My Story 12

It took a long time for me to make sense of what had happened in my failed marriage. For many months, my home became almost a shrine to my first wife. I couldn't bear to remove the clothing she had left behind, or even wash the dish of the last meal she had eaten in my home. Our marriage had lasted from the end of May, 1976, until October. Both the get and the civil divorce took place in January, 1977. I was living alone in a large house in the country, across the road from a beautiful lake. But the beauty of my surroundings only seemed to put into bolder contrast the feeling that my life was, essentially over. I did have friends who supported me, but, for the most part, I was alone. My synagogue only had services on Shabbat, and most members lived elsewhere, and were only there for the summer. There was no one to talk to. About twenty minutes away, tucked away in a forest outside Mount Kisco, New York, was a tiny, mostly anonymous community, called the Yeshivah Farm Settlement. Their Yeshivah centered community followed the traditions of the town of Nitra in Hungary. They were not ideologically Hasidic, although they dressed that way. There was a Yiddish speaking Yeshivah, to which students came from all over the world, with a permanent community of about fifty families. I was to learn that there were many Hungarian communities, in a sort of satellite relationship with Satmar, that maintained a separate social and ideological identity. Although I had grown up in Williamsburg, the center of Satmar, until I was twelve, they were never more to me than "the refugees". Satmar has a very unsavory reputation for extremism. In some cases, this was not unjustified. But I found more the contrary to be true. Their rabbis were very learned, and gave little or no heed to the political opinions of official Orthodoxy. If it had a source, good. If the source was in the head of some "gadol" (all star rabbi), it would be examined, and, if found to be baseless, would be ignored. They were not afraid to challenge the Sacred Cows of the rest of the Orthodox community, and had little respect for the supposed "gedolim" of the "mainstream". While very careful to maintain their Hungarian traditions, they knew the difference between those and halachah. The long-time Rabbi of Satmar, Rav Joel Teitlebaum, had stressed to his followers above all, the obligation of loving kindness. Commenting on the statement in Ethics of the Fathers, that the world stands of three pillars; Torah, Divine Service, and acts of loving kindness, he boldly said: "The age of Torah scholarship is long gone. (This has become increasingly evident to me over the years). The age of fervent prayer took its place, but has now ended. All we have left is kindness". I was to experience this kindness on a number of occasions. I would go weekly to Nitra, to shop at their kosher grocery, and to immerse in their mikveh before Shabbat (once my local lake became too cold). People noticed my presence. One man said "whenever you come here, please stop by at my house". He and his wife would send me home with Shabbat food in abundance! It's not that I was poor, but I was alone. My culinary skills did not go far beyond boiling spaghetti. Here were homemade fish, chicken, fresh baked challah bread. Neighbors soon joined in, and gave of their own goodies. I had home cooked food for the entire week! They invited me to their special events, whether communal or private. They took me to meet their Grand Rabbi in Monroe, New York, on three occasions. They told me to come around whenever I was lonely. They became like family! It would be nearly a year until I was to meet and marry Sima. The wreckage from all the disasters and disappointments in my life, were now to be healed and rectified by this amazing woman. Not that there weren't disasters to come. But I was never alone again.That will be my next post.