Mr. Kara’s Treasure
I was given the address of a famous Yiddish writer and historian living in Romania. I had the number of a building printed on an index card I carried from Manhattan. I found the apartment in one of the tall bland communist apartment buildings behind the beautiful Traian Hotel and its elegant plaza designed by the architect of the Eiffel Tower. I climbed to the fourth floor.
Itic Svart-Kara answered the door. He was an old man dressed in pajamas and a paisley robe. He was thrilled to welcome me to his home; a stranger with greetings from several scholars and musicians who lived in Manhattan.
The living room was dimly lit. A large table stood at the side of the room covered with piles of printed papers, stacks of books and journals, and a vase with fresh flowers. I brought a friend who spoke Yiddish; an American photographer staying at the Traian Hotel. Neither of us knew, at the time, of the extraordinary mission and accomplishments of Mr. Kara. Since enduring the Holocaust he had remained in Eastern Europe after World War II. He had written over thirty-five books about Jewish history in Romania, and the meaning of traditions. His books have been widely read. Mr. Kara unfolded wooden chairs and bid us sit facing a couch while he went into the kitchen and prepared tea. He carried out tea and cups with plates of fruit, and cookies that we had brought for him. And, then insisted I sit beside him.
I have little memory of the conversation. It lasted for hours. He spoke Yiddish and Romanian with occasional English and French words. But I was attentive, even absorbed, throughout. What I recall was his flirting with me. His bright eyes and smile teased me. I was not offended. It was neither sexual or debasing. It was of the soul; mysterious and inwardly arousing.
As we left, he pulled two books from heavy shelves that leaned against the walls - full of photographs, awards, letters, and small porcelain figures similar to those that my grandmother had. He handed me two books. One he had written - on the meaning of Passover, and the other by Ruth Graber Fedman on the meaning of the Seder. “It is spring,” I said. I wondered why he gave these books to me. His explanation was “I am old. For you, a treasure.” I promised to visit again on my return from Pietra Neamt. He gave me the name of the President of the Jewish Community.
I was traveling to see an unusual wooden shul named for the Baal Shem Tov, the Great Rebbi, founder of early Chassidism. It is said he taught in Pietra Neamt for six months in the 18th century. Having the name and address of the only person with a key to the shul was helpful. In the small office of the Jewish Community, I was asked to describe my visit with Mr. Kara. As I drank a cup of coffee I stared out a window at the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains where many of the stories of the Great Rabbi, He of the Holy Name, took place. “There are not many Jews left,” said the president in accented English. “All old. The young have gone to Israel or America.” Then, the phone rang. The room grew silent. Someone had phoned from Iasi to inform the community that Mr. Kara had died that morning. Sighing, the man said, “Let me show you the Shul.”
The building was dark inside. The inner walls were covered with faded painted illustrations and patterns. I was in a small magical cottage in a fairytale. At the front of the room of prayer, over the purple velvet curtains that covered two Holy Scrolls, the Torahs, the books of sacred history and stories, was an elaborate silver sculpture. “Jews in California offered us three million dollars for the sculpture,” he boasted, “But we will not sell it!” Then, seemingly out of nowhere, the words for the Kaddish, the prayer for the dead, surfaced like a whale from the depth of the ocean of my childhood memories of Yom Kippur. I incanted - Kaddosh Kaddosh Kaddosh Adonai. Holy Holy Holy. - I prayed for the soul of Mr. Svart-Kara.
Twenty years later, rushing out of the house to meet a friend for breakfast; a friend who I had not seen since before Covid (at least four years). I noticed one of the books that Mr. Kara had given me. It was on a bookshelf near the door. It had not been there before. It must have literally walked from another bookshelf on the other side of the house. I had never opened it. The title: The Passover Seder. I took it with me knowing that I had to read it before finishing the book I have been writing for the past nine years.
In a French café on Park Avenue I waited for my friend. Her friendship is important in my life like no other. I consider her my soul’s friend, a mentor, a dance partner, a confidant, even a giggle sister. We always speak from the heart, offering gifts to one another, sharing our lives without hesitation. She has introduced me to Anasazi drawings on the sides of mountains in the desert, bird watching, and writers I would never had known. She once pushed me down a steep snow embankment in order to teach me to ski and coerced me naked into hot springs in winter. Waiting for her I thought of the first time I visited her home. We waited on the porch for a package to be delivered from her father in celebration of her new book. To both our surprise, she opened a box and pulled out a Ladies Colt 45 - a pearl covered gun.
My friend was late. I opened the book. I could begin to read what I had not thought to read before. The last chapter of my book, called FEAST, is mostly about my memories of the Seder table in Brooklyn. In Mr. Kara’s book I learned that the table is seen as an altar. The home as a temple. The ritual as a time set apart so the sacred can flourish.
Mr. Kara offered me a chance to lift the heavy curtains covering my eyes that hid a holy recognition of stories as transmission of the sacred, after all those years. It was the right moment. Waiting for my friend, remembering how I heard about the death of Mr. Kara, finding the book that had walked across the room to find me, I understood that I was, that we all are, in a holy story.
A terrible war rages in the Middle East. A land suffused with holy words and memories of prayers in a thousand languages, is being bombed. Boundaries are dissolved, and tunnels beneath houses, hospitals and schools are decimated. Grotesque tortures, the killing of thousands, and ceaseless exile endures. Villages and eyes are covered in the blood of children.
A war is a different kind of separation. It is a time set apart when a dark ocean of misery leaks into everything - turns houses into battlefields, and tables into ash. Violence is the sacred, forgotten.
Holy. Holy. Holy. May all find peace.
I think of Mr. Kara and what he had endured in his life. Meeting him in his 90’s and remembering his blazing eyes looking into my soul. The power of his joy keeps me from despair. I left the treasured book open on the table. My friend arrived. I have been unable to find the second book that Mr. Kara gave to me. I will wait until it finds me at the moment it is needed.
