Blessed Memory

Uncle just phoned in tears. He's in Tel Aviv watching Big Brother's choir perform in a gala Jewish music concert with several choirs, hazanim and well known Israeli singers.

Big Brother's choir just performed Shlomo Carlebach's beautiful "Barkhi Nafshi" right before the interval. Despite the large group of boys and the huge concert hall my uncle could make out Big Brother's clear strong voice passionately singing with every fibre of his being, and he choked up remembering his mother singing that very same song in her clear as a bell soprano.

"Are you old enough to remember that?" he asked weepily over the phone.

Am I ever. Bubbe, my maternal grandmother, didn't just sing it, she poured her entire self into it. She could stand there chopping the fish or kneading dough and for half an hour or more she could repeat over and over with a prayerful passion that must have stormed the gates of heaven "Borkhi nafshi et Hashem" to Carlebach's soulful melody.

It was one of her absolute favourite songs and she sang it often.

As I held the phone in one hand and a sort of dozing twin on my lap I happened to glance up at the newspaper on the chair next to me and a little chilll washed over me as I remembered the date. My grandmother's 16th yahrzeit falls later this week.

I can think of no better way of honouring her memory than for her grandson to sing her favourite Carlebach on the stage of Tel Aviv's Opera House in that same impassioned style of singing he inherited from the great-grandmother he never got to meet. It would please her so.