Rejuvination

I wanted to share what for me and for many of was an extraordinary experience.

Avital’s late father Chaim Beit Ya’akov (Koplovitz) (d. Seder night, 1968) was the youngest of four brothers and one sister who all made Aliya in or around 1933. The sixth, a sister, perished in the Sho’ah. They managed to bring their parents around two years later. They were all religious Zionists. Chaim himself was a founding member of Kibbutz Tirat Tzvi in Emek Beit She’an. A family research project done by two of Avital’s favorite cousins shows a picture taken in 1927 of her maternal grandmother’s parents 50th wedding anniversary in front of their home in Czechoslovakia. It is a magnificent photograph. They had nine children who in turn had children and grandchildren. All of the flock are in the picture. The accompanying genealogical tree (done around 10 years ago) shows that six of the nine branches were entirely wiped out. Of the three remaining, the continuation of two appears to be dwindling sorely, yet the branch of Avital’s grandmother Chaya and grandfather Yoseph (of whom we could find no family with the possible exception of some distant relations in Australia) continues growing stronger by the year. Yoseph who died in 1951 and Chaya who died in 1941 are buried in Israel, in Kfar Yedidiyah and Chaifa respectfully.

It is now some four years since the last of the brothers, sister and spouses have departed. The so called “central” branch of the family, the three daughters and two sons of Yaakov and Shoshanna who were raised in Kfar Yedidiyah near Netanya arranged a family Shabbat at the Kfar Pines Ulpana campus for all the cousins with their as yet unmarried children together with all of the married children of the Kfar Yedidiyah branch whose grandchildren alone number probably over forty and growing stronger yearly. To have invited all the married children of the other branches with their children would have made the operation logistically impossible.

It was unquestionably one of the more uplifting experiences of my life. The children of the cousins (our generation, the grandchildren of Yoseph and Chaya) are an exemplary cross section of the finest Medinat Yisrael has produced (I’ll try to be modest regarding our own) throughout the entire spectrum: Torah, agriculture, military, business, settlement, education, professional, etc. Needless to say, the oodles and oodles of their children in turn are adorable beyond description. There was a constant background concert of children all ages running, playing chattering.

We had our own minyan for all the tfillot, se’udot meshutafot (common meals) in each one of which Shmulik’s wife Malka, the prime mover, insisted that every family switch places in order to get to know one another more intimately. There’s was also a nostalgia session in which the older cousins told their happy childhood memories of growing up as impoverished moshavnickin, kibbutznikim and city dwellers in the 1940’s and 50’s. They brought their parents to life again in the eyes of the youngsters who sat mesmerized, drinking in all the humorous stories.

Everybody had a small, personal part. I gave a short Dvar Torah in the Se’udah Shlishit in which I mentioned how miraculous the entire event was. Yoseph and Chaya were simple folk, not particularly observant, certainly not successful financially. Had they been there, they undoubtedly would never have believed their own eyes. Maybe that was what brought the miracle about. Just as in the time of the return from Galut Bavel after 70 years, 90% of the Jews elected not to return and only those who “had no better reason to remain” in Bavel made the sacrifice to return, yet it was their descendants and not those of the successful, erudite and observant Jews remaining in Bavel, who rejuvenated the Jewish people. So it is again in our time after 2,000 long years.