On Monday evening, my grandmother, Mrs. Devorah Greenberg, passed away in Israel, surrounded by her children. As I grieved for the loss of my “Bubby,” the tributes pouring in from around the world described a true “woman of valor” whose legacy many wish to emulate. While she never held a leadership position or even a job, how she lived every day of her life and what she left in this world is being hailed by so many as legendary.
Born in 1938 in Soviet Russia under the terrifying anti-religious communist oppression on the eve of World War Two, her early life was marked by starvation, flight, and terror. Her family fled the Nazi onslaught and toiled to remain faithful and observant Jews in the hostile environment. Her father Rabbi Aharon Chazan was a heroic warrior in the underground network of Jewish schools, synagogues, mikvaot and even had a Matzah bakery operating in his home throughout the year to provide thousands of Jews with Shmura Matzah for Pesach.
During the funeral, her younger brother related a story that expresses how she absorbed and embodied the same level of Jewish commitment and sacrifice her parents lived with. The children were forced to attend the atheistic and antisemitic public schools, even on Shabbat, not to be seized by the government and placed in orphanages. However, every week they came up with another gimmick on how not to violate the sanctity of the day. When my grandmother’s eldest son entered the first grade, one of the Soviet teachers commented that surely the next generation of the Chazan family was more Sovietized and would not give the teachers the same “grief,” to which his teacher replied, “he is even more fanatic than his uncles and aunts!”
They miraculously emigrated to Israel in the winter of 1966, and as they settled in a tiny apartment in Bnei Brak, their home became a beehive of non-stop activity. Their family grew to include 17 children, guests were a constant presence and all Chabad activities in the area operated from there. And while my grandfather was making a living and coordinating the activities, Bubby kept it all anchored with her quiet grace and charm. That every one of her children committed themselves to be the Rebbe’s emissaries throughout the world is the strongest testimony to her passion and love for Judaism - and was her greatest joy. We always joked that the sun never set on her real estate as evidenced by the clock in her dining room with all her children’s timezones.
The fact that many of her grandchildren were born and raised in America and did not speak Hebrew as children, had all the makings of a “generation gap” between us, but those rules did not apply to her. We all loved and adored her and she found a way to express her love for us. She was thrilled with every opportunity to feed and care for us and when I finally learned to speak Hebrew and Yiddish, we spoke plenty.
She often reminded me why my birthday was so memorable for her. Although she had left Russia twenty years earlier, her first trip to New York happened in the spring of 1986 when I was born so she came to help my parents. Although I was not the first grandchild, it was a monumental milestone for her because she was finally able to see the Rebbe to whom she had submitted every fiber of her being.
This week’s parsha begins with “Behold, I set before you today a blessing and a curse.” The blessing comes when we heed the Torah and observe the Mitzvot and the curse comes as a result of the opposite. We alone must make the choice and reality proves that the voice is not always an easy one.
Bubby’s life was filled with many choices. Targeted by Hitler for extermination and Stalin for assimilation she contended with issues most of us will never encounter in our lifetime, but she made the right choices without sophistication or fanfare and always with a joie de vivre. She was not a visionary nor did she claim to know the secret to Jewish continuity, but she had the herculean strength of character to overcome life’s challenges through following the truth of Torah and her legacy speaks volumes for it.
I will miss her terribly but I know that she truly lives on in the many lives she continues to inspire throughout the world by nurturing her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren as a Bubby should. And I hope to emulate her example of making good choices in life with simplicity and true faith as she did.
