B A LT I M O R E J E W I S H H O M E . C O M
THE BALTIMORE JEWISH HOME
OCTOBER 15, 2020
46
Pulling the Strings By Shlomo Kacholsky
THE DAY WAS FRIDAY, the 12th of Tishrei, 5780. Exactly one year had passed since the sudden passing of the venerable R’ Nissen Krakinowski who, as a vibrant 90-year-old, was tragically and violently killed by a passing car on his way out of shul. While he lived a life of being a Gadol Nistar in many ways, helping and inspiring thousands, his sudden petirah was difficult for many to move past. My adult son and I shared a special relationship with him for the last 10 years of his life, and even though we weren’t related by blood we considered each other father/son/grandfather/grandson. Over the many months since his petirah, I had planned and arranged many aspects of his affairs and various people had reached out to me about “arranging a Hakomas Hamatzeivah.” For various reasons, I decided that I would not be arranging one per se and that all were free to do as they wished on their own, or collectively. No one had followed up with me with any specific plans but that did not change my planning. I intended to go that day and daven there, privately, with just my son, having some “alone time” davening for our beloved R’ Nissen, zt”l. My plan was to say kaddish in shul for him aside from the other learning and z’chusim on our own, without asking others to join us, rather each could do their own things to their own liking. The day started out as planned. We davened k’vasikin, trying to make the most of a time-consuming day shortly before Sukkos. Before davening started, I checked my GPS to see how long the drive to the Bais Olam would be from there – it read 53 minutes. Once in shul, I was informed that someone was making a siyum after davening and brought some “siyum-food.” Thinking it was a good opportunity to add some z’chusim for R’ Nissen, I asked the m’sayem if he minded if I paid for some of the food and was m’shtatef with him. We then stayed after davening for the siyum and talked a bit with people about R’ Nissen. By the time we got out of shul, 20 minutes later than planned, the GPS said it would be 1 hour and 27 minutes to the Bais Olam and once we started driving, the GPS climbed to 1 hour and 46 minutes. Being Erev Shabbos and two days before Sukkos, the pressure to get there sooner wasn’t lost on us, but we accepted the delay as being for the best. When we arrived at the Bais Olam, I inexplicably I took a route in it that I didn’t take before, and when driving, we were approached by a frum look-
ing Yid. (As an aside, this Bais Olam has many, many thousands of kevorim, yet I have never seen other frum Yidden there.) As he came to our car, he frantically asked if we had two people in it. Upon seeing that we were indeed two people, he ecstatically asked us to join his group of eight at a kever for a kaddish. Of course we agreed and gladly jumped out to assist, while he explained that two men of his group didn’t show up and that they were about to leave the Bais Olam without a minyan. We approached the kever and the group looked at each other with amazement at the sudden turn of events. The kaddish was said and while it was, I considered whether it was correct to ask them to reciprocate and go over to R’ Nissen’s kever for a kaddish there as well. There were a few women, aside from the other eight men, and I considered that perhaps it wasn’t correct to be matriach them. In the end, I did indeed ask them if they would be so kind as to walk over with us to R’ Nissen’s kever, ironically only a two minute walk away, to which they readily agreed. While walking, we asked about them their niftar and they described their father, a man named R’ Yitzchok Isaac Brody, having been in his 90s and that they were there as his children and grandchildren to daven at his kever. I noted it being an odd day to make the family outing, but figured that perhaps with it being yom tov time, this was the only time when some extended family members were local. We arrived at R’ Nissen’s kever, and I promptly said the Kaddish thanks to the Brody family. I couldn’t help but notice, as I was saying the kaddish, that one of R’ Brody’s sons, R’ Moshe, was pointing at R’ Nissen’s matzeivah to his brother-in-law R’ Reuven Scher. When I finished the kaddish, they excitedly asked me about our connection to R’ Nissen. When we explained our adopted-son-and-grandson status to them, they were eager to hear more about him. We elaborated a bit about the remarkable hidden life R’ Nissen led. While they were reveling in R’ Nissen’s lifelong accolades, as well as many anecdotes from his life spent in Canarsie, Brooklyn, they were eager to respond. When I finished, Moshe remarked that his matzeivah noted he was originally from Kovno. “You know,” he said, “our father was actually from one town over in Lithuania. Interestingly, a few years ago we went back to the town to visit our
father’s roots, and while in Kovno we were passing the Bais Olam there and a few frum Yidden who were there called out to us if we could stop so that they could say kaddish. Even more interesting, our father also lived in Canarsie for many, many years before eventually moving to Flatbush.” The hashgacha connection seemed beyond plausible. “Who knows if that act you performed in Kovno was ‘registered’ and now the favor returned for your father?” I suggested to them. When I asked them when their father was niftar, I was left utterly speechless. “The 12th of Tishrei, just last year,” they responded. My jaw dropped. It didn’t dawn on me that they were there today, specifically, because it was their father’s yahrtzeit. When they looked more carefully at R’ Nissen’s matzeivah, they realized what I just heard. Namely, that both of them were niftar on the exact same day, having lived in neighboring towns in Kovno, and also lived in the same neighborhood in Brooklyn for decades and were probably connected in more ways than just these. After the pause and shock on all our faces set in, it seemed quite obvious to us all. What are the odds? Probably too great to guess at, but does it really matter? Nothing is up to “odds” if Shomayim wants something to happen, even in the most inexplicably incredible manner. We contemplated that, had we come any earlier, or even later, these kaddeishim would not have been said. Had the Brodys left the Bais Olam two minutes earlier, or had they driven down a different road to exit, these kaddeishim would not have been said. While the Brodys planned for 10 men to be there that morning and inexplicably ended up with only eight and while we planned on coming for “alone time,” both of these two giants were in Shamayim pulling lots of “strings” to make sure that indeed they would both have a kaddish recited at their respective kevarim on their first yahrtzeit. T’hei zichrom bruchim.
