The Letter Tav

    You might not think the pronunciation of one consonant could open a rift between a grandfather and a beloved (I hope) grandchild. But so it happened. I am talking about the letter tav, the last letter in the Hebrew alphabet.

           

Say I'm eleven years old, it's 1956, and we are, as usual on a Sunday afternoon, visiting our grandparents on Rivington Street. This is the three room apartment, the smaller one, that they moved into later in life. Once inside, it is doorless and hall-less, each room opens onto the next. Wherever you are, you know what anyone in the other two rooms is doing or saying.

           

My seven year old sister, Jayne and four year old brother Arne are squabbling over who gets to ride up and down on the Barcalounger in the bedroom.  Zayde and I are in the middle room, the living room dining room combination, watching a Hopalong Cassidy western on a small black and white television.  I am in love with Lucky, Hopalong's handsome young sidekick who usually has his arm in a sling because of some bad guy.  I don't think Zayde is interested in the plot. But, as I've said before, he likes to watch the bounty of healthy herds of cattle lowing across the American plains.  At the kitchen sink my mother and Bubbie are peeling onions and potatoes, talking in Yiddish, their heads bent toward each other.

           

During an advertisement break Zayde asks me how I'm doing in my Jewish studies.

           

"Good, very good," I say.

           

And I am. I really like Hebrew school. I attend three times a week, on Mondays and Wednesdays after regular school and on Sunday mornings. There we study all things Jewish - prayer book and modern Hebrew, history and holidays.   My reports home are filled with the word mitzuyan, which means excellent. 

                                                 

           

Zayde asks me to read from the Sh'mona Esrei which is the central daily prayer. And confidently I begin the Amidah and come to the word "avoteinu..." our fathers. 

           

Which is where he stops me and begins speaking rapidly. At this moment, sensing interpersonal danger, my mother stops peeling vegetables and comes toward us on the couch.  

           

"He wants you to say it "Avosehnu," she points out.

           

I stare at them both in consternation. My Hebrew school teachers consider the soft tav a worn out relic. They would not allow it into our classroom. I'm the New Jew - not that I really know what that means. So are my teachers and everyone in Israel- not that we're in Israel, but still, none of those East European singsong nasal esses for us. I try to explain to my grandfather how we do it in the modern halls of Queens. But between my English and his Yiddish we are at an impasse.

           

My mother looks pained.

           

"Ma," I wail, "Ma, tell him."

           

And she does, in Yiddish. "This is the way it's taught now, Papa," and some elaboration on that theme. He is not satisfied.  The demonstration of my achievements is over for the day.  The two of us turn back to the television.  

           

The odd thing is, this same scene recurred several times over the next two years. It was as if Zayde hoped, each time he asked, that I would have learned the true articulation. And I hoped, each time, that he had finally understood how I had to read it.  This never happened.  But, now I think, it is to our credit that we kept trying to connect.