“You can’t take it
with you.” This old adage expresses the thought that, after 120 years, you
leave all your worldly possessions behind. I experienced this lesson in a most
graphic way, within a family context, 20 years ago. My mother had passed away
in 1989, and on the very same date, 4 Sivan, in 2003, my father was niftar. Several months later, my
brother, David, my wife, a”h, and I
undertook to clear out the family home in Kemp Mill in preparation for its
eventual sale.
We planned to
dispose of lightweight items, whatever two men could physically handle, through
the services provided by Montgomery County Shady Grove Transfer Station. Located
in Derwood, Md., near Rockville, this facility offers amenities for both
recycling and trash drop-offs. So very early in 2004, David arranged a U-Haul
rental, and we got to work. We loaded a vast array of household items, many of
1950s vintage, including chairs, footrests, small tables and bureaus, books,
encyclopedias, serving dishes, floor lamps, vacuum cleaners, and so on. We then
drove off.
Upon entering the
station, we beheld a spacious interior parking lot, surrounded on its outer
perimeter by a steep, gaping dump. Customers were first required to park, then
carry their items over to the dump and toss them. That was it. We must have
spent close to 30 minutes there, and I found it a most unsettling, jarring
experience. Here we are, throwing away bits and pieces of our lives, the very
things we had lived with since early youth. Choking up all the while, I felt
myself being torn away from the very fabric of my life – f or it is one thing
to throw something into the trash for pickup but quite another to hurl it with
my own hands into oblivion.
On a deeper level,
I strongly feel this sentiment signifies something different. My longing, in
reality, was the yearning of my soul to reconnect with its Ultimate Source, to
emulate our Creator. I had simply allowed myself to channel this craving onto inanimate
objects, none of which – due to their mundane, earthly nature – carried any
intrinsic value. As such, parting from these items should have, if anything,
propelled me to enhance my observance of Torah, mitzvos, and good deeds. Put
another way, our worldly possessions, including that Raggedy Ann doll or
tricycle, cannot, of themselves, create any merit for us when our time has
come. It is instructive to bear this in mind as so many of us spend a lifetime
chasing the “Goldsteins.” Yet our BMWs, yachts, $900,000 homes, financial
portfolios, and all the academic and professional achievements we accrue will
not acquire for us a share in Gan Eden. Rather, it is our speech and deeds of a
lifetime that will testify for us.
There is, however,
a caveat to the above. What we actually do
with those material goods with which we are blessed does matter in the next world. For example, a wealthy individual
who donates money in a generous manner certainly creates enormous merit for
himself – which brings us back to my parents’ home, 2003. While surveying the
basement, I came upon an old, beautiful, freestanding lectern. An heirloom from
my mother’s family, its precise age is unknown. For a period of about two-and-a-half
years in the early 1960s, my father held a minyan
in our basement on an intermittent basis, and this lectern served as the amud for the shaliach tzibur. Following this period, for the next 40 years, it
stood solitary and unused. I now firmly decided, if at all possible, to restore
this shtender to its former glory and
not cast it aside. At the time, I frequented a downtown, weekday Mincha minyan
held in the Equitable Building. It was run by Attorney Jeffrey Silverberg, Esq.
After contacting Jeff and making the necessary arrangements, I drove this shtender downtown and handed it over to
him by the curb. Mind you, this transfer did not occur in the presence of
cheering crowds. On the contrary, the event took place on the morning of
December 25, 2003, when the streets were utterly silent and desolate. No
witnesses to the act. For many years afterward, this shtender, now used l’dvar
mitzvah, offered repose to many a weary chazan
for the daily Mincha service.
I recently
contacted Jeff again to express my appreciation and also request a current
picture of the shtender for this
article. His response altered the trajectory of my story. Some years ago, he
relocated his practice and with that the daily, downtown minyan disbanded. To
his knowledge, the shtender was left
behind in the Equitable basement, where the minyan had convened. He then
directed me to contact another attorney tenant, Alan Mensh, to further discuss
the matter. I called Alan, who clarified that the minyan had ceased with the
advent of Covid. He also granted me permission to reclaim the shtender if I could locate it in the
basement. The upshot of it all is that, once more, I was to embark on a mission
to save a basement shtender from the
abyss! Déjà vu!
In this vein, my
wife and I drove downtown early in July and entered the Equitable Building. We
met with a security guard, who informed us that the premises were now at only
50% occupancy and that the basement had fallen into a state of disuse. I
explained the purpose of our visit, but being unfamiliar with the concepts of
minyan, shtender, etc., the guard
struggled to comprehend. It took further conversation with a second guard, the building
manager and her assistant to secure permission to recover my beloved lectern. At
last, one of the guards and the assistant building manager escorted me
downstairs for the subterranean journey to a forlorn place. As we descended, I
whispered a silent, brief prayer for Heavenly assistance.
The three of us
proceeded down a fairly long hallway as the basement corridor took on an eerie,
solitary air. The guard entered about a half dozen rooms, all of which were
barren. We were approaching the end of the hallway when he unlocked and entered
a spacious room, revealing several folding tables with some Jewish booklets
strewn about. My mouth dropped open as I at last beheld the shtender, perched along the front wall. Finally!
Our group reemerged upstairs with it soon after, to my wife’s visible relief
and delight.
When we arrived
home, I examined the shetender
carefully and noted that it was, even now, no worse for the wear; Messrs.
Silverberg and Mensh had certainly taken good care of it over the years. Kudos
to them both.
And so, this earthly object, designated for
spiritual purpos
