I swallowed hard and wanted to thank her but the cat got my tongue good and I could say nothing. She must have mistook my silence. “I want to give you something more,” she said, “ but I can’t do it now. That too is forbidden on Shabbas. On a day of rest you don’t do business. You could write your name and address on a piece of paper”––she took me by the arm and led me to a desk in the corner of the living room. Opening the lid, she pointed to sheets of paper and a pen. “I’ll send it to you right after Yom Tov is over. That’ll be Sunday night.”
I have to tell you, much as I needed it, I didn’t really want any money, although it took me awhile to figure out why. My little excursion into her home had been gift enough, not to mention the finger-lickin’-good vittles that would feed my grandmother, mother and me that whole weekend. But I wrote down my name and address anyhow. If she’d been there, Mom would have told me I’d been conned and would have insisted I demand some money. But I didn’t believe that. I just knew somehow this lady was telling it to me like it was.
Come Tuesday morning, sure as shootin’, there was the envelope in the mail. And there was a check for eighteen dollars with a thank you note, decorated with a soaring red robin on the front, telling me how I’d saved the holiday not only for her, but for her whole extended family and how I’d earned myself a special place in heaven.
What can I tell you? If childhood slights are unforgettable, how about the effect of an unexpected act of kindness? I never cashed the check and never told my mom or grandmother about it. It became a symbol for me, although I didn’t really know of what. It had both her and her husband’s names on it and a couple of months later, after chickening out a few times, I screwed up my courage and called them. They were both on the extension line. I explained to them who I was, hemmed and hawed for a moment, then asked if maybe I could go to a service with them at their shul.
Silence for a moment at the other end. Then a fair imitation of my “maybe” coming from Mrs. Brandwein. “We’d be delighted.” After arranging where and when to meet, she paused for a moment and then asked: “What gave you the idea?”
“What gave me the idea,” I repeated, the words sticking in my throat. “The kugel,” I said at last. “What did you put in it?”
Well, go with them to shul I did. And the rest, as they say, is history. My history. Years of Torah study, mikvah immersion, circumcision, a new belief system. The whole hog, as it were, if I may be forgiven for using so unkosher a metaphor. My new discipline and commitment even washed off on my mom. Seeing her son get up at dawn each morning to pray and wrap tefillin around his arm, how could it not? Call it a side benefit, a little compound interest, if you will. She pulled up her socks, went the methadone route and has been clean ever since. She even refers to herself as a Righteous Gentile now.
As for the Brandweins, to this day they proudly call me their Shabbas Goy. And when we all join them at their Passover Seders, she always makes sure to make the same kugel.
Wonders-never-cease department: I found I wasn’t the only black Born Again in the congregation of their shul, along with some Asians, Latinos and even a native American.
Go figure.
