum tonight. I
have done so a number of times in the past, and often feel I've been
misunderstood, possibly because of stereotypes that get in the way. A lot of
people equate Poles with arch-anti-Semitism, and others have asked why I didn't
save any Jews, even though I was born many years after the war. Before coming
here this evening, I shared my concerns with my dear friend and mentor, Rabbi
Laurence Skopitz of Rochester, New York, who reassured me. He reminded me that
I have something very important to say, that, perhaps, like water penetrating
the stone at the well in the story of Rabbi Akiba, my message will make sense
to those who are willing to listen with an open heart, who appreciate
contradiction, nuance, and who recognize that in life there is very rarely
black and white, but only shades of grey. I hope to encourage you to consider
new ways of looking at old problems and re-stimulate a dialogue, which has been
ongoing between Jews and Poles for almost a thousand years.'
Anyways – feel free to say you're my pal and I think you're brilliant, if
that would help. Sorry I can't help you win the lottery, change water into
wine, or picks into pockets. B'matzliach- L.
PS Give me
your address, I will send you amulet for parnasah
(livelihood, etc)"
***
Laurie
sent out a group email to his friends on November 16, 2006. He wrote, "The
last time I was on a roller coaster, I instinctively kept my eyes closed
painfully tight, and screamed in abject terror throughout the whole
three-minute ordeal. For me, coping with illness, all the delays in treatment,
hopes, assurances, disappointments and detours, have been very much a roller
coaster ride. However, with this ride, despite all the ups and downs, I have
managed to keep my eyes open and, for the most part, resisted the urge to
scream … A phone call yesterday seems to have changed all that. Things are
moving uphill again and appear back on track."
A
couple of weeks later he wrote to say that he was feeling better. He joked and
quoted Hemmingway.
"Despite the wonderful assistance
of many volunteers, I had to take care of many last-minute items myself (for
that is the way of a true Spaniard – a little Hemmingway never hurts at times
like these), and I was not able to attempt to rest until 3 am. Of course I had
to be at the hospital by 7:30. I have never understood 7:30 am. A professor
once told me that 'a true philosopher never rises before Noon.' I have always
aspired to be a true philosopher. 7:30 is what can be called an ungodly hour.
God didn't invent it: we did! If God wanted us to be up that early, he would
have created us with built-in alarm clocks that have the persistence of an
Advil Headache #9. The hour is Ungodly, because that early in the morning, God
is nowhere to be found. He (or She) is probably sound asleep in some celestial
abode, or on the other side of the Globe smiting some malefactors in mid-day.
But I digress …"
A couple of weeks after that, it
wasn't Rabbi Laurie who wrote, but Temple Beth David.
The
subject line: "Update on Rabbi. Your Prayers are Needed." Importance:
High.
The e-mail included the words: "Please do not
call and do not visit."
Later that day another
e-mail went out.
Subject: "Come to a minyan
tonight."
The morning of Saturday, December 16,
2006, I went to the adjunct office on campus to do some work. I switched on the
computer in a crowded, noisy room. I looked at the screen and said, out loud,
"No."
"It is with great sadness that I
have been asked to report to all of you that Rabbi Skopitz passed away last
night. He was with his family and passed without pain. All was done in
accordance with his expressed wishes and in accordance with Jewish law. A rabbi
was present…"
Marc Chagall Danceuse
Laurie and
I have a mutual friend, Michael, who is a devout atheist. After he passed away,
I asked, "Give me a message I can share with Michael that will prove to
him that you are still with us, and that there is life after death."
I sat quietly for a moment. A word popped into my head:
"Azure."
"Azure? Laurie, you've gotta be
kidding me."
I sat quietly for another moment,
awaiting a more appropriate omen. "Azure."
"C'mon,
Laurie, really. 'Azure' is not the first color one might think of in relation
to Poland or Judaism…"
But the images just became
more insistent: the color itself flashed across my mind. Azure water. The word
written out.
"Okay! Azure it is."
"Michael, Michael, tell me what the word 'azure' means to
you and Laurie."
Nuthin.
I
wanted Michael to say, "Aha, that word has great significance to Laurie
and me, and now I know that there is life after death and that there is a
God!"
Didn't work that way. :-(
Marc Chagall
That was back in 2006.
Time passed. "Bieganski"
continued its rocky path from publisher – "Very interesting! We have high
hopes!" – to suddenly frightened publisher – "Too controversial.
Sorry." The list of potential publishers was exhausted. It was certain
that the book would never find publication. Academia is "publish or
perish." An adjunct professor, I was perishing.
And
suddenly, out of nowhere, a publisher appeared. Suddenly, the struggle, its
unheated apartments and long days of research and writing on no income, was in
the past – or so it appeared. I re-edited the book one last time. In
mid-February, all editing done, I sent it off and signed the contract. It was
really happening. There was no going back.
I described
that momentous day when it all became real – when I finally sent the book, in
proofread format, off to the publisher – in a previous blog post:
One dark day in February, 2010, I was walking along a
tree-lined road frequented by turkeys, deer, and red-tailed hawks. It was a
dark day in a dark winter. I have to wonder if statistics don't reflect that
the shrouded sun of winter 2010 here in Jersey contributed to … something. If
not an increase in the suicide rate, maybe there was a mass outbreak of
Russian-novel-reading along the New Jersey Turnpike.
Snow
was falling thick and fast. Life in a snow globe: I lose my tenuous hold on a
sense of "up" and "down." There's something anti-gravity
about a thick snowfall. A dark form approached: my student. He was hatless;
snow sprinkled his fluffy black hair. He had his arms outstretched, as if to catch
snowflakes on his dark sleeves, to check if there really are no two alike …
I was obsessed, at that moment, with the fact that I'd
finally, after a lengthy wilderness crossing, finally, finally, gotten
"Bieganski" accepted.
But that wasn't my
students' focus, and I needed to be a teacher, to turn my focus to my students.
So, I tried not to think about the book or the momentousness of the day, or the
fact that I didn't have anyone near-at-hand to celebrate with.
Even our classroom was dark; it was a basement room,
windowless.
Once a semester, I require my students to
present folklore to the class. They can do anything they like, from African
drumming to hula dancing.
On this day, a group of
students dramatized the Golem legend. I quietly began to weep.
Many, many years before, I had been a graduate student at UC
Berkeley. I had written a paper about the Golem legend. Prof. Dundes yelled at
me. (He always yelled at me.) "You've got to stop referring to your
hometown friends and family members in your scholarly articles! Data!
Objectivity! That is scholarship! Cut out the personal stuff, and you've got a
good article here! Publish it!"
No teacher had ever
told me to publish something I'd written before. I wasn't really sure how
anyone could write about Polish-Jewish relations without being personal, but
that's what Prof. Dundes told me to do, so that's what I did. He told me to
publish the article, so I did. It was one of my first published articles, and one of my first published
articles on Polish-Jewish relations.
And now, in
2010, all these years and all this struggle later, the very moment that I
finally finish editing, sign the contract, and ship my book on Polish-Jewish
relations off to the publisher, my students, who didn't know about that article
or the book, out of all the folklore they could have chosen, chose to dramatize
the Golem legend.
It felt like synchronicity to me.
That's why I was tearing up.
The synchronicity felt
especially good because the journey to publication had been so long that many
people I wished could share this moment with me – Prof. Dundes, my parents,
Laurie – were dead.
I looked at my dear students – they'd
blush if they knew how adorable they are to me – in their paper beards and
Salvation Army fedora hats – trying to act like Eastern European Jews. It was
especially poignant because the student playing the rabbi is a Muslim. He had
told me about his suffering in Bosnia during the breakup of Yugoslavia. The open
wound of his pain kept me grounded, even as I celebrated publication. He kept
reminding me – you've done your part in these age-old struggles, but there's a
new body count, everyday. Though we are currently warm and dry, we must never
forget that there are many out in the cold. I blogged about this student here.
And suddenly, it became even harder, in this low-ceilinged
basement room, to hide my tears. Because I suddenly realized that the first
name of this student, this student who was acting out the very legend that
began my journey of publishing on Polish-Jewish relations, this Muslim rabbi,
that his first name was "Azur."
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