Guest Rambler: Rabbi Shimon Apisdorf
Carnegie and E. 55th
My mom grew up in the Kinsman neighborhood. Recently she would quip, "You know, I never really left Kinsman, I just moved up the street to Woodland, and then to South Woodland."
Last month, at 4:00 am on a Sunday morning, I was in a hearse accompanying my mom's body to the airport from where she would make her final journey to Israel to be buried next to my brother Harry.
Like most of you, I have driven to the airport countless times, but never once did I take the route our driver chose that morning: down Carnegie and then left on 55th. "Left on 55th?" I wondered. And then I looked up and was stunned when I realized that we had stopped at Kinsman and Woodland. "Mom," I said, "You're not going to believe where we are. Back where you started." And then it hit me: my mother's life mission.
Though my mom was not Jewishly educated, and while she probably never read any classic Jewish texts, her life's mission was to transmit Judaism, Jewish identity, and passionate devotion to the Jewish people and the Jewish homeland to her children. Despite what she didn't know, what she DID know in the depths of her heart and soul, was that it was her job to transmit Judaism to the next generation, and beyond. I remember all the times she would take us to Jewish events of any and every kind and say to us "absorb." More than anything else, she wanted us to "absorb" Jewishness.
Just days before she died, I whispered into her ear, "Mom, you succeeded. I absorbed, we all did"
There in that hearse, at Kinsman and Woodland, I realized that my Mom achieved what we all long to achieve. She fulfilled her life's mission. You see, my Bubby, my mother's mother, had brought her Jewish devotion from Poland to Kinsman, and my mom understood in the deepest way possible, that it was her job to transmit that devotion, tradition and love for all things Jewish—and for all Jews—from Kinsman to South Woodland. And she succeeded.
Mom. Bracha bat Shimon. Bernice Apisdorf.
You will forever by a source of inspiration to all of us.
Love, Shimon
