In past years, on occasion of his Shushan Purim Katan Yartzeit, I’ve shared memories (see Zeide Michel Memories I and also Zeide Michel Memories II) of my maternal grandfather, Reb Yechiel Michel Piekarski, from the nearly ten years of my living in his (and my grandmother Bubbe Rishe!) Crown Heights home. This page is focused on memories of my grandfather, but certainly overlaps with the many fond memories of my beloved grandmother, a very wise and empathetic woman, matriarch of our family. Some of my memories of her are posted here Memories of Bubbe Risha I -which I hope to continue… but for now, on his yartzeit, a little more about my Zeide Michel: 

THE RADIO

Zeide Michel was a very organized person, everything had its schedules. During the day, he would mostly study in the front room (facing north on President Street) and in the evenings he’d move to the large dining room table (rich black wood with carvings and was quite ornate) and continue studying there. See the memory of his nighttime falling asleep study ritual on Memories I. The front room (as well as their bedroom in back of the house) had a clock-radio on one of the bookshelves. Incidentally, (and Zeide’s books were quite organized) that’s where Zeide kept the book of synagogue speeches of my Bubbe’s uncle (her father’s older brother) Rabbi Yitzchak Bunim of New York, who was the one who arranged for their visas to come to America in 1946.

Anyways, Zeide kept that radio going most of the day, usually set to the (annoyingly repetitive 1010WINS, with traffic on the 9’s and weather on the 1’s – or whatever it was). Zeide would learn, he had a small table in that front room facing the room’s many windows (the rocking chair in that room, was mostly used by my grandmother) and the radio would hum and do its thing in the background.

I remember once coming home from yeshiva in the afternoon between classes and saw my grandparents sitting near the radio, listening intently to the news from WEVD (then the Jewish/Yiddish radio station). I asked them, don’t you hear the 1010WINS news all day? “Ah,” explained my Zeide, “I don’t understand the ‘goyishe’ news. I just have it on so I can learn with some background noise, ‘white noise’ but to hear and understand the news I have to listen to WEVD!” So he wasn’t listening to 1010WINS after all! It was just on all day as a way to keep him up, and keep him learning, and have the background noise in an otherwise very quiet home (while we were away at Yeshiva, at least).

One more thing about the radio. Zeide liked to listen to meaningful Jewish programming on the radio, including R’ Yosel Weinberg’s Shiur Tanya on Motzai Shabbos (which became the basis for the sets of books “Lessons in Tanya”) and Rabbi Pinchas Teitz of NJ and his Daf-HaShavuah (weekly page of Talmud), and the dynamic Rabbi JJ Hecht’s “Shema Yisrael” radio program. But nothing got the attention and proud feedback from my grandfather and grandmother like “The Bikur Cholim Hospital of Jerusalem”‘s radio show with my great-uncle Reb Chaim Grund!

Reb Chaim Grund married my grandmother’s sister Bashe, they lived in nearby Flatbush on Ave I, a block in from Ocean Parkway. It was a tidy well-kept yellow home with plush carpet and knick-knacks, Aunt Bashe was quite the homemaker! Uncle Chaim felt very close and would often come (and their children continue to!) to all the family Simchas. Uncle Chaim worked as a fundraiser for the above-mentioned Bikur Cholim Hospital in Jerusalem (perhaps among other things) and had a weekly Parsha radio show on WEVD. He had a deep resonating voice, a real radio voice, and his Litviser Yiddish was impeccable, rich and expressive, and it had a melodious sing-song. He was a Torah scholar but came across as more of a worldly person. On his radio show, Uncle Chaim would share a beautiful vurt from the weekly Torah portion, he had a great delivery, and Zeide and Bubbe would listen, (usually in the bedroom) shaking their heads and nodding and murmuring with immense pleasure, they really enjoyed it, and they were both so proud. Zeide could be critical but he was never critical of Uncle Chaim’s radio speech. And then after Uncle Chaim finished, cleverly and masterfully spinning the Torah teaching into an appeal for the hospital, they would shut the radio and turn to each other and praise and appreciate Uncle Chaim’s oratory. Every time!

LEARNING (ALONE)

By the time I came to his home in 1983-1984, Zeide was starting to retire from his work as a Shochet (or perhaps already did) and only did part-time work for Rabbi Izzy Rosenfeld at the Crown Heights Jewish Community Council (not sure what he did there) and some tutoring for Bar-Mitzvah and Gemorah lessons (I remember the Rosenfeld boys coming over in the evenings). Most of his days were spent learning alone. He had a sing-song, he had a learning regimen, he had a real love and diligence for Torah study.

When the Rebbe established the “Kollel Tiferes Zekanim Levi Yitzchak” in memory of his father, to create group Torah study opportunities for seniors, Zeide made an effort to go. He liked to go to Rambam shiur in 770 (it was actually in the quiet size room of the Kingston Ave Ladies Section of 770) and gave him a way to break up the day and get out of the house. As far as I can remember Zeide was very into learning Rambam, because the Rebbe began the initiative for daily Rambam study around the time I came to go to yeshiva in NY and live in their home. Zeide had a big fancy set of Rambam with all the big-name commentaries, but he was also very fond of the clear and crisp, vowelized and annotated “Rambam Le’Am”. I was in France when he passed away in 1995, so b the time I came to NY most of his books were taken by other relatives, but I did get to take this Rambam set, and it means a lot, because I know how much he learned in it and used it well.

Zeide was also kinda of the Rov of Frankel Shul (on President Street just past the corner of Utica Ave), a shul that had its own fascinating cast of characters, Chabad Chassidim and not, scholarly and simple folk, some well-to-do and lots of strugglers, old-time Chassidic families and newcomer Baalei-Teshuvah — indeed a trove of many rich memories all its own. Zeide wouldn’t give speeches or lead the synagogue in that kind of way, but he sat near the ark, and people would ask him halachic questions. He wasn’t much of a conversationalist, he could not stand wasting time, and he could be critical, sharp or curt, but he gave people their space and dignity. He could be pretty good listener when people spoke to him with a focused concern. He did have a certain sense of humor, and he could sometimes (almost out of character) erupt in real laughter and I actually loved seeing him like that. Shabbos mornings (especially when Rebbe farbrenged?) Zeide would always daven at the front left of 770, facing the white brick wall, first or second seat on the bench from the Kingston side.

But one of the things I remember him doing at Frankel Shul was a shiur in Mishnayos. A few men would sit opposite him and he’d learn out of a “Yachin uBoaz” Mishna set with commentaries, and he was very at home in it. Even at home he’d study Mishna, not only to teach others, but also for himself. While Zeide would certainly study Talmud, and spent a lot of time studying Talmud each day, he still appreciated the simple clarity of Mishna, perhaps its holiness, and made a point of learning Mishnayos, even when alone, for himself. Not sure how many advanced learners made a point of learning Mishna like that once they advanced to Talmud.

HOW DID HE SAY THE MAAMAR?

The year I turned Bar-Mitzvah, there were Bar-Mitzvah celebrations to go to all the time. All my classmates had Bar-Mitzvahs, and Bar-Mitzvahs of cousins, too. I have a memory of an unusual Bar-Mitzvah of a classmate, that unlike our thinking at the time, turned out to be most memorable. But most of them (of that year in Crown Heights) were quite standard and uniform. Most were held in the old Young Israel at 935 Ocean Parkway (now rebuilt as Condos) with its mirrored wall, the mustached waiter, the mushroom knish… with slight variations. There were exceptions, some were held in the much fancier Oholei Torah wedding hall, or in a different neighborhood Shul but the usual standard for my classmates then was mostly the Young Israel.

When I came home from the Bar-Mitzvah, Bubbe would ask about this and that. Who was there? Was this relative present, or that person from the block? What was the food like (usually the same)? How was the dancing? Did you feel part of it? Was it nice? That kind of thing. But Zeide only asked one question: “How did he say the Maamar?”

In those days we all said the Maamar in Yiddish, and most of us said it memorized, without the book. That was the expectation. And we all said the same Maamar! So we knew the build up, the climax, when it was nearing the closing at the end. But some of us said it more fluently, some less, for some it was a real struggle that took months of excruciating preparation. (Today it is different in Chabad, there’s more of a focus on understanding and appreciation, many say it in English, in their own words, its also acceptable to have a book open and check back in the text, but in my youth it was a little different).  He might have been especially interested in this because he did do some Bar-Mitzvah tutoring on the side, or maybe it was just because he loved learning, , he liked routines, he had expectations.

Zeide’s question reminds me of the Talmudic distinction as to whether the prayer is said fluently or not. I was always troubled by that passage, after all, I grew up in a situation where many congregants were late-bloomers in their Jewish observance, and may not have had the benefit of full formal Jewish schooling, and the fluency seemed like an unfair or harsh barometer. Now that I am older I realize more and more how children have different learning styles and learning needs and the routine memorization of the Maamar can be especially challenging for some.

But to Zeide it was fluency and more. He was interested if the Maamar was said with strength, with interest and gusto. If the boy “sang it right” i.e. if the question sounded like a question and the answer like an answer, if the pauses were in the right places. The mushroom knish was not the point. Maybe he cared which people were present, possibly, but his burning question was: How did the Bar-Mitzvah boy say the Maamar? He really enjoyed and appreciated the sound of well-spoken, well-said Torah.

SETTING UP THE SUKKAH

Bubbe and Zeide lived on the second floor of two family home they owned. As far as I remember there were only two tenants. First was Dr. and Mrs. K. Dr. K. was a podiatrist, who had his office in the front room of the downstairs apartment (he may have retired by the time I came, hardly saw any clients coming and going, or maybe there was but not during the school hours when I was away). Mrs. K. was a friend of my grandmother. They didn’t hang out much, as far as I can remember, but they did talk occasionally, sometimes about books. My Bubbe loved to read. The K.’s were not religious (as far as I could tell), which was quite amazing since the Crown Heights of the 1980’s (when I was there) was either Chassidic or Black (with few exceptions) and they did their own thing. The only religious thing I remember them doing was the Mezuzahs, and Zeide would give them Matzah for Pesach, and also every year before Pesach the two men (my grandfather and Dr. K.) would make a new “Eruv Chatzeiros” allowing carrying in the jointly used stairwell, with Zeide affixing the Matzah on a nail hanging in the hallway where it stayed all year until the next Pesach. I remember once Bubbe chastising me for passing Mrs. K. at her open door in the stairwell, and not wishing her a Good Shabbos! Later came the L. family, a house full of kids, they were religious and observant, and Bubbe was close with the older daughters and took and interest in them, and my sister Esty as well.

There was a small backyard which I basically only saw when it needed mowing (Zeide had a manual stick hand-mower for that, two wheels with rotating blades that actually worked -without gas or electricity) and I saw it from above when helping Bubbe with the clothesline (which ran from my room at the back of the house to the utility pole at the end of the backyard – facing Carroll Street).

So the Sukkah was built on a little back porch, Maybe 5 feet by 10 or 12 feet (maybe less?) basically on the asphalt shingle rooftop of the downstairs covered back porch. Even in my ten years in their home it had a few incarnations and tweaks along the way. But I do have some very fond memories of this little Sukkah.

At first there was only a window leading from the bedroom to that Sukkah. You’d have to climb over the sill of that open window to squeeze into the Sukkah and land on a bench on the other side. This got harder for Zeide as he got older, and finally they had a carpenter come in and expand that window and turn it into a doorway. That was a big upgrade.

The walls? At first Zeide used old wooden doors. Assorted, none matching. Not sure where he got them from. We had to bring them up two flights from the basement. They did have character (some had the molding indents, others were plain flat wood, and they were painted assorted shades and colors. But they were heavy, and it was harder for Zeide as he got older, so he had a frame built out on the porch (most of it stayed up all year) and he would use long thin and lightweight formica (or similar) sheets, they were blue and white like a cloudy bright sky and they became the two outer walls of the Sukkah, with the two house walls being the other two. He’d fasten the formica sheets to the frame, cover the top mostly with bamboo poles and we had a Sukkah.

Anyways, this was a whole affair. Zeide was more handy that you’d expect (I was not) and he’d really get into it, even when it was harder for him.

Most times only a couple of us could fit in the Sukkah, and Bubbe and my sister would sit at a table inside the house opposite the window (and later the door) while my brother(s) and I and the Israeli cousins who came for Tishrei would sit on the narrow built in wooden benches in the Sukkah outside. It was a very small, cozy and intimate situation. Any movement in and out (to wash, to help get something) was a whole movement, even after the door was built, but especially when climbing over the window sill was the entry and exit.

My favorite moments in that Sukkah was on Chol HaMoed. There was dancing all night on the streets of Crown Heights, plus many lively farbrengens in the Sukkahs on streets closest to the dancing. Some years the Rebbe would say a sicha each evening. I would go home between Maariv and the Sicha, make a big mug of hot tea, and learn some Chassidus in my Zeide’s Sukkah, before heading out to the lively noisy dancing. It was a little quiet retreat, an escape, a little inner peace. And I liked that a lot.

If there’s time, will try to add a little more to this post of memories. May Zeide’s memory be a blessing.