An Ode to My Father by Rafi Sackville

Israel Today An Ode to My Father

By Rafi Sackville

My wife and I arrived at JFK Airport on a typically quasi-summer day less than 24 hours after the end of the Israeli school year. We were welcomed by the type of New York day when one can’t decide whether to go to the beach or brace for a storm. It mattered not to us, for we’d come for a simchah, the birth of our grandson, who entered the world the day after the fast of Tammuz.

Our joy since his arrival has been immeasurable. Were we to travel during our stay in New York no further than to Walmart to shop, this trip would not only have been worth every moment but undoubtedly would be the best trip we’ve ever taken. Surrounded by the joyous revelry of grandchildren is not only a far cry from our quiet apartment in Ma’alot but a reminder of the simchah of family.

We had come with trepidation, however, for back in Australia my father had been ailing. Our concern only increased after we settled down in Far Rockaway, when he began a quickening spiral of ill health. Months earlier, my parents had made it clear that, with the complicated Covid situation in Australia, they didn’t want me traveling there.

On the 4th of Av, a week after our grandson’s bris, my father, Nachum Ben Hillel Sackville, z”l, was niftar. He was a man of impeccable honesty, of determination and strength, a man who considered his greatest feat his family and friends and who, despite our four decades of separation, has played a central role in my life.

For years, we had videoed daily via FaceTime. Regardless of his poor health, his sense of humor never wavered. When he was almost near the end, I asked him how his breathing exercises were progressing. “They must be working, because I’m still breathing,” he quipped with a glint in his eye.

Growing up in Australia I felt an existential sense of guilt; 75% of the students in my school had parents who survived the Shoah. Despite losing many family members during the war, our family’s suffering came in waves of a different era. One incident so decimated our family that they changed their name to Zak (Zera Kedoshim, seeds of the righteous). The pogrom that almost took my grandfather’s life in 1901 was the catalyst that found him on a boat to Australia some five years later. He brought my grandmother out a year after that.

Some 20 years after that, my maternal grandparents arrived in Melbourne via Russia, Poland, Berlin and Tel Aviv. By the time I was born, our family was far removed from simmering Europe.

My grandfather had been brought up a cheder boy. In Australia, he joined a Conservative synagogue. As I was growing up, my attachment to shul and being frum was more an occasional avocation than a commitment. It was my father’s persistence in taking us to shul that played an important role in me becoming frum.

For me, the transition from secular to Torah observant was natural. My father was proud of my achievements and never once questioned my commitment to Yiddishkeit.

He was the youngest of six children. The age gap between his three eldest siblings was almost 20 years. He was affected throughout life by not having a close relationship with his father, who at the time of his birth was 45 years old.

When I moved away from Australia to Israel at the age of 18, I took away from him the physical presence between us upon which he so thrived; in my case, the desire to have his children within close proximity. I have been away from “home” for over 40 years, almost the gap in years between my father and his father. We nevertheless maintained a close relationship.

I have experienced the true meaning of the circle of life more starkly than I could have imagined. After Shacharit during the week of shiva, my daughter Elisheva would walk downstairs and hand her newborn, Yehuda Aryeh, to me.

Elisheva and my father were very close. It was he who she first called with the news of the birth. He had made her a promise that he would stay alive long enough to meet his new great-grandchild.

Elisheva’s family has been an inspiration to my wife and I. The warmth of their home has given us the impetus to try to make this trip annually.

For the entire week, I was surrounded by giddy, little children, whose presence mitigated most of the pain of my loss. Their presence caused me much reflection. Despite the joy I felt basking in the presence of my grandchildren, I constantly felt my father channeled through them and have found comfort in the knowledge that this is precisely where my father wanted me to be.

I cannot complete the account of these weeks without mentioning the wonderful people here in Far Rockaway and the Five Towns who have played such a pivotal role in my spiritual development. It has been a comfort to learn in Sh’or Yoshuv and to attend minyanim in the White Shul, in Kehilat Zichron Moshe Dov and Tifereth Tzvi. I picked up learning with my old chavrutot as if we’d never stopped.

Yes, I have learning sedarim and chavrutot in Israel, but the spiritual infusion of this wonderful town is both comforting and inspiring.

My father lived a life rich in family and friends. He was the beloved patriarch of a large and loving family. He shall be sorely missed.

Yehi zichro shel Nachum ben Hillel mivorech.

May the memory of my father Nachum ben Hillel be blessed.

With my parents, Ruth and Neville Sackville

I have experienced the true meaning of the circle of life more starkly than I could have imagined.