Different Slants

Part Eight (the final part): 

What went wrong, and then right…at Sarah’s Bat Mitzvah; My undelivered toast and the eerie and unexplainable 1958 incident.   

About a week before Sarah’s Bat Mitzvah party, I asked her to see if she could find a CD she could borrow from the temple’s library that played the traditional Jewish celebratory song, Hava Nagila.  When people have weddings, Bar or Bat Mitzvah’s or any significant Jewish or Israeli celebration or party, this is the song that’s always played, and then the people joyously dance to a folk dance called the Hora. 

The Hora usually involves a large outer circle with everyone holding hands and dancing in a clockwise direction.  Then, inside of that circle is another one, going in the other direction, usually with the married couple or the person being honored in the inner circle.  The music is played loudly and raucously as the circles spin faster and faster, with more and more people joining in as people overcome their shyness.  The song goes on for a long time, or until everyone passes out. 

I’m not much of a dancer, but this is one I never miss.  Or that was until, at my middle daughter Rachel’s wedding in December, 2008, it went on for too long, and too fast, twisting back and forth as the dance requires until my knee blew out and I wore a brace on my leg for about a month after that.  But man…it was a great wedding! 

So, the point is, this extremely frugal Bat Mitzvah had no band and no slick DJ.  I figured we could use the temple’s sound system and existing equipment to play dance music for the kids in general and Hava Nagila for the Hora, in particular.  It mattered to me. 

At this point in the American Jewish Diaspora, there are probably more Christians, and even Moslems, too, that have been to so many family celebrations over the last one hundred years, that there are now collectively more of them who know about this dance, than the total number of Jews in this country. 

But, just in case any of my readers don’t have a clue what I’m writing about here, I found this on Wikipedia to make it a little easier.  You can find anything there, I guess.  My thanks to Wikipedia for this great chart. 

“Hava Nagila” (הבה נגילה in Hebrew) is a Hebrew folk song, the title meaning “let us rejoice”. It is a song of celebration, especially popular amongst Jewish and Roma communities, and is a staple of band performers at Jewish festivals.

The melody was taken from a Ukrainian folk song from Bukovina. The commonly used text was probably composed by Abraham Zevi (Zvi) Idelsohn in 1918 to celebrate the British victory in Palestine during World War I as well as the Balfour Declaration.

Sarah told me she would look for it in the library or ask her friends about borrowing it.  A week went by.  The day before the party, I asked her about it again, and she assured me that she had found it on the web and had recorded it, in some new way I didn’t understand.  But she knew it mattered to me and told me not to worry.  I trust Sarah, so, I didn’t. 

At the party, after everyone had finished eating, the thirty or so girls and three boys ran out on the floor to dance to the CDs they and Sarah had brought with them.  Her big brother David had already used the temple’s existing sound system and the video played perfectly, so I assumed the music would work just as well.

But it did not. 

Nothing worked.  There was some unfixable glitch and not a note could be heard.  David had to leave early to get a ride with his two dancers, so he wasn’t there to fix it.  The kids milled around, and Sarah was upset that not even this was going to work out.  The part that represented the most fun to the kids.  I watched her from a distance, powerless to do anything about it. 

 Then Donna, still in the kitchen, somehow produced a boom box (An amazing woman, people.  Where did she get it?).  The CDs, although not as loud as they would be with a professional set-up and big speakers, were enough evidently for the undemanding children and they happily danced to the tinny sound the small plastic box produced in the very large room.  So, this was going to work out after all, I thought to myself. 

I had already accepted the fact that there was no way to read the special toast I’d written to honor Sarah on this important day in her life because the temple’s microphone didn’t work, either.  But I was happy with what was able to work out.  Sometimes, you just have to go with whatever is the best you can do. 

Then Sarah pulled the Hava Nagila CD out from her purse and put it into the boom box.  She pressed the button.  Nothing.  She tried again.  Several other adults tried to make the thing play, but it would not.  No music.  No Hora.  No way to make this happen. 

I don’t know how many other people cared about it, but with both of my parents dead and all the other European immigrants in my family whom I’d known as a child also dead, I wanted this one old tradition keep going.  I wanted the spirits of all my missing family to hear the joyous music. 

Sarah knew that this was important to me, but what could she do?  The damn CD wouldn’t play. 

 I was looking down at the floor, the floor that Joy and I slaved over to make all the dances possible.  I was feeling pretty bad about this miserable situation, and then I looked up.  There were the thirty girls standing in a big circle, holding hands, with a smaller circle inside of it, where Sarah was, in the traditional Hora style.  I stared at this silent sight, wondering. 

Then all at once, all the girls began singing Hava Nagila in loud voices, in perfect unison, and then they began to dance.  The outside circle going one way, the inside circle going the other, faster and faster as the danced and sang. 

Tears filled my eyes and ran down my face.  They were dancing to the music they made by themselves. 

Yes, I didn’t have a job, and my ribs were still broken and I hadn’t a clue what tomorrow would bring.  But people, when all those children spontaneously began singing in their high girlish voices, overcoming all obstacles and making what they, and I, wanted so much to happen…oh God, it was one of the finest moments in my life. 

And best of all, it was real, it was wonderful, they made it happen and it was something money couldn’t buy. 

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 (The Undelivered Toast) 

About Sarah, at Thirteen 

No one will ever make any jokes about dumb blondes near my daughter Sarah, if their future plans include keeping all their teeth. 

When she was four, in spring 2001, she was with me and one of her older brothers, David, then 23.  He was assisting me unloading a van-full of 2 X 4’s I bought to build fixtures for my expanded magazine store.  Sarah watched this for a moment, when I told her to stay out of the way so she wouldn’t get hurt. 

Then, resolute, she jumped out of the van and grabbed some of the smaller three foot pieces of wood also in the back of van.  She was very determined to do her bit and not be a bystander, while her dad and brother did all the work.  I stopped for a moment to catch my breath and watched this little dynamo compete with David to bring in her pieces of wood as fast as he did his.  

David, at first annoyed, eventually saw the humor in the situation, and slowed down a bit so Sarah could keep up.  I saw the look on her face and there was no arguing with her.  She was unafraid of hard work, even at four.  Not many four-year-olds have that level of confidence and self-esteem. 

A few days later, while her mother Joyce operated a table saw, cutting long pieces of wood into short pieces I needed so I could finish building the display racks, Sarah was the go between, rushing back and forth from her mother in the back room to me on the main show room’s floor, assembling all the pieces.  She was fast, didn’t complain and saw herself as our equal in this work, which she was.

That, was in 2001. 

Last June, in response to a situation that I didn’t like where someone thoughtlessly slighted her, and she was looking very deflated, I resolved to lift her spirits.  I proposed we build—together—a 17-foot tall tree house in our back yard.  She got this happy gleam on her face she gets when she’s challenged.  

This was no little project, and the agreement was, she had to unload every single piece of lumber, big long heavy pieces of treated lumber, and drag them into our yard so I could assemble them.  She accepted her responsibility instantly.. She also helped me build the thing, and learned how to use a hammer, too. 

She was the same determined, strong girl that she was eight years earlier, except now she had sleek muscles, grace and coordination.  She has always impressed me. 

Sarah has grit, something a century ago people out West used to call “sand”, meaning solid character and an ability to do the hard thing, without complaint.  She is no “suburban cupcake.”  

There are lots of smart, athletic and pretty girls out there, but Sarah has something more within her to get her through difficult times.  I think Sarah can handle anything life throws at her, and still come out on top.  I think Sarah Hannah Katzman is a sensational young woman, and I am so honored to be her father.  Some gifts come only from God, and she is proof of that to me.  

Congratulations, Sarah! 

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Epilogue: Fifty years ago… 

In 1958, I was leaning hard against the rough brick wall—I can still feel it—of the dark red building in my grammar school playground.  I was eight years old, talking to my very tall best friend, Greg Weeks, about how miserable I was.  He was quietly sympathetic.  We walked to school together every day, for years. 

My house was hell, I was telling him, screaming, fighting, beatings, people throwing things—it was terrifying and I couldn’t escape it.  I was feeling very sorry for myself.  Trapped.  And angry. 

“When I grow up” I swore to Greg, through my tears, “I’m gonna find a nice person to marry and we’re gonna have a happy family.  Everyone will love each other and nobody will ever be scared.”  

I paused for a moment, thinking about what that would be like.  Then I thought about my loneliness and estrangement from my only sibling.  Defiantly, I looked up at Greg and told him, in a matter-of-fact way, 

“…and I’m gonna have four children, too, and they’re all gonna be friends.”  

Seventeen years later, I met Joyce.  I already had a child, Lisa.  David was born three years later and Rachel in 1980.  I decided that was a handful and we’d better stop there. 

Sixteen years later, in 1996, Sarah arrived at our house as an infant and changed all of our lives. 

It took four years to adopt her, but in May, 2000, Sarah legally became our fourth child.  After thirty-four years, I’m still totally in love with Joy.  And our kids?  Well, they’re a family and very nice to each other.  

But then, sleepless one night shortly after the Bat Mitzvah was over, I somehow remembered that long ago bitter moment with Greg Weeks and that determined little boy’s bitter prediction from over fifty years ago.

Four children? 

Stunned by the eerie recollection…I thought to myself, with a profound sense of awe, of wonder:

“Someone else…must have really…been listening….”