Louis Stein - An Anniversary

This year, I was lucky. Most years, the Jewish calendar, Jewish tradition, and my heart lead me to observe the anniversary of my father's death three times: on the date of his death according to the Jewish calendar; in synagogue on the Saturday preceding the jewish date or, if I cannot make that one, the Saturday after; and on the "American" date.  The fortunate part this year was that the date according to the Jewish calendar fell on a Saturday, the first two dates melded into one.

I lit a Yahrzeit candle on Friday evening, before lighting my Sabbath candles. It would burn throughout that night and into the following evening. I said a few words, aloud, addressed to my father rather than God, because there is no prayer to accompany the lighting of a yahrzeit candle. I find this absence of a "set' prayer very strange, for Judaism is dense with prayers for even the most commonplace of quotidian activities. On the other hand, I like the freedom to address my father rather than God at this singular candle-lighting.

At services the following morning, I was given an aliyah (called "up" to the Torah to say a blessing and stand beside the Torah reader as he chanted a portion of the day's reading). Somepeople say the prayer both before and after their part quickly. Some even mumble. I do not hurry through it. I say it slowly.  I try to share it. I feel the honor. But not my father.

Because, yesterday as every year, it's on the "American" date, that I "felt" it. "It" being my father's presence in my life--and his absence. The latter has been far longer than his presence. Louis Stein died when I was nine, and he was fifty-two. As years went by, missing him became more and more replaced by questions about him and the sort of man he was aside from being my tateh (father). In recent years, the questions have faded, though they remain unanswered. And, overlaying them, is a kind of acceptance. That Louis Stein was a complicated man, like most of us. And that, even if I am blessed to encounter him after I die, I will probably not tarnish that moment by confronting him with my questions. Chances are, I will love him then, unquestioningly, even as I did when we both were too young for him to die.

For isn't it possible that that's what heaven is, freedom at last from all our questions?