The Gift of Asher Lev Read online

  I had always thought of my uncle as a simple, cheerful, good-hearted man, successful in his business, devoted to his family, and loyal to the Ladover movement. But his funeral astonished me. It was the funeral of a man of power.

  I was told afterward that more than three thousand people attended, many from out of town: Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, Miami, Los Angeles, Montreal, Toronto. I spotted two men in the crowd I knew from the Ladover community in Paris. The crowd, hushed, respectful, jammed the synagogue and spilled out onto the sidewalk and the parkway. Police on horses and in cars patrolled the parkway and diverted traffic from the lane adjoining the synagogue. In their identical dark coats and suits and hats, the men turned the street into a vast silent black lake. Loudspeakers had been set up outside so all could hear the service and the eulogy, which was to be delivered by the Rebbe.

  I sat in the front row of the synagogue next to my father, who wore a dark suit and a dark tie and a dark hat and sat tall, self-controlled, an imposing presence, his eyes fixed upon the sealed simple pine coffin that lay on trestles between him and the lectern. On the other side of my father sat my uncle’s two grown sons, and next to them were representatives from the office of the mayor and the governor, and some members of the city council. My father told me there were prominent lawyers and judges in the crowd. I thought I caught a glimpse of a well-known West Fifty-seventh Street art gallery owner. Why would the owner of a distinguished art gallery be at my uncle’s funeral?

  Close to two thousand people crowded the synagogue, sat jammed in its seats, stood along its walls, craned their necks from the back rows, blocked the entrance hallway. Somewhere in the women’s gallery overhead, peering through the openings in the decorative arabesques of the concealing wooden screen, were my Aunt Leah, my uncle’s two grown daughters, my mother, Devorah, Rocheleh, and Avrumel. The air in the synagogue was stale, warm, faintly malodorous. I hoped Rocheleh would be all right.

  All faces, raptly attentive, were turned toward the Rebbe, who sat in his tall-backed, thronelike, upholstered chair to the right of the Ark, facing the congregation. Accompanied by two tall, brawny, dark-bearded men, he had entered through the door near the Ark, and I had felt the cold touch of shock at how old he had become: wizened, slightly bowed, walking with hesitant steps, hair and beard astonishingly white. He sat down in his chair, and the two men stood on either side of him, waiting.

  One of the elders of the congregation approached the lectern near the Ark and recited a Psalm in a low, quivering voice. He returned to his chair. The Rebbe slowly rose and walked the few steps to the lectern. He wore a darkly glistening brocaded silken caftan, dark trousers, a white shirt with a dark tie, and a dark hat. All the gathered dismay of the grieving crowd focused itself upon him. He seemed haloed in unearthly light.

  He spoke in Yiddish into the temporary microphone set up on the lectern for the service, and the speakers magnified his softly quivering, whispery voice and sent it in faintly echoing waves throughout the synagogue and out into the corridors of the building and the street and the parkway.

  “Our dear Reb Yitzchok Lev, of blessed memory, has been called to the True World by the Master of the Universe. The mind is numb, the heart is heavy, the tongue cleaves to the palate. Sorrow weighs upon us all, and the years have placed upon me their added weight, so it is difficult for me to speak. I will therefore say only a few words. Let everyone listen with great care, so that my words will enter the heart. I will say a little that will contain much.

  “Out of primordial chaos came order. Without order there can be no world. The first sign of order is light. ‘And God said: Let there be light.’ And Light, as we know, is the essence of the Messiah. The Messiah was created at the beginning of time.

  “Now we live in another period of chaos. Everywhere, chaos. Hatred, terrorism, drugs, hooligans, murder in the streets, the abuse and death of little children, families falling to pieces, greed everywhere, homeless people in every corner of the land. We wait for a new light. We wait for the Messiah.

  “Reb Yitzchok Lev labored hard to bring the Messiah. All knew his outward appearance, his cheerfulness. Few knew his soul, his inwardness, where the fire of Torah burned, where the teachings of Hasidus were for him a light, where he clung to Godliness.”

  He paused for a moment and seemed to need to gather strength before he was able to continue. Then he went on. “Listen to me, for it is important that you know this truth. Every Jew has it within his grasp to become a vessel for Godliness. Our dear Reb Yitzchok was just such a vessel, as was our Patriarch Yitzchok, who stood ready to be sacrificed on the fires of the altar, fires of Godliness and light. Why was our Patriarch Yitzchok prepared to let himself be sacrificed? Because he understood that the future of our people depended upon his act, his acceptance, his yielding, his faith, his willingness to be the sacrifice. He saw with perfect clarity what had to be done—as did our dear Reb Yitzchok, who gave of himself, his heart, his wealth, his entire being, to our community and to the Ladover cause so as to hasten the coming of the Messiah and bring order to the chaos that surrounds us.

  “Now listen with care, all of you here today, listen to my words. My father, of blessed memory, taught us the power of the riddle. Yes, the riddle: the seed that yields the flower; the acorn that yields the oak; the word that yields the book; the truth that must be uncovered slowly and with great care lest its fires burn and its power destroy. On this day that we have come together to mourn the departure from our midst of Reb Yitzchok Lev, of blessed memory, I say this to you as a message from the departed and from your Rebbe. I say to you: Three will save us. The third is our future. Do you hear me, my people? Three will save us. The third is our future.”

  He paused. I glanced at my father and saw his eyes had narrowed and his mouth had opened slightly. I was aware of the entire synagogue behind me, of the hush that lay upon it, as if even the possibility of sound had been drained from its walls. We seemed encapsulated in a dimension of silence I had never experienced before: light as air; dense as water; faintly vibrating; the emptiness carried by soundless echoes to the farthest reaches of the synagogue and out through the corridors and doorways to the parkway and the distant blue sky overhead.

  The Rebbe leaned heavily upon the lectern and continued. “This our dear Reb Yitzchok, of blessed memory, understood. We thank the Master of the Universe for his life. We pray that his soul will forever find itself before the light of the Presence. May he labor for us in heaven to speed the coming of the Messiah. May his memory be a blessing forever and ever.”

  He stood motionless. The synagogue was still, as if all the current of its pulsing life had suddenly ceased. A moment later, he turned and walked slowly back to his chair.

  An old man with a long white beard approached the lectern and recited two Psalms. Another old man chanted the El Moleh Rachamim prayer. “O Lord, full of compassion,” he sang, in a soft, sweet, melancholy voice.

  The Rebbe stood and, accompanied by the two tall men, left the synagogue through the door near the Ark.

  Together with my two cousins and three others, I stepped over to the coffin. We lifted it off the trestles and slowly carried it—how astonishingly light it was!—up the center aisle of the synagogue as another elder, who walked before us, recited a Psalm. The air seemed suddenly stifling; I could not breathe. I worried about Rocheleh. We were outside. I inhaled deeply the cool air. The crowd silently parted as we came through, and there was the hearse, black and gleaming in the sunlight, and then the coffin was inside behind the curtained windows and someone was guiding me toward a glistening black limousine.

  I sat next to my father in the back seat. There were two other men in the car, colleagues of my father whom I had known since childhood. We rode in silence. The cortege of funeral cars was two blocks long. My father sat gazing out the window. We drove through ruined streets and graveyard neighborhoods. A moment after we swung onto the Interboro Parkway, my father sat back and put his hand over his eyes. He remained
in that position until we reached the cemetery.

  The cars came to a halt in the section of the cemetery that contained the graves of Ladover Hasidim. I walked on the gravel road to the hearse and helped remove the casket. The crowd stood in silence. An elderly man, reciting from the Book of Psalms, led the procession to the edge of the open grave. I looked into the earth, saw the deep wounds made by the wielded shovels of the gravediggers, who stood idly by, watching. Abruptly, I felt my legs go weak and a sudden careening of the world. All around me were the muted sounds of weeping. My uncle’s white-pine casket was lowered into the earth, the gravediggers swiftly and adroitly maneuvering the straps and then standing aside. My aunt sobbed and sagged into the arms of one of her daughters. My father stood beside me, biting his lips, all of him rigid. The starched white collar of his shirt, visible above his dark coat, glinted in the sunlight. I saw my mother in the crowd, her face ashen. Devorah, I knew, was not there: she had taken the children back to my parents’ home.

  My uncle’s two sons began to fill in the grave. I took a shovel from one of the gravediggers, dug with it into the reddish-brown earth heaped along the rim of the grave, and lifted and let earth and pebbles and stones fall into the grave; heard the hollow sounds of the stones and earth striking the wood. My father took the shovel from me, and a moment later someone took it from him. My aunt stood nearby, loudly sobbing. The open grave filled rapidly. My uncle’s two sons stood before the mound of raw turned earth and recited through tears the special Kaddish that is said at the grave of one newly buried. The crowd stirred, moved, divided itself into two lines between which the members of the immediate family moved through murmured words of consolation: “May God comfort you together with all the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem.” My aunt walked supported by her two daughters. The cars began to fill up for the return journey.

  I walked among the Ladover graves, all carefully tended, the grass cut, the paths raked, the gravestones clean. I saw the gravestone of Yudel Krinsky, the Russian Jew who had once owned a stationery store in our neighborhood and had sold me my first oil paints. The Hebrew letters carved into the polished stone gave the dates of his life and said of him that he was a righteous man, true to the ways of his fathers and a loyal Ladover Hasid. I saw him clearly: short and thin, with nervous bulging eyes, a beakish nose, pinched features, and the Russian cap he always wore. I had heard that he had died. I placed a small stone on his grave, a symbol of eternity, and recited by heart in his memory a chapter from the Book of Psalms.

  Someone was standing alongside me.

  “Sholom aleichem.”

  I recognized him: a high-school classmate. He had sat behind me in the yeshiva, often taunting me mercilessly for my drawing. “Aleichem sholom.”

  “I am very sorry about your loss.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You remember me?”

  “Dov Brenner.”

  “Yes.” He seemed pleased. He was short and heavyset, with small dark beady eyes and a long dark beard, long wisps of which ran down across his mouth. “What is Asher Lev doing these days?”

  “The same.”

  “We read about you everywhere.”

  “You should not believe everything you read. What does Dov Brenner do these days?”

  “I head the Ladover house here on the campus of New York University. Where your mother teaches. I’m the director.”

  “That’s very nice.”

  “Your uncle was doing great things. This is a terrible blow. Between you and me, his sons are not of his caliber. How long are you staying?”

  “Just through the week of mourning.”

  “It’s nice in the south of France, yes?”

  “Yes.”

  My father came over to where we were standing. I saw Dov Brenner stiffen and take on a respectful air. “Dov Brenner, how is your father feeling?”

  “He is better, thank God.”

  “Tell him I wish him a complete healing.”

  “I thank you, Rav Lev.”

  “We are waiting for you, Asher.”

  On the way back to the limousine, walking with my father along the graveled path between the rows of tombstones, I said, “Does the Rebbe usually speak in riddles at a funeral?”

  “I cannot recall him doing it before.”

  “What does the riddle mean?”

  “I have no idea. The Rebbe’s riddles are not always easy to decipher.”

  “Is the Rebbe all right?”

  “The Rebbe is eighty-nine years old,” my father said. “May he live a long and healthy life.”

  The seating arrangements inside some of the limousines had been changed for the journey back to accommodate those traveling to similar destinations. The two men who had accompanied us to the cemetery were gone. I sat in the rear of the limousine with my parents.

  The driver was negotiating the same blighted streets we had driven through earlier. I sat sideways in one of the jump seats, so I could see my parents. My mother looked pale but dignified and poised. She had on a short-haired brown wig and a dark coat, and wore on her pale face the wrinkles of her age with a serene elegance. My father sat very straight in his dark coat and hat, gazing out the window, early-afternoon sunlight on his troubled features.

  “The children are beautiful,” my mother said.

  “Thank you.”

  “Devorah is very good with them. Very patient.”

  “She needs patience with those two.”

  “Rocheleh behaved very well.”

  “Rocheleh is eleven years old. She sees childhood as a waste of time and considers herself an adult. How did Avrumel behave?”

  “Avrumel is five. What do you want from the child? When you were five all you did was draw pictures and cry.”

  “I don’t remember crying.”

  “I remember. Your father remembers.”

  “I remember drawing.”

  “How long are you staying, Asher?” my father asked, gazing out the window.

  “Just for the week of mourning and the day after.”

  “That’s all?” my mother said. “Such a trip, and you will only stay for eight days?”

  “Rocheleh has school. I have my work.”

  “Rocheleh can go to school here for a while.”

  “How can she do that?”

  “The Hebrew classes in her yeshiva in Nice are the same as they are here. Isn’t that right, Aryeh?”

  “Yes, that is right,” my father said.

  “Your father built that yeshiva. Rocheleh’s English is very good. She will have little difficulty with her classes here.”

  “Devorah is in the middle of a new book.”

  “Devorah can use the room I showed her yesterday. There is even a computer in the house, if she needs one.” The yearning in her voice. All the years that had to be made up for; all the opportunities torn away by my exile; all the shattered hopes and normalcies because of her inexplicably aberrant son. “And if you want to paint, can’t your dealer find you a studio in the city?”

  “I have to be in Paris next week.”

  She fell silent. Outside the windows of the car: broken side-walks, pitted streets, splintered brick façades: the ruins of an abandoned world. We rode quietly awhile.

  “Asher,” my mother murmured. “Eight days.”

  “There are things I have to do,” I said.

  “We cannot persuade you?”

  “I can’t stay.”

  “Asher.”

  “Rivkeh, leave it alone,” my father said. “Let it be as he wishes.” He sat staring out the window.

  We rode on in silence.

  My uncle had built a neighborhood jewelry and watch-repair shop into a citywide chain of stores called Lev’s. He was to jewelry and watches what another Hasidic enterprise, located in the Forties in Manhattan, was to cameras and computers.

  The chain of stores built by my uncle throughout New York City helped support the chain of Ladover yeshivas built by my father throughout the world. The ac
quisition of new sites, the renovation of old buildings and the construction of new ones, the purchase of Torah scrolls and Ladover texts; scholarships, emergency funds, travel expenses, deficits; the maintenance of dining rooms, dormitories, medical facilities, gymnasiums—all nourished from the endlessly flowing fountain of funds whose source was my late uncle’s expanding watch and jewelry business. One of my cousins told me that my uncle had been considering further expansion into New Jersey, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania before he died.

  His family lived in the house next door to my parents’ house: a three-story, Tudor-style sprawl, with a large front lawn, a deep expanse of grass in the rear, bordering hedges, flower beds, and a towering ailanthus along the rim of the back terrace. I had lived in that house for a time; had painted in it when my parents had been away together in Europe, traveling for the Rebbe. Most of the paintings I had made in that house were now in museums or private collections.

  The limousine turned the corner and moved slowly along the orderly residential street. A hushed crowd stood in front of my uncle’s house, spilling down from the porch and out onto the wide front lawn. The limousine came to a stop at the curb.

  The driver stepped out quickly, opened the rear door, and helped my parents out onto the sidewalk. I climbed out on the street side. The afternoon sun shone through the bare trees and into my eyes, and I thought fleetingly of clear bright sunlight and terraced hills and the Cubist houses of the valley and the distant silvery radiance of the sea.

  I stood with my parents on the sidewalk near my late Uncle Yitzchok’s house. Behind us, the limousine pulled slowly away from the curb and drove off.

  “Asher, come,” my father said.

  His strong fingers were on my elbow.

  We moved toward the dense silent crowd: mostly young men, dark-garbed, freshly bearded, standing about: the new generation that had grown up while I was in Europe. My uncle’s death had touched them deeply; they stood there with somber eyes, mournful faces, sagging shoulders: the body language of sorrow. They parted silently before my father, as if a hidden signal had been given. I walked in the wake of the looks of awe and reverence directed at my father. From somewhere in the silent crowd I heard a voice say, “That’s Asher Lev.” I saw my mother’s brief embarrassed response—she shut her eyes and shook her head—and felt the immediate momentary tightening of my father’s grip on my arm. We walked up the cement path and the stone steps to the porch. A young man suddenly appeared before us with a basin, a pitcher of water, and a towel. We washed and dried our hands and went on through the front door into the house.