28 Dec ABBA – RECOLLECTIONS OF MY FATHER HARAV YEHUDA KELEMER ZECHER L’BROCHA

Wanted to share some stories about my father- actually these aren’t really stories in the sense of some of the out of this world stories that have been shared over the past year with the family and shared by his community – these are more glimpses that I as a son had over the years and added some understanding to who my father was.

One of my earliest childhood memories was of Shabbos mornings in Boston. My siblings and I had the minhag of waking up early -extremely early- and playing before we had to go off to Shul. To any of us who know the Kelemer boys as children can easily imagine that it wasn’t a quiet playtime engrossed in a 2000 piece puzzle it could be more equivalent to a Super Bowl halftime. I remember that my father would always be up early before us learning Torah and at times he would be in the middle of a machshava deep in thought and he would pace up and down the apartment living room as if he was in the quietest library without a sound around him. I remember as he was as he was walking I was looking at him and thinking what is this learning that my father is doing that is so enjoyable and so mind consuming that he is able to not even hear any of the commotion going on around him where it would seem impossible to even do the smallest of mind exercises in that room. That was our first understanding and introduction as to the level of Ahavas Hatorah the lifelong Yegias Hatorah of my father and it was something that we as a family were zocheh to be inspired from and to aspire to.

Having a guest in our home for a Shabbos or even just for a Shabbos meal was an amazing experience .I can only imagine what it was like to be a guest you were made to feel like this is your time to shine. The entire Shabbos or Shabbos seudah became about you your needs your interests. Now that I am remembering what was actually going on in the background it was my fathers time to shine if we had someone over who only spoke Hebrew our entire Shabbos meal would have to be conducted in Hebrew in order to make the guest feel like he’s a part of every conversation if our guest spoke yiddish then we would be sitting there attempting to break our teeth and speak every one of our conversations in that language in order for the guest to enjoy even the most nonsensical conversations going on around the table.

I can attest that the life lessons that we learned from those Shabbos tables, besides the brushing up on our Hebrew and the crash courses in Yiddish , but the lesson on how to be “machnis an oreach” was the most impactful.

My brother Chaim had a friend over for Shabbos who brought a bottle of wine as a gift. I can’t recall many times and definitely on one hand the amount of times that I have seen my father make Kiddush on wine. That Shabbos the wine was on the table so father poured the wine into the kiddush cup and made kiddush, as he sat down to drink he must’ve at that point realized that it was not what he thought he was drinking and his initial reaction and his face relayed as much was to reach for a napkin as if he couldn’t swallow it. My brother told me that within a nanosecond you saw he looked around the table and he realized exactly why the wine was on the table and his face changed to one of contentment as he swallowed. Just to ensure that even for that moment he may have not been sensitive to Chaims friend he sat around the table for the nex t ten minutes shmoozing about how refreshing the wine was and asking the guest questions as if he brought the wine from his own vineyard to our Shabbos table and going through all the “maalos”and “chesronos” of white wine vs red wine as if he drank wine for kiddush on a weekly basis.

This was done not just to ensure the guest that his gift was appreciated but even more so it became a topic of intense and scholarly conversation at our Shabbos table.

We had at times the occasion of celebrating birthday parties in our home. Like many generations of yidden they were celebrated on Shabbos with a cake for dessert. After the family partook of the cake my father would always ask us to cut a few pieces, put them onto plates and bring them to a few of our neighbors. His thinking was to let more people enjoy something that we are enjoying . This was just a small thing that my father just did, perhaps even reflexively. His thought process must have been we are having a good time and we’re enjoying ourselves. We have the ability to share this with other people to enhance their Shabbos. One of the first times that I was with my in-laws and they celebrated a Shabbos birthday with a cake. I started putting pieces on a plate and began to walk out the door with them all The while explaining that of course I’m going to take cake to the neighbors. From the blank looks on their faces I realized “Abba you did it again”. You taught us a minhag that was so simple, so nice so thoughtful and unless someone understood our upbringing they didn’t even begin to understand what we were talking about. Obviously once they were filled in on the details and thought about it they were more than happy to adopt this “minhag” of yours.

My brother R’ Shalom , at the time that he was learning in Yeshiva Torah Temimah, related that they did not have a learning program or a Yom Tov schedule for Shavous. He had arranged with his chavrusa a ride to travel to Lakewood where they would spend Shavuos and spend the night learning together. A fellow classmate asked if he could get a ride with them to Lakewood also where he would also be able to spend Yom Tov. Of course they agreed and were happy to take another person along with them. After Yom Tov was over my brother called my parents to check in and give a report of how his yom tov was . My father gets on the phone and before my brother can even tell him the regards and shiur I’m from the different Roshei Yeshiva , the first question was what about the third friend who did he learn with? if he didn’t have someone to learn with did you triple up with him? My brother was a little taken aback, he had given a classmate a ride to Lakewood with the obvious understanding that he would arrange his own schedule it wasn’t his responsibility. That is not how my father taught us to think by my father the first thing he wanted to know was you brought him along with you so of course he also does everything together with you. He is your responsibility because he was your guest now for the entirety of his stay in Lakewood.

Abba, as we approach your first yahrtzeit we are just starting to realize the layers and layers of gadlus that perhaps we didn’t know the smallest extent of. I daven that these zichronos will serve as an aliyah for your neshamah.